“There are only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity. And I am unsure about the universe.”

- John Dryden

Where does inspiration come from? For some people it's in the arts, take my brother for instance, he might hear a piece of music and get the idea to pick up his harp and compose something of his own. For others it may come from seeing a work of art by a renowned painter.

They then feel the urge to create something that brings them the same joy as when they first looked upon that canvas. There have been people who have asked me how it is that I come up with the ideas for the odd observations of things I write about.

I would love to say that I am a deep and sensitive soul, who looks out onto the world with the wonderment of a newborn babe, but come on now, it's me we're talking about here.

Oftentimes my inspiration comes from what words randomly form in my alphabet soup. Today's column comes not from an art gallery or music festival but from a convenience store.

Now some people have to climb a mountain with a team of sherpas and talk to that guru guy sitting up there to find the answers to life's mystic questions. But me, all it took was a stop at the Express Mart.

It was a typical day. I got up, showered, shaved and went to work. It was on my way home from work that I felt the need to stop and get a drink. I parked my car, went in and there in front of the counter was the answer to a question I had been wondering for some time now. I'll just throw it out there and see if it sticks.

“Is society as a whole getting better or worse?”

The answer stands right next to the counter in a yellow display case: canned air! Now I'm not talking Fix-A-Flat or something that might have some useful value to it. This is a can of oxygen! For $14.99 you can actually buy a can of air that you breathe. Not only can you breathe it but it even comes in several flavors as well.

I stood stunned. I even asked Blake, the guy behind the counter, if this was some type of odd novelty gift. With a straight face he said the word I was scared to hear. “No.”

I wanted to pity the poor fool who actually would spend money on air until it dawned on me that in my hand was a plastic container of water that I was about to drop $1.50 on.

I think the only logical thing to do at this delicate time in human history is for all of us to gently go outside and smack ourselves directly in the head with a hammer to knock some sense back into our collected reasoning.

And we had better do it quickly before someone starts a service that will do the hitting for us, and who knows how much that will cost.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each

Sunday, in The Citizen.

He can be reached at

lovonaian@hotmail.com