Indian givers

Remember when you were a child on the playground and someone gave you something and then took it back? You called such people "Indian givers." Well, those people grew up and some of them are in the whiskey business. 
Isabel Lloyd, deputy editor of "Intelligent Life" reports on this in The gift that stops giving,  - A humorous account of a gift of a large and unusually expensive bottle of whiskey that landed on her desk—accompanied by a card explaining that the manufacturers wished to "gift it" to her for Christmas.
Read the essay, smile and ask yourself, "Would I have drunk the whiskey?"
Merry Christmas to all my readers.
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Throw out the Christmas cards

The people who candle your head for a living have the 5^th Version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders –commonly referred to as the DSM – to ponder over during the holiday season. This freshly issued update, several years in the making, is used to as a reference manual to categorize patients and not everyone is happy. Psychiatrists still cannot agree on what is normal. Like the rest of us some shrinks see the glass as half full and the others half empty. In the political science world it would come out as “one man’s terrorism is another man's patriotism.”

You could be swimming along in the canal of life and thinking good thoughts but you may have a problem you didn’t know existed. Do you hang onto received Christmas cards for decades? Do you make three right turns so you don’t have to make a left turn? Do you neglect recording checks in your check register believing that if you don’t write them down your bank balance won’t decrease? Of course, if all three of these interesting habits define you, stop reading now and grab the Yellow Pages.

Talking about your problems with a knowledgeable psychologist or psychiatrist can be beneficial; there is probably something in the DSM 5 to define your problem. Not cure it, but at least name it. Don’t be alarmed if after being on some kind of pill for six months the problem is still around. Some things never go away – you might simply be nuts.

Have a nice Christmas and a Happy New Year! (And throw out the cards on January 3^rd.)

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