Did you enjoy your fastnachts?
Now comes the hard part.
Welcome to Ash Wednesday.
After inhaling all the sweet goodies and all the other hedonistic endeavors that make up Fat Tuesday, we now are supposed to look in the mirror this morning and take stock.
For Christians, Ash Wednesday marks the 40-day period of self-examination known as Lent, leading to Easter Sunday.
Ash Wednesday is a day of prayer and fasting, a day when many of us will visit churches and have ashes placed on our foreheads in the sign of the cross, a reminder from whence we came - and no doubt will return.
There is a tradition observed by many of giving something up for Lent, part of the penitential rites of self-examination and denial.
I've been doing it forever.
Usually not with all that much success. There was a time when I used to swear off swearing.
OK, you can stop laughing now.
No, I never had a lot of success. Hell, I work in a newsroom, or at lest the tomb of what used to resemble one. They can be fairly boisterous places. And the language could often turn a sailor's face red - and that's just from the women.
I'll at least try to cut down on my outbursts. Wish me luck.
I also used to routinely give up alcohol for Lent. I stopped doing that a couple of years ago. Made me miserable.
I have a novel idea this year - one I'd like to invite readers to join me in.
It's a notion I have made any number of times in the past year or so.
Why don't we just be civil? Try to treat each other decently?
Why don't we all practice the few simple acts we all perform for each other, such as holding the door for the next person going in or coming out of Wawa? Can anyone explain that phenomenon to me? How is it that the most belligerent drivers in the world - in the most dangerous places around, Wawa parking lots - all turn into genteel, class acts when we approach the door of our favorite convenience store?
No, the challenge here is more than just the pursuit of a Shorti.
Today I am challenging readers to go beyond that routine courtesy.
How about exercising the same when you call Sound Off? Enough with calling President Trump names. No more firing back with equal thunder from the Right.
Or when you post a comment on a story on our website?
Or when you respond to an item on Twitter and Facebook.
There you have it - my goal for Lent 2020.
A more genteel, civil discussion.
Who's with me?
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