DID I EVER TELL YOU HOW LUCKY YOU ARE ? by Dr.Seuss This Book, With Love, is for Phyllis the Jackson When I was quite young and quite small for my size, I met an old man in the Desert of Drize. And he sang me a song I will never forget. At least, well, I haven't forgotten it yet. He sat in a terribly prickly place. But he sang with a sunny sweet smile on his face: When you think things are bad, when you feel sour and blue, when you start to get mad... you should do what I do! Just tell yourself, Duckie, you're really quite lucky! Some people are much more... oh, ever so much more... oh, muchly much-much more unlucky than you! Be glad you don't work on the Bunglebung Bridge that they're building across Boober Bay at Bumm Ridge. It's a troublesome world. All the people who're in it are troubled with troubles almost every minute. You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot, for the places and people you're lucky you're not! Just suppose, for example, you lived in Ga-Zayt and got caught in that traffic on Zayt Highway Eight! Or suppose, just for instance, you lived in Ga-Zair with your bedroom up here and your bathroom up THERE! Suppose, just suppose, you were poor Herbie Hart, who has taken his Throm-dim-bu-lator apart! He _never_ will get it together, I'm sure. He never will know if the Gick or the Goor fits into the Skrux or the Snux or the Snoor. Yes, Duckie, you're lucky you're not Herbie Hart who has taken his Throm-dim-bu-lator apart. Think they work _you_ too hard...? Think of poor Ali Sard! He has to mow grass in his uncle's back yard and it's quick-growing grass and it grows as he mows it. The faster he mows it, the faster he grows it. And all that his stingy old uncle will pay for his shoving that mower around in that hay is the piffulous pay of two Dooklas a day. And Ali can't _live_ on such piffulous pay! SO... He has to paint flagpoles on Sundays in Grooz. How lucky you are you don't live in _his_ shoes! And poor Mr.Bix! Every morning at six, poor Mr.Bix has his Borfin to fix! It doesn't seem fair. It just doesn't seem right, but his Borfin just seems to go shlump every night. It shlumps in a heap, sadly needing repair. Big figures it's due to the local night air. It takes him all day to _un_-shlump it. And then... the night air comes back and it shlumps once again! So don't _you_ feel blue. Don't get down in the dumps. You're lucky you don't have a Borfin that shlumps. And, while we are at it, consider the Scholtz, the Crumple-horn, Web-footed, Green-bearded Scholtz, whose tail is entailed with un-solvable knots. If _he_ isn't muchly more worse off than you, I'll eat my umbrella. That's just what I'll do. And you're lucky, indeed, you don't ride on a camel. To ride on a camel, you sit on a wamel. A wamel, you know, is a sort of a saddle held on by a button that's known as a faddle. And, boy! If your old wamel-faddle gets loose, I'm telling you, Duckie, you're gone like a goose. And poor Mr.Potter, T-crosser, I-dotter. He has to cross t's and he has to dot i's in an I-and-T factory out in Van Nuys! Oh, the jobs people work at! Out west, near Hawtch-Hawtch, there's a Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee-Watcher. His job is to watch... is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee. A bee that is watched will work harder, you see. Well...he watched and he watched. But, in spite of his watch, that bee didn't work any harder. Not mawtch. So then somebody said, "Our old bee-watching man just isn't bee-watching as hard as he can. _He_ ought to be watched by _another_ Hawtch-Hawtcher! The thing that we need is a Bee-Watcher-Watcher!" WELL... The Bee-Watcher-Watcher watched the Bee-Watcher. _He_ didn't watch well. So another Hawtch-Hawtcher had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher! And today all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch, Watch-Watching the Watcher who's watching that bee. _You're_ not a Hawtch-Watcher. You're lucky, you see! And how fortunate _you're_ not Professor de Breeze who has spent the past thirty-two years, if you please, trying to teach Irish ducks how to read Jivvanese. And think of the poor puffing Poogle-Horn Players, who have to parade down the Poogle-Horn Stairs every morning to wake up the Prince of Poo-Boken. It's awful how often their poogles get broken! And, oh! Just suppose you were poor Harry Haddow. Try as he will he can't make any shadow! He thinks that, perhaps, something's wrong with his Gizz. And I think that, by golly, there probably is. And the Brothers Ba-zoo. The poor Brothers Ba-zoo! Suppose _your_ hair grew like _theirs_ happened to do! You think _you're_ unlucky...? I'm telling you, Duckie, some people are muchly, oh, _ever_ so muchly, muchly more-more-more unlucky than you! And suppose that you lived in that forest in France, where the average young person just hasn't a chance to escape from the perilous pants-eating-plants! But _your_ pants are safe! You're a fortunate guy. And you ought to be shouting, "How lucky am I!" And, speaking of plants, you should be greatly glad-ish you're not Farmer Falkenberg's seventeenth radish. And you're so, _so_ lucky you're not Gucky Gown, who lives by himself ninety miles out of town, in the Ruins of Ronk. Ronk is rather run-down. And you're so, _so_, So lucky you're not a left sock, left behind by mistake in the Kaverns of Krock! Thank goodness for all of the things you are not! Thank goodness you're not something someone forgot, and left all alone in some punkerish place like a rusty tin coat hanger hanging in space. That's why I say, "Duckie! Don't grumble! Don't stew! Some critters are much-much, oh, ever so much-much, so muchly much-much more unlucky than you!"