Defective shut-off valve...

I have really been struggling with what appears to be a defective shut-off valve. Every time my mouth engages, this shut-off valve erroneously turns my brain to the "off" position. In theory, the valve should let my brain engage, and shut off my mouth when going to say something either really out there or totally inappropriate. I am strongly suspecting this has always been somewhat faulty, but there's not too much I can do about that.

I fear I passed along this genetic error to my offspring, too.

Anyway, today I was thinking about some oddball moodiness that seems to have coincided with when I started taking a particular allergy medicine this season. The problem with weird mood swings, at least as far as I can tell, is that it makes that defective shut-off valve fail more frequently. I am stuck taking this medicine for at least three more weeks, and I wonder whether it's worth risking my throat swelling shut if that's what it takes to keep from mouthing off every time the urge strikes.

I happened upon a blog today, where the sole purpose appears to be to mock people that the writer sees in passing. It brought me to tears. Here are people, going about their business, not hurting anyone else, and they are being ridiculed. What's even worse was to read all of the encouraging comments the writer's friends had made about this blog. I truly felt as if this person and the aforementioned friends were stuck behaving like misbehaving children who need a lesson or two on how to see others as human beings instead of objects of ridicule.

I am desperately fighting my defective shut-off valve over this one. I want to say something, anything, to try and teach this person how rude it is to make such mocking comments on people they don't even know. How would you feel if you found out that stranger who carried a bag you were mocking used it because it belonged to his son who is off serving in the Army and it helps to keep him close? How would you feel if you found out the person had a medical disorder that made those facial tics you were laughing about? How would you feel if you discovered the person you wrote up as vomiting and reeking of alcohol had just gone on a bender because his spouse died and he could not handle the pain? None of us know what makes another person do the things they do. How do you know you are not mocking people for something beyond their control?

I am absolutely disgusted. I wonder just how long it will be before my defective valve allows me to say something to that writer that is just as rude as anything that person can and will write about when mocking others.