Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-05-12
BY DOROTHY DIX
There's No Room in ANY Household
for Wet Blanket, a Carping Critic
or a Constant Director

n Mt be one of those who skin
! all the cream off the milk of
life.
Surely there isn't so much joy in
the world that we can afford to be
robbed needlessly of any particle of
happiness, yet all of us have daily
contact with people who seem to
consider it their sacred duty to spoil
our pleasure in everything we do
and take the fine edge off every
delight.
In vain we send up in their pres
ence our little painted balloons of
rosy hopes and gay anticipations.
With deadly aim they hurl at them
some carping, criticism, or dark fore
boding, and-plunk, the poor little
gas bag is punctured and comes flop
ping down to earth, B worthless lit
lite mess of the stuff that dreams
are made of, and of which achieve
ments are also sometimes made.
These joy killers are nearly always
members of cur own families, and
why they take a secret delight in
being spoil sports is one Of the things
that, as Lord Dundreary said, mo
Teller can find out" Perhaps they do
not know themselves why they do
it. They only know that they are
never content until they have made
everybody around them as dull, and
spiritless, and pessimistic as them
selves.
Sometimes, this domestic pet takes
the form of the Constant Objector.
Before you can do the simplest thing,
you have to have such a fight over
it with him or her that you say, "Oh
what's the use?" and give up.
You think you will take a little
trip, and you come home with your
heart singing with joyous anticipA
ton. There is not solitary reason
on earth why you shouldn't go and
have a good time and come back
rested and refreshed. But the minute
you mention your plan, the Con-
slant Objector goes to bat, and by
the time he or she is done swatting
your plan, you are ready to give it up
and stay at home. Every bit of en-
thusiasm has been taken out of you.
Every anticipation of pleasure has
vanished into thin air and we adj
know the best part of any journey is
the 10y we have in thinking it over
and talking about it before we go.
1t is the same way about building
a new house, or buying new car,
or doing any one of Il million things
that make up the sum of our pleas
ures in life. The Constant Director
is always on the job, and finds so
many faults with every location, and
every design for a house, and go
many defects in every car, and our
souls are so raSped and aggravated
trying to please those whom God
Himself has not been able to please
that all our. pride and joy in our
new possessions is gone.
Another favorite weapon with the
Joy killers is criticism. They take a
fiendish pleasure in destroying your
pleasure in your belongings, and in
trying to make you dissatisfied with
the thing that you have got and
have got to keep.
They point out a wife's faults to
her husband, and call her husbands
attention to the fact that his wife
is a poor manager. They tell a
young mother that her baby is sick
ly looking, or that it resembles her
mother-in-law. whom she hates.
They tell a fat woman how much
weight she has put on, and that
she looks simply silly in her new
hat. They always discover that your
antiques are fakes, and. your dia-