{"id":294,"date":"2014-04-03T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=294"},"modified":"2018-05-08T16:12:30","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T23:12:30","slug":"hostage-crisis-day-114","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"Hostage Crisis Day 114"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Final<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Note: My Jocularious.com column this week takes on a serious subject.\u00a0 The terror of hostage taking.\u00a0 Grab a box of tissues and read further at your emotional risk.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Hostage ordeals take a terrible toll on everyone involved.\u00a0 The fear, the uncertainty, the mounting anxiety.\u00a0 Each passing day a nightmare.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think for a moment that the terror is diminished because the victim is a winter coat.\u00a0 True, no one\u2019s life is actually in imminent<\/i> danger.\u00a0 But the fear of losing a fine article of clothing is no less traumatic.\u00a0 We\u2019re not talking about a mere windbreaker, or even a light sweater.\u00a0 Let me emphasize, the offense here involves a fine, name brand wool garment.\u00a0 And most importantly, and especially tragically, MY WOOL GARMENT.<\/p>\n

Let me calm down and explain.<\/p>\n

In December, I braved subzero temperatures to attend a formal function at the Valley River Inn, in Eugene, Oregon.\u00a0 I wore the wonderful knee length wool overcoat my beautiful wife had given me as a gift.\u00a0 After the function, I walked back to the coatrack to retrieve my garment, but it was gone.\u00a0 A coat which looked similar remained hanging on the rack.\u00a0 At first glance, I even thought it was my coat.\u00a0 But it was slightly smaller, and had a scarf in the right pocket.\u00a0 But my absolute faith in human nature gave me confidence that all was not lost.\u00a0 I told my wife, who was suffering a heart attack and practically on the floor going into convulsions, that the crisis would soon subside.\u00a0 I assured her that the person would quickly discover his mistake.\u00a0 He would discover his scarf missing and my gloves in its place, and the light bulb would go off.\u00a0 He would make haste in returning my coat.\u00a0 I had the staff at the hotel secure one of my business cards to the coat he had left behind, to remind them to call me when he showed up to make the exchange.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I would stay busy remaining calm and telling myself not to obsess about it.\u00a0 THAT WAS 114 DAYS AGO!\u00a0 My faith in human nature is now, on a scale of 1-100, a negative one-thousand.\u00a0 In fact, if the size of my faith in human nature were symbolized by a breed of dog, it would be a hairless, miniature Chihuahua, shivering naked in the snow.<\/p>\n

In the interim, I have identified three possibilities for the delay:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The coat-napper hasn\u2019t realized the mistake yet.\u00a0 Remember that the one he left behind is slightly smaller than mine.\u00a0 People tend to get heavier not thinner.\u00a0 Perhaps he thinks he\u2019s lost weight?\u00a0 Perhaps a placebo effect has put a jaunty spring in his step.\u00a0 He\u2019s feeling better about himself.<\/li>\n
  2. The coat-napper has realized the mistake, but figures it\u2019s an even swap. \u00a0His stinky Pierre Cardin with more than a few miles on it (I believe you can pick one up for a song at JCPenny\u2019s), versus my freshly dry-cleaned Nautica.<\/li>\n
  3. There were people at the event from both the United States and South Korea.\u00a0 There is an even chance my coat is hanging in Seoul.\u00a0 If North Korea smashes through the DMZ and overtakes Seoul, believe me, the first thing Kim Jong-un is going to \u201cliberate\u201d is my coat.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It is finally time for me to make my position clear.\u00a0 To state it plainly and publicly.\u00a0 I am<\/i> willing to negotiate with terrorists.\u00a0 Yes, I am fully aware that this puts the other garments in my wardrobe at risk, but I am out of options.\u00a0 Dear coat-napper, send me your terms and I will meet them.\u00a0 End this reign of terror.<\/p>\n

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    ______________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    Seven Secrets You Need to Know to Hire the Right Lawyer –<\/strong><\/p>\n

    https:\/\/buff.ly\/2roFIov<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Note: My Jocularious.com column this week takes on a serious subject.\u00a0 The terror of hostage taking.\u00a0 Grab a box of tissues and read further at your emotional risk.\u00a0 Hostage ordeals take a terrible toll on everyone involved.\u00a0 The fear, the uncertainty, the mounting anxiety.\u00a0 Each passing day a nightmare.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think for a moment that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[248,532,92],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","tag-eugene","tag-humor","tag-oregon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}