Member-only story
What to Do If You Think You're Crazy
How to Be Okay In a World That's Not
My wife, Janice the Saint, and I had dinner at a restaurant last Saturday night. We were with a couple visiting from out of town. We took them to a Thai restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale, close to our home.
Eating in restaurants is against my religion, mainly because it's insanely expensive. I grew up working in restaurants and have a conditioned aversion to paying too much for food served by restaurant workers who don't serve very well.
"Must be a sign of the times," I told my old self. But there we were, eating dinner with the Early Bird old people at 6 p.m. because we had guests in town who wanted to eat in "the best Thai restaurant."
As we were trying to decide what to order, the dude beside me, Gil, said something about being Jewish. He's married to a woman I worked with over 30 years ago. Her name is Julie. They're in town for vacation. She's funny as heck, and he's a solid guy. They love Thai food. We're all drinking water, no booze. I don't drink booze because it used to make me crazy.
We were figuring out what we wanted to order for dinner. That's when Gil asked me what religion I am. I said, "Religion is against my religion. But I love studying world religions and other crazy stuff. I grew up Roman Catholic. I…
