I was sharing with my oldest granddaughter yesterday about a time I went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and ordered a dinner with extra-crispy chicken. The girl taking my order said, "We're out of extra-crispy."

 "Okay," said I reasonably, but with a little irritation creeping into my voice, "give me the regular then."

 "We're out of regular," she replied sulkily.

 So, I said with no small degree of sarcasm, "You do sell chicken here don't you?"

 She called me a smart ass as I angrily drove away mulling over what I could do to get back at the her, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the universe of fast food franchises.

 I stewed over it for hours until I finally realized that I had just turned my will and my life over to the care of the girl in the greasy apron at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I had handed over a most precious gift -- power over me -- and she didn't even realize she had it. I had trickled out of her mind as soon as the next victim came in with the delusion that he or she could purchase chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

 Once I realized that I was allowing another person -- someone I really didn't even know (and who was right, by the way, I was being a smart ass), it took all the sexiness out of being angry.

Sometimes my monkey mind thinks that it is my duty to stay mad at someone -- to give them a jail sentence in my mind for a certain length of time. Some people have even been sentenced by me to life without the possibility of parole.

The HUGE problem with that is that as long as they are in my jailhouse, in my capacity of jailkeeper, I am as much a prisoner as they are.  When I let the prisoner go, I am free too.

 With that bit of insight, I was able to let go of the girl at Kentucky Fried Chicken until she reincarnated and took at job at Der Wienerschnitzel.

 Sometimes I get amused at the way I can allow things that I cannot do a darn thing about twist me into righteous indignation.

 Elliot Spitzer, for example.  He’s a hypocrite squared.  He ended up hoisted by his own petard as so many of our moral police have been in the past.

 What can I do about the Elliot Spitzers of the world?  I can learn from their mistakes and not make them prisoners in my mind by endlessly dwelling on or harping on my outrage.