What's shaking navigation nation? Welcome to this week's video update. Today's Friday, August 31st, another month in the books. I can't believe it's already the end of August, but I got Labor Day weekend coming up. So hope everybody has a great, safe weekend during this long weekend and the market's open backup for trading on Tuesday of next week. So let's jump into the alerts for this week, starting with a couple of closing trades that we started with on Monday, the 27th. The first one was a closing trade in Tesla. And so we only had this trade-on for 10 days, booked a nice profit, over 40% of max profit in just 10 days. And if we take a look at a chart of Tesla, excuse me, after earnings announcement, the price spiked up and then Elon came out with some tweets talking about the company may go private, which theoretically would enhance the price of the stock. So it shot up. And then there was some talk about that not being legit and some legal concerns about him tweeting such things. So it kind of fell back down. And because all this turmoil and headlines and uncertainty, you can see the implied volatility spiked up. It was the Ivy rank and Ivy percentile were hovering around the hundred area for a bit. And so that's when we sold premium. We're taking advantage of other people's uncertainty, of other people's fear. You know, I talked about how Warren Buffett says, be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy. That couldn't be more true than what we just did here.  So we put on that short strangle price, then just kind of consolidated and settled down, implied volatility started contracting, meaning the uncertainty or the fear started coming out of the market and allowed us to book that nice profit. So good trade there in Tesla. Next trade was another closing trade. This one in Ford slash 6E. So this is the Euro. And we closed out of our short strangle, booked over 40% of max profit on this one. And we were out of the trade at that point. Now we ended up entering a new trade in 6E, which I'll get to here in a minute, in a later alert. But the next trade here was a closing adjusting trade in GC. So we actually had two sets of short strangles on in gold. We booked the first one at book 30% of max profit in just 17 days on that one. So that was a nice trade. And then I'll show you later, we ended up taking off the other piece as well. But the next trade was a rolling adjusting trade in EEM. So price had breached our upside break even over our September strangle in EEM. So we needed to roll up our puts because a lot of that value in those puts were gone. So it made sense to roll those up. And then with just 25 days to expiration, we decided just to roll from September out to October. And part of that is, with these undefined risk positions like strangles and straddles, once we get under 21 days, that's when the risk or the gamma really starts to accelerate in these positions. So we wanna either roll or close those. In this case, there's 25 days, but I didn't wanna just roll the puts up, stay in September, and then a few days later have to roll out to October, incur another set of transaction costs. So it just made sense to roll the puts up and roll the whole thing out to October. And so let's take a look at the platform and show you what I got. Sorry, we're looking at EEM. So let's take a look at our friend EEM. And what you'll see here is first, this is the one we just rolled. So we rolled the puts up to 42 and a half. The calls were already at 42 and a half, and we just rolled those out to October. So you can see it's a 42 and a half straddle. You can see prices come down even more into our range. Theta has decayed, we're up some money now on that piece. Total max credit receipt on this was about 11.60, and we wanna capture about 20, 25% of that. So we're looking for about 200, 250 bucks before we close this piece out. And then we've also got the other piece of this, which is an unadjusted strangle, which you can see is pretty centered here, just waiting for some more time to pass before we do anything else on that one. Next trade was an opening adjusting trade in ZW, which is wheat. And so we opened this one up in the November cycle, still have another iron condor in October as well. So here's the November one that we just put on. You can see price is still pretty centered. And then our October one price had moved down real close to the downside break even. And that's when we put on the new one, the new November one centered around it. And now price has moved back up. So we've got a little bit of profit, could use a little bit more up move in wheat and some more time to pass before we do anything else there. Next trade was an opening trade in J&J, Johnson & Johnson. And so what we did here is a couple of things. One, our theta, it says ration, but it's a ratio. Our short delta to theta ratio was around four to one. And so we wanted just to add in some more long delta to help balance that out a little bit. And so we were just looking for either taking off some short delta or adding in some long delta. In this case, we decided to add in a trade, a long bias trade, and we chose J&J, where you can see prices kind of hanging out still well within the range down slightly since we put it on. And then if we look at a chart, because I get a lot of questions, well, why did you choose J&J? You know, what are you looking at exactly? And there's nothing magic to it. There's no magic indicator that's gonna predict market direction for you, even though there's a lot of garbage out there that says they have one. All we're looking at is really price action. So you can see Johnson and Johnson had a big spike up, boom, boom, boom, four days in a row. And then it's just kind of pulled back and consolidated. And what we look at is a lot of times when that happens, when you have a significant spike and then a pullback or consolidation, a lot of times you get a continuation in that direction. And that's all we're looking at. A, adding some long bias to the portfolio to help balance out our short deltas. And B, J&J was a good candidate because of this pattern right here. So that's it. Next trade was an opening trade in 6E. I mentioned we closed out our previous position in an earlier alert, and then Ivy percentile spiked up a little bit, hit the 58 level when we put this on. And so we re-entered a new position in the Euro. So if we take a look, you can see price is still very centered. Plaid Volatile has gone up even a little bit more. So we're slightly down on the trade, but still well within our range here. So just waiting for some more time to pass in the Euro. And we had a closing trade in GC gold. So I mentioned in an earlier alert, we closed out one of our sets of short strangles. And then in this one, we closed out the remaining one. So we're completely out of gold now, booked 30% of max profit in the first one, and then booked another 35% of max profit in this trade in just 15 days, booked a total profit of 760 bucks. And Ivy percentile is down below that 50 level. If we take a look at the chart, get an idea of exactly where that is at this point. I think it's about 44, yeah, Ivy percentile is at 44. So if we get a pop back up higher above that 50 level, next week we may look to re-enter in gold, but we are completely out of it at this point. Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in Ford slash ES. So we had an iron condor on in the S&P, S&P Ford slash ES. So we price breached the upside breakeven. And so we closed out the untested side or the put vertical side. And so I'll show you what we have there. I was emailing one of our members because they had a question about this because sometimes we will adjust right when it hits the breakeven point. And sometimes we will give it a little bit more room before we make the adjustment. And so his question was, and Jeff, if you're listening, he was questioning, how do I know when to be more aggressive with making that adjustment or give it more time? And this is just kind of one of those little nuances about trading that you only kind of understand once you've been trading for a while. And the analogy I used to Jeff was, it's kind of like, so I've got kids, right? And so anyone with kids, hopefully this will hit home for you. We know that as much as we like to think that our kids are just beautiful angels of heaven, sometimes they act out, right? Sometimes they don't act like they're supposed to. And so the analogy I used was, if it's getting closer to bedtime and they start doing stuff that they're not supposed to, I'm gonna have a much quicker fuse to say, go to your room, just go to bed, right? Whereas if it's mid-morning, I've got a little bit longer fuse, I might be a little bit more lenient. A, I'm fresher, I'm, you know, it's mid-morning, I'm not getting tired. And it's a long time to bedtime, so I'm not gonna tell them to go to bed. So I'm gonna, I'll probably have a little bit longer fuse with them as far as even if they're not doing what they're supposed to, I might be a little bit more lenient. And it's the same way with iron condors. Just think of these iron condors as your little children. And if price moves out of its range, that iron condor is being bad, right? It's not acting like it's supposed to. But the difference is, is how much time do you have to expiration? So if it's getting close to expiration and that price is getting near or, you know, breaching that breakeven point, I'm gonna be a lot more aggressive in making that adjustment sooner. Whereas if there's a longer time until expiration and there's still some premium left in that untested side, I'm gonna be a little bit more lenient, give it a little bit more time to potentially come back into our range, okay? So hopefully that helps. If you have kids, hopefully that hits home a little bit for you. But that's kind of how we treat those adjustments both on iron condors and short strangles and straddles. Next trade was a, and our last trade today was a rolling adjusting trade in EWZ. So this is the Brazilian ETF. And so we rolled our adjusted short strangle in EWZ from September to October. And we kept the strikes exactly the same. So this is a point where we're right at 21 days to expiration. So we wanted to roll out to collect more credit and extend duration on this trade. So now we hold the same strikes, the 34 puts and the 35 calls, but just in October, as opposed to September. So let's take a look at EWZ. And so this is the, let me uncheck, let me reset this so I can check on the correct boxes. And you can see these are zeroed out. So these are the ones we got out of in September. And we just rolled that into October, which would be these ones here. So you can see we collected some more credit. Got price right here within the range. Now we're just waiting for some more time to pass some theta two to K to benefit that piece. And then we've got another piece of this trade, which is another strangle. We haven't made any adjustments to this one. You can see price is dead centered, got a little bit of profit just waiting for some more time to pass in that piece as well. So those are all the alerts for the week. Let's take a look at some of the other positions. We've got Ford slash CL, which is oil. And you can see we've got an adjusted strangle here. You can see price is still well within our range, just waiting for some more time to pass here. We've adjusted and added and closed several times in oil going back a couple months. And so we're actually up on this trade several thousand dollars, but we're just continuing to manage the trade until we completely close it out. And if we take a look at where implied volatility is in oil, if we go to the charts, you can see it's still at 56. So this is a trade that we wanna have that short premium on in. And so we're just continuing to hold on to our CL trade. Yes, I mentioned that as an adjustment we just did. So we've got two sets of short call verticals. You can see this one has kind of moved out of our range. So looking for some more downside to benefit that piece. And then this is the short call vertical from the iron condor. I just mentioned that we adjusted. And you can see price is, has pulled back into our range a little bit, but just looking for a little bit more downside before we do anything with that. If it does move down nicely, we'll probably close that out depending on where we're at with our short delta or we may roll it. If we get closer to expiration, we'll have to see where that's at. We've also got a long put vertical in ES. You can see it's moved well out of our range, but just kind of holding it. We've got a lot of time left. And so we're seeing if we can get some downside before we do anything in that one. Wheat, I mentioned, apple. Apple's been a little thorn in our side, hasn't it? So we originally put this on for short delta exposure because the price has just been super strong and apples moved all the way up here. You can see we're basically at a max loss on this trade. And so there's really no reason to do anything. I've gotten a couple of questions about this from members. And the reason is is we're almost at max loss. So if we take this off, we're just locking in that max loss. And if it continues going higher, we can't really get hurt much more, right? But what could happen is if by some miracle, apple actually dropped, then we could get back some of that loss. And so that's why we're just holding this. We've got 21 days to expiration. No need to rush in and do anything at this point. Once we get closer, we'll either close it out or potentially roll it depending on where we're at with our other short delta positions. Next trade was Baidu. By the way, I wanna address that too because I get people who seem to kind of freak out about these losing positions. Is there anything I can do? I feel like I need to be doing something to adjust this to make it better. No, there's nothing you can do. When we have these short bias, these short delta positions on to help balance out our portfolio and give us that short exposure that we want, think of those as hedges, right? So you're not gonna win every single trade and especially if you're using positions to kind of hedge your overall portfolio, we're booking winners, our profits are growing in our account overall, even though we have some of these short bias positions that are a bit underwater at this point. So it's really hard I think for especially newer traders to see these losing positions and they just emotionally, when they see this losing position on your board every single day on your platform, you wanna get rid of it, but the reality is this is trading. You're gonna have these positions that lose but as long as your profits in your account keep growing, that's what really matters. And so just think of it as a hedge and sometimes you're gonna lose on your hedge to benefit your overall portfolio. Now, of course, hindsight is 2020, looking back I mean with how strong the market's been, do we wish we wouldn't have had as much short delta? Yeah, sure, but the market could have crashed too. It could have tanked and then you wish you would have had more short delta on. You know, if we look at, sorry I'm kind of jumping off track here but I think this is important. If we look at the ES, we had a period, was it last week? Oh, right here. So kind of from the 8th of August down to the 15th of August, I had members telling me, what can I do to get more short delta on? I think this market's going lower, I think it's going lower. And so it's interesting how when the market's going down and you don't have enough short delta on, you wish you had more. But when it rips higher, like we've seen the last couple of weeks, then you freak out about your short delta positions because they're losing. The goal is to, you know, what we like to do is to stay in that ratio of our short delta to theta ratio being anywhere from one to one to five to one. So right now we're about three to one, which is pretty good. It's right where we want to be. So for every $100 of theta, of every $100 of daily theta decay, we have about $300 of short delta, okay? So that's how we like to manage that. And you can't, you know, the markets move around, right? I mean, things can change very quickly. So you don't want to tweak and manage that short delta piece too much. And that's why we have that range, just kind of one to one to five to one. And we've been trading like this for years and it's always served us really well. So that's why, that's kind of another level of why we do it. Of course, when things aren't going your way, you wish you had more or less, but that's hindsight. You can't trade in hindsight. All right, back on track. Back to Baidu. This is another piece that we put on for some more short delta exposure. You can see prices just outside of its range. So just looking for a little bit more downside to benefit that piece. DIA, this is a couple of short call vertical spreads that we have on that were previously part of Iron Condors and we've rolled for a couple of cycles just to keep that short delta exposure. You can see with the stocks moving up, prices moved a little bit out of our range. Just looking for some downside to benefit that piece. EEM, I mentioned EEM, EWW. So EWW, we've got two pieces on and let me look at the September one first. So remember, we've got 21 days left to expiration in September. And so one of the questions you might have is, well, why did you roll the EEM one but you haven't rolled the EWW? And part of that is we like to spread out our trades over time because EWW is the Mexican ETF. It's an emerging market ETF. EEM is the emerging market index ETF and so it has some exposure to EWW. So these aren't 100% correlated by any means but there's still some similarities. They're both emerging market type ETFs. And so we don't wanna do all of our trades on the exact same day. So what I'm gonna do here is early next week we will probably roll this September one out to October or if we do get a down move kind of in that 49 range, we may just close this piece off because we still do have this exposure out here in October, this short strangle here. So just kind of depends on where we're at with everything whether we roll that or close it out but look for that early next week probably on Tuesday or Wednesday. Next piece, EWZ, I already mentioned that, FXI. So this is the Chinese large cap ETF. So we've got a couple pieces on here. Let's look at the put side first. We've got two butterflies. One's a put butterfly and one is a call butterfly. Remember we do that to help with not only keeping them straight but just to when we make adjustments it makes it a lot easier. So the puts, you can see prices come back down into our range. If we get a little bit more downside down to that 41 level especially we would just close this piece out and book a profit on that piece. We're still down on this trade overall. We've got this call butterfly which we made an adjustment to by simply just rolling the calls, rolling the body we'd like to call it of the butterfly down right around that 41 level. And so this is kind of confusing especially to newer traders because if you look at the graph you see this thing is down below the zero line. And so what we wanna do is we're just continuing to manage this because we're collecting that positive theta every day. If you look at the 42.25 slice you can see about $6 a day in positive theta decay. And so what we'll probably end up doing with this is as we get closer to expiration depending on where price and everything is ideally we want it to move down closer to that 41 level and then we may close it or roll it out or who knows what depends on what happens at that point but at this point we're just holding. There's nothing else to do at this point except for hold. And so we'll continue to manage that as needed. IWM so we've got a couple pieces on here. We've got a short call vertical which was previously part of an iron condor just hoping for some more downside to benefit that piece. And then we've got a full iron condor where price is kind of hanging out near the upper end of the range. And if it continues higher then we'll adjust this by closing out our put vertical side. But for now, if we get a little bit of downside and move back into range hopefully we can still book a profit in that one. I mentioned J and J, QQQ. We've got a couple of short call verticals here. Also part of previously part of iron condors just looking for some downside to benefit that. And we'll continue to manage that as needed. And then same with XLK. This was originally put on as a short delta piece and with the up move in the technology stocks you can see price has kind of moved out of our range here but just looking for some downside to benefit that one. So those are all the alerts and those are all our positions. Again, Labor Day weekend. We'll start trading again on Tuesday. Everybody have a safe holiday and we'll catch you next week. Talk to you then.


Senator Balana Alla has lost his eldest son. He was a pilot of the Kareem Balana Alla. He was killed by bandits at home in Kaduna. Now, Senator Alla represents Kaby South Central District and was the deputy majority leader in the 8th Senate. In another bandit attack, two people have been killed in Kajaro local government area of Kaduna state. The killer has reportedly stumped a village in the local government and shot indiscriminately on Saturday night. The victims have been identified as Gideon, Moumini and Barnabas Israel.


The greedy pastures displayed shock, dread and horror as if the money went to demonic baby eaters. If you like true revenge stories, you found the best place for your vengeful needs. Grandparents, the ones who bring nurture and nature to the family, are accompanied by loving family members until the end. Sometimes, this end, offers an unique opportunity, to get back at the ones who did wrong. The first story told, is about a grandfather getting back at a sinful family member in such fashion. Followed by a story from the ER. A grandma suffers at the hands of her drunk husband, resulting in hospital visitations. One night, a frying pan changed the course of their life, forever. Lastly, the most epic act of revenge for last. Greedy pastures suffer a holy factory reset, after a grandma was left alone by them, in a time of need. Before we start, feel personally victimized by the audacity of the like button, because it should automatically say like, on videos of this channel. Let's dive in. Naturally, viewer discretion is advised. These revenge acts might be disturbing to snowflakes. This is more my grandfather's nuclear story. My head on my father's side is the definition of, a piece of work. She's always been a user of people and just plain only out for herself, damn the consequences. My grandmother and grandfather, her adoptive parents, had their own list of issues like anyone, but were good people. Salt of the earth type people. They always tried to do what was right and help however they could. This led them to bail her out of filing for bankruptcy on a couple of occasions, because my aunt simply could not live within her means.  Like stealing my grandfather's social security checks and retirement checks when it suited her. My grandmother died suddenly in 2001, and I remember my aunt being really childish about not getting anything. As my grandmothers will stated that everything goes to my grandfather unless he passed first. Like, you know, basically every other married couple would do. Shortly after, my grandfather sold the house and land, and moved about three hours drive north in the state. I was 15 at the time, and the toxicity of her through this really dark shadow over my whole family. In my youth, I didn't realize at the time that he did that to get away from his daughter. I dropped contact with my grandfather, thinking that he abandoned me too. I regret that to this day. Refusing to interact with my aunt also meant that I fell out of contact with my cousin. Anyhow, a few years later, my grandfather reached out to myself and my cousin. Asking us to come visit. We did, and it was a great time. Just reconnecting. And never knew about this. Putting water under the bridge, so to speak. The years go by and I still couldn't get over myself, and once again fell out of contact a few times. About six years ago, my cousin calls me. Saying that my grandfather is living with him now and that he has dementia. That he probably doesn't have long. I was out of state at the time, so I booked the very next flight I could and raced to see him. My grandfather was able to recognize me, and called me by the nickname he always used for me. That was the last time I ever saw him alive. He died early in the morning a couple days later. And my cousin and I had to go to the funeral home to set up the burial. Turns out, that grandfather had set everything up already and had it paid in full several years prior. All we had to do was sign some papers. Because we weren't his most immediate family, they needed my aunt to sign off as well. So, as much as I hated the idea, we set up a family meeting at the funeral home. We warned the director that she would try to change things, but to not let that happen. Not that she could pay the difference anyhow. True to form during the meeting, she changed everything. From the type of casket, to the service, to even wanting members of the military there for a 21 gun salute, grandfather was a navy man from 45 to 65, and never saw active combat. Grandfather was a simple guy, and had chosen the cheapest of everything. The director took it all in stride, and said that the difference was something like $16,000. And looked directly at her and said we take cashier's checks. The look on her face was priceless to me. So any of her changes wouldn't be made in the end. About a week later after the service, my cousin found my grandfather's will. So we had another family meeting. This time with grandfather's long-time lawyer friend. Grandfather left his house and land to be sold and proceeds to be donated to charities after any debts owed from the estate are paid off.  He also left nearly all of his other belongings to my cousin to split with me as we saw fit. And left her $10 to be paid on the event of his death. Later, it was explained that he left her $10, so that she wouldn't have recourse to challenge the will. If you don't name a living immediate family member. They can challenge the will through some legal process. We found out as well, that he had also sold the graveyard plot that was reserved for her next to my dad and my grandparents. I saw her about a month ago, looking like she may be homeless and obviously on drugs of some sort.  My aunt was an intensive care nurse at a hospital in Texas for 30 years. This is her story. A wall back, my aunt tells me and my cousins this story, probably as a warning about drinking, I guess. For years, Mrs. Smith would come into my aunt's ER battered and bruised. Apparently sometimes quite severely. The woman was getting up there in years and almost monthly visits, that sometimes required her to stay for a week or more. A quick rundown of some of the injuries I recall, broken pelvis, explained by falling downstairs in her one-story home. Broken arms, wrists, explained as falling out of her car. A shattered orbital bone in her eye socket. A series of broken ribs, covered by various excuses. Lastly, her loony husband broke her back which required fusing three of her vertebrates. They said it was a driveway car accident. So, Mr. Smith is appropriately qualified as a total piece of do-do. On the end of my aunt's 12-hour shift, the call comes in from the ambulance that they are bringing in a 70-year-old Smith. Faces fell, everyone gets somber knowing that Mrs. Smith probably won't survive the night, due to the years of beating she's already endured. The ER calls the ambulance back, asking for a description of the injury so the OR can be somewhat prepared. What they heard on the radio through everyone of, making some even angry. The paramedics were completely unprofessional. They were laughing their butts off, as they described broken arm, broken leg and lacerated scalp. When the ambulance pulls up, my aunt and several other ER staff are trying to read them the right act. Instead, Mrs. Smith primally stepped out of the ambulance, the paramedics pull the stretcher out of the ambulance, and will her husband inside? Enough is enough. Apparently, that's all she said. The paramedics had to fill in the rest of the story. So here it is. Mr. Smith came home drunk one last time. And she wrapped him in a blanket, beat him with a cast-iron frying pan. Mr. and Mrs. Smith never came back to ER, maybe he learned. My grandmother generously served her Bible-believing Christian church for almost 50 years, without asking anything in return. But when she became elderly, disabled and homebound. Her church acted like she did not exist anymore. Until she was in hospice care and literally on her deathbed, when that church showed a sudden interest in telling grandma to, remember your church and your will. She waited until exactly the right moment, in front of exactly the right audience, to expose these greedy booger faces for what they were. She did so twice. My grandmother was a member of a large conservative. Bible-believing church for her entire adult life. This church, which I'll call Big White Church, was a member of a large evangelical denomination. Big White Church was located in a prosperous suburb of a large city in the Bible belt of the deep south of the USA. Grandma was very active in Big White Church. She worked in the nursery every Sunday morning, helped cook hundreds of church fellowship breakfasts and dinners, accompanied her children and grandchildren on dozens of church retreats and choir tours. She also taught youth Bible study on Sunday nights and was very active in supporting home missions, as well as helping with other youth programs. She always tied, and often gave extra for missions and special offerings. Grandma's greatest talent was making other people feel important. I've seen this first-hand many times. Although I belong to a different church, I often visited with grandma, and when I did, I usually went to Big White Church functions with her. I've seen her single-handedly cook breakfast for dozens of Big White Church youth, a task which took over two hours. Even in the church's large kitchen. Then, after the meal, she asked the group for a round of applause for the high school student leader for. Doing such a great job of organizing the prayer breakfast. I remember that, on a Big White Church youth retreat at a rural church camp, she drove most of the night to go back to the city and retrieve a big box of evangelistic materials. A box that one of the assistant pastors, whom I'll call Mouth Breathing Pastor, had forgotten and asked her to get. In time for our morning program the next day. His boss, the senior pastor, I'll call him Bossy Pastor. Never found out that Mouth Breathing Pastor had screwed up or that grandma had fixed it for him. Mouth Breathing Pastor never even thanked grandma. Even though I was a child, this bothered me so much that I asked her about it. She said that she didn't mind at all. She told me her reward would be that those materials, would help children find Jesus. Grandma's service to her church ended abruptly at the age of 73, when she broke her back in a car accident. Afterwards, for the last 10 years of her life, she was homebound and could not go to church because of this injury and declining health, due to old age. Her mind was just as sharp as ever, and her faith remained sincere, but her body wore out a little more every day. During those 10 years, she made many efforts to reach out to her church, its leadership and her church friends, inviting them to visit her at her home, etc., without success. Every one of these invitations was declined or simply ignored. Near the end, when she was in home hospice care. She decided to plan her own funeral. She and my grandpa called her church and asked for the senior pastor, bossy pastor, whom she had known for over 30 years, to visit her so that they could plan her memorial service, which she and grandpa wanted to be held at the church. Bossy pastor was too busy, but mouth-breathing pastor stopped by a few days later. According to my grandpa, here's what happened at that meeting, with my grandma literally on her deathbed. Grandma, grandpa and mouth-breather discussed her funeral for a couple of minutes. Then mouth-breather started pressuring her too, lay up your treasure in heaven by remembering your church and your will. Grandpa told him firmly that this is neither the time nor the place to discuss her will. They went back to discussing the funeral for a few minutes. Then mouth-breather steered the conversation back to grandma's will, with liberal injections of how badly her church needed her support. Grandpa told him several times that it was inappropriate to talk to grandma about her will or the church's financial needs, because she was terminally ill and in an enormous amount of physical pain. Mouth-breather would agree and briefly talk about the funeral, but would then go back to talking about the church's financial needs, heavenly rewards, where your treasure is your heart will be also. He began quoting verses like Matthew 621, Luke 12-34 etc. My grandma started crying. To put this into context, grandma was more than a steel magnolia. She was titanium coated with diamond wrapped in kevlar. She rarely ever cried, and never ever cried about herself. Not one tear when the doctor told her that her back was broken so badly, that she would never walk again, nor during the following six months in feudal rehab. She would shed sincere but well-managed tears at funerals, and while visiting family members in the hospital when they received bad news. She would cry to console others, loop with those who weep. But nobody, not grandpa. Not her daughter. Who is my mom, nor any of my uncles or grandma's siblings? Ever remembered her crying for herself? My grandma was sobbing uncontrollably. Grandpa, a retired steel worker, former marine sergeant and Korean war combat veteran, physically grabbed mouth breather and escorted him out of their house, not too gently. Contrary to everyone's expectations, grandma lived another six months, mostly because of sheer force of will. Eventually, though, grandma passed away, and we held her memorial service at the funeral home, not Big White Church. Bossy pastor and mouth breather were conspicuously absent. In fact, there were no professional Christians, from Big White Church at the service at all, not even in the audience. To start the service, grandpa stood up at the podium in front of the crowd and said, some of you may have heard that I disinvited Bossy pastor and mouth breather from this funeral service. This service is not an appropriate place for me to give you my reasons for doing this, although you all know me and so you know that my reasons are good ones. Also, my wife asked me to exclude them, this funeral service may be different from other funerals that you have attended. It is going to be an open microphone funeral. Everyone who wants to say something is invited to come up here and describe your friendship with my wife, tell a story about her that is worth remembering, or anything else that you want to say that will honor her memory and bring comfort to everyone here today. I have asked several family members to prepare statements, but you don't have to have anything prepared. Please, if you want to say something, come up here and do so. There were about 100 people at the funeral service. At least a third of them eventually stepped up to the microphone. The service, which we had planned to last about 30 minutes, lasted for over two hours and, as best I can tell, not one person left early. There was laughing, crying and hugging, three of her grandchildren played some of her favorite songs on the piano and guitar, we all joined hands and sang her favorite hymns. Afterwards, dozens of people told my grandpa that it was one of the most comforting and uplifting funerals they had ever attended. More than a few remarked that, funerals are better without preachers anyway, or something similar. A couple of weeks later, it was time to start distributing the bequests in grandma's will. Although grandma and grandpa dearly loved each other, they had separate wills because, she told my mom, that makes it easier for us to respect each other's turf, and because their lawyer had recommended it. Nobody thought that my grandparents were wealthy. They had lived in the same small but charming house and a prosperous, well-maintained suburban neighborhood for the past 50-plus years, and had worked hard and lived modestly. But it was rumored that they had a very nice nest egg. Of course, there is no legal requirement for anyone to attend the reading of the will, or to even have a reading. Modern telecommunications and near-universal literacy have made this quaint custom practically extinct. But the reading of the will was a tradition in our family, because it was one of those events that gave our close-knit, extended family an excuse to get together. We never had family reunions. They were too difficult to schedule for our large family. But we got together at birthdays, holidays, funerals, baptisms, etc. So that if you attended several of these, you would see just about every one of your cousins, aunts, uncles, and even great aunts and uncles who were grandma's and grandpa's siblings and in-laws. With this family tradition in mind, many of our family members' wills often contained very personal bequests of items that had little cash value, but were the departed family members' way of telling their loved ones that they wanted to share a cherished memory with them one last time. As an added incentive to attend, the family rumor mill had been buzzing with speculation, encouraged by grandpa. That grandma's will contain some surprises. The reading was held in a conference room at a lawyer's office. Unsurprisingly, the attendees included my mom, as well as aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles and many of the grandchildren. We were all surprised, however, to see bossy pastor and mouth breather from big white church. They informed us that grandma's lawyer had told them that grandma's will had bequest not only for big white church, but also for them personally. Maybe it was just our imagination, but my siblings, cousins, and I couldn't help noticing that these preachers appeared to be actively salivating over their good fortune at grandma's generosity. Grandma had a large family, so a sizable number of beneficiaries were named in her will. The lawyer's conference room was a bit smaller than an average middle-class living room. Extra chairs had been brought in, every seat was filled and people were standing in every remaining space. There was barely space for all of us. Grandma's lawyer suggested that bossy pastor and mouth breather sit in chairs which were in the front of the room, next to himself. Since there was a large table in the room, this meant that the lawyer and these two preachers were the only ones who were directly facing everyone else. Although the preachers were gratified to be physically next to the center of attention, they did not notice, as all of the rest of us quickly noticed, that these seats made it easy for everyone else in the room to watch them closely. And practically impossible for them to leave the pack to more than overflowing room, before the entire meeting was over. Because they were farthest from the room single door. And there were almost two dozen people standing or sitting between them in their only path to escape. The bequests were quite generous, but pretty much what we had expected. Grandpa kept their house, its contents. Their retirement accounts and everything that remained after all of the bequests had been satisfied. Children, grandchildren and several local charities received nice, but not extravagant, amounts of money. Several sentimental items were named and given to various friends and relatives. Grandpa was first beneficiary listed in the will. But, after him, all of the other bequests were arranged in order of increasing worth. They started with sentimental items, which had very small cash value. Then each grandchild received several thousand dollars, then each son, daughter, brother, sister, niece and nephew received a little more. Then several local non-profits received very nice amounts, and so on. The quests to Big White Church, bossy pastor and mouth breather were, almost, the last ones listed in the will. They listened politely to the other bequests, but with steadily growing anticipation, as they noticed the exponential upward trend in grandma's largesse. When grandma's lawyer got to the Big White Church and preachers part of the will, he said, this is a bit unusual, but before I announce these bequests to Big White Church, bossy pastor and mouth breather. Miss Grandma requested that I read the following statement to everyone present. He opened a letter that was written in grandma's own handwriting. For the past 10 years, not one person from Big White Church has ever called me, come to visit me or sent me a note, to tell me that they cared about me. Not one minister, not one deacon, not one of the church women, not one of the church members who I worked with for all of those years, loved dearly and thought were my friends. I worked very hard for you when you needed me, for many, many years.  I only got one visit. When I was dying and I invited bossy pastor to come to my house and help me plan my funeral. This was my last attempt, after many attempts that I had made over the past 10 years, to reach out to my church and pastor, whom I still loved dearly, even though they had made it clear that they did not love me. If only I could have my funeral at my church, maybe some of my church friends, whom I had not seen in a decade, would come to the service to see me one last time. And I know they love to hear bossy pastor preach, so if he preached at my funeral, maybe they would come to my funeral to hear him, even if they would not have come to see me. But bossy pastor couldn't find the time to visit me, or even call me, to tell me whether or not he was willing to preach at my funeral. Mouth breather came by my house, but he didn't want to talk about my funeral. He just wanted me to remember his church in my will. That's all, just remember his church in my will. It was then that I realized that I had allowed my church to break my heart for one last time. But that was the last time. The very last time. Mouth breather did not know it when he visited me. But grandpa and I had already prepared my will, long before his visit, which did include 20% of my entire estate, for what was now my former, former church, big white church. This amount was named an enormous crapload of money, generating muffled wows from many of her heirs, including me. But I got to feeling badly, that we had not personally remembered such nice people as bossy pastor and mouth breather. So, I changed my will to include them by name. While I was at it, I changed the amount of money that I left to big white church to match all of the love, that they have showed to me during the last 10 years of my life. When I was suffering and lonely, and no longer able to work my butt off for them, for free, like I had done for almost half a century. That is her entire written statement, the lawyer said. Now let's get back to the bequests in the will. Left to mouth breather, 1 cent. Left to bossy pastor, 1 cent. Left to big white church, 1 cent. The bossy pastor and mouth breather sat there, looking like someone had just injected a gallon of novocaine into their jaws. Everyone of grandma's family and friends felt an overwhelming urge to laugh out loud. But we kept quiet because we knew grandma. We knew she wasn't finished yet. Grandma was simply setting them up for a 1-2 punch. The best was yet to come, and we didn't want to miss it. There is one last bequest, the lawyer continued. For a charity called, which he named and I'll call Black Charity, then he paused before naming the amount. Most of us had no idea what Black Charity was. But, by the looks on their faces, we could tell that bossy pastor and mouth breather knew Black Charity very well. Their faces displayed the same expressions of shock. Dread and horror that they would have if the lawyer had said, this bequest goes to the demonic baby eaters to buy extra-large rotisserie barbecue grills and tons of charcoal. Every eye in the room was now fixated on bossy pastor and mouth breather. The lawyer, who happened to be my uncle, one of grandma's and grandpa's sons, let the silence continue a few seconds more. If we had been able to read bossy pastors and mouth breather's minds, we would have known the history behind the looks on their faces.  They ran a free food and clothing bank, assistance programs for foster children, home delivery of precooked meals for homebound seniors, lethal aid, and other social services. A long time ago, big white church, which was, and still is 100% Caucasian, had provided a few years of financial and other support to Black Charity. Then there was a very bitter, acrimonious breakup, allegedly because Black Charity was practicing the social gospel, while big white church was preaching the true gospel. Big white church even sued to try to get some of their money back, although the suit was eventually settled and very little money actually changed hands. But, this being the deep south, everyone knew the real reason why big white church, or any white church, would stop supporting a Black Charity. Due to racist motives. Grandma and grandpa had seriously considered leaving big white church at that time. But they had reasoned that it was better to stay there, and teach tolerance by their words and example. They knew they would never persuade everyone. But maybe they could reach some of the youth at their white church and break the generational cycle of racism. Grandma used to tell us, My church is my mission field. We did not learn the true depth of her statement until after she died. Since then, grandma and grandpa had secretly sent a portion to Black Charity every month. Most of grandma's family, including me, didn't find out about any of this until after the meeting had ended. But bossy pastor and mouth breather obviously understood what grandma, by her actions which are more powerful than words, was saying to them.  As grandma, grandpa, bossy pastor and mouth breather had, you would understand. To many white Southerners, this was one of the most personally insulting things you could do to them. It simultaneously labeled them as racists, condemned their bigotry and crushed their delusions of white superiority by saying. These other human beings, whom you hate, disrespect, and have mistreated, are better people than you are. So they deserve my money more than you do. Having allowed time for everyone to observe bossy pastor and mouth breather, while they thought about how their white church had treated this Black Charity, and how they and their church had treated our grandma. The lawyer proceeded to name the exact same amount that grandma had named in her handwritten letter. The huge amount of money that would have gone to big white church, if she had not changed her will. Thank you for enjoying this episode, which was made with artificial love. Subscribe or give royal ASMR sugar by avenging the like button. Could you imagine doing one of these acts yourself? Share your experience below. I'll join the conversation.


This study investigates the association between long working hours and health by defining long working hours as greater than 40 hours per week or 8 hours per day, minimizing the influence of shift work and analyzing previous studies to clarify epidemiological evidence. The results show that long working hours have significant adverse effects on most health outcomes, including depressive state, anxiety, sleep condition, and coronary heart disease. However, further studies are needed to appropriately deal with the definition of long working hours and shift work. This article was authored by Akira Bani and Akiko Tamakoshi.