3 AM

Every night for the last 40 years or so I get up around 3 AM and go to the bathroom. I always think of things to write about. Lately I have been writing them down. What would happen if you got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and you stubbed your toe just as an atomic bomb detonated about 15 miles away? And escaped the fallout? Do you realize how carefully you would go to the bathroom in the future? I also think about being a Mormon Missionary in New Zealand decades ago and living in a tiny town on the North Island. Our landlady was stingy with our breakfast — so each morning I would pick Chinese gooseberries and eat them. They were delicious. In 1962 I met a man who said he was with the New Zealand Produce Board and I told him that they ought to rename the Chinese gooseberry the Kiwi Nut. Or Kiwi Fruit. They would sell all over the world. He said he would think about it. Soon the government of New Zealand started to market Kiwi Fruit. It is a multi-million dollar export now. I never got credit for this but I don’t care. New Zealand is still my favorite place in the world to visit. I wrote a novel about living in New Zealand and being a Mormon Missionary. Here So what have I accomplished with my life? Invented the fridge magnet. Came up with Kiwi Fruit and sold the first novel on the web before the web was invented. I go back to sleep. z-z-z-Z-Z. And dream of New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud….