“Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.”

The Movie: Airplane, 1980 (Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams, screenwriters and directors)
Who says it: Lloyd Bridges as Steve McCroskey, an air traffic controller
The context: McCroskey is trying to bring down a jetliner whose crew has succumbed to food poisoning. The only passenger who can fly the plane is Ted Striker (Robert Hays), a veteran pilot paralyzed by his wartime memories. In earlier scenes, McCroskey says it’s the wrong week to quit smoking, drinking and amphetamines.
How to use it: Under extreme stress. This line does not constitute permission to resume sniffing glue. This blog cannot be responsible for your bad life decisions.

Quitting anything is just about impossible for me, so I often feel grateful that I never really wanted to smoke or do drugs.

But now that it's August 1 -- two weeks away from my move date -- I'm quitting things whether I want to or not. This morning was probably my last Sunday Mass at St. Ambrose (I can't see dragging Ashton & Joseph there next week). The readings were a little too appropriate -- "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," and the parable about the man who built an extra storehouse for his grain and then died that night. No one ever thinks of themselves as acquisitive until it's time to pack it all up, which forces the question, "How the hell did I get all this stuff?"

By the end of this week, I will wish I sniffed glue.