The Chocolate Éclair of Happiness Part II or Why I Became a Stoic

In my last blog post, I related how I went to confession in an attempt to score a chocolate éclair as a penance for my sins. But reader, who wouldn’t? Anyways, I left my blog readers at kind of a cliff-hanger, wondering if I would obtain my chocolate éclair of happiness.

However, without revealing my hand completely, I will tell you this: it was an ordeal. After that experience I deserved a chocolate éclair. You see dear reader, I was forced to go to confession face-to-face. I always prefer to go behind a screen in hopes that the priest won’t know who I am. If I could also be using some voice-altering technology that would be ideal. You know what I mean: on crime documentaries, if some guy is trying to rat on a mobster boss or Illuminati overlord, his face is fuzzed out and they have this voice-over tech to slow down his speech and lower its pitch to make it sound anonymous. If I’m going to spill my sins completely I’d really like to have that ability. But it doesn’t work all that well when I try and talk in a really low base. I just sound stupid, annoy the priest, and I might be staring at an extra-severe assigned penance; definitely not a pick-out-your-fave pastry penance.

So now I will spill it. I didn’t get a chocolate éclair penance. I actually forget what the penance was, but my guess it was something like saying five rosaries while doing five-mile pilgrimage on my knees. Maybe not quite that bad, but no sugary sweetness, all I got was the forgiveness of my sins. Alas, woe is me, reality is so brutal sometimes.

Finally I understood Hamlet's angsty soliloquy about "Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

It was at this time I embraced Stoicism...