Pretty Happy!

I have no siblings who've killed themselves, a few breakdowns here
and there, my son sometimes talking back to me, but, in general, I'm
pretty happy. And if the basement leaks, and fuses fart out when the
coffee machine comes on, and if the pastor beats us up with the same
old parables, and raccoons overturn the garbage cans and ham it up at
2 o'clock in the morning while some punk is cutting wires on my
car stereo, I can still say, I'm pretty happy.
     Pretty happy! Pretty happy! I whisper to my wife at midnight,
waking to another night noise, reaching for the baseball bat I keep hid-
den under our bed.

by Peter Johnson