The summer after college graduation, I was living at home, fishing in the daytime, spending nights with my friends?-generally just hanging out. One afternoon my grandfather, who never went to college, stopped by.
Concerned with how I was spending my time, he asked about my future plans. I told him I was in no hurry to tie myself down to a career.
“Well,” he replied, “you better start thinking about it. You’ll be thirty before you know it.”
“But I’m closer to twenty than to thirty,” I protested. “I won’t be thirty for eight more years.”
“I see,” he said, smiling. “And when will you be twenty again?”
Unexpected guests were on the way, and my mother, an impeccable housekeeper, rushed around straightening up. She put my father and brother to work cleaning the guest bathroom. Later, when she went to inspect it, she was surprised that the once-cluttered room had been tidied up so quickly.
Then she saw the note on the closed shower curtains. It read, “Thank you for not looking in the bathtub.”