The final official count from Radio MASH: 4,801 children.

We finished filling orders at 10:35pm on Sunday. Some organizations picked up their toys and they had some last minute children. We hooked them up.

The residents of the Brazos Valley, once again, came through generously.

After working at Radio MASH, I've formulated a strategy for winning the war in Iraq.

Send in the Girl Scouts. I know, sending children into a war zone seems mean-spirited and cruel and according to the comment attached to the previous post, as a Unitarian-Universalist I'm not allowed to display one iota cruelty, not even in a joking way. That is why there are few Unitarian-Universalist jokes that do not involve questions and coffee. Also, that is why there are few Unitarian-Universalists. Who can stand the pressure of being nice, tolerant and open-minded all the time?

Back to my strategy. Send the Girl Scouts to search for insurgents (or whatever the term du jour - I've been out of the loop for 4 days). When Girl Scouts perform a task they do not do so quietly. They don't just talk - they scream. They scream a lot. They scream for a long time. Woe to any insurgent the Girl Scouts actually find. When Girl Scouts complete a task successfully, they scream louder. Insurgents will surrender to Army or Marines to avoid the Girl Scouts. The whole country will be insurgent free inside a week.

It is unlikely the Girl Scouts would find an actual insurgent because of an inability to retain instructions and are easily distracted but what they lack in competence they compensate with enthusiasm. When Girl Scouts are enthusiastic, they scream. To be fair, Boy Scouts suffer from the same inability to retain information and possess the same lack of focus and are just as enthusiastic but they don't scream. That puts Boy Scouts way ahead of Girl Scouts in my book.

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The interesting thing about creative names is that after 13 years of working this toy drive I recognize the names. DaQuandrance is now in middle school and Timothy's two oldest sisters, with bizarre names are now adults but his four other sisters with even more bizarre names are still eligible to receive toys. Thankfully, his family list is shrinking. Some family lists never seem to shrink. Dequarious' family has stuck with one child all these years.

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Why are there lots of classes on how to deal with difficult co-workers but none on fixing difficult co-workers? Would it not be more efficient to send the difficult co-worker to a behavior modification class rather than send the entire office to a class on how to deal with the co-worker?