A Quick Fix to a Giant Problem
Thought up:  7.29.03 – 10:03pm
Written: 7.30.03 – 1:27am
#14

Last night was the start of a new facet in my life.  Things have been going somewhat slowly, and I had a few bucks saved up, and decided to let ‘em fly.  I was going to get certified in scuba diving with my friend Laurie.  She asked me about it like 3 months ago, and I didn’t do any of the work that I was supposed to do up to the start date.  I didn’t buy my stuff, I didn’t read the material, I just paid the fee when I was there, and had to show up to the class.  Done.  Easy cheesy.  So when I get to class, as I expected, I was supposed to read some stuff in the book, and I thought we might have a quick quiz or something.  I know I can’t flunk the class; because I paid 300+ bucks for it, but it still irks me a little that I didn’t read this stuff.  The we start going over the introduction of who everyone is, and what they do for a living.

One guy is a larger than average lawyer, one guy has bad knees and talks more than a baby dumps, one lady cracked her teeth on a tuba last week and can’t train with us, one guy didn’t say anything.  He just kind of stood there and smiled and very certainly could have been a little light in the loafers.  The students started telling what they did.  One little girl was 13, and going on her  21st Caribbean cruise with her old man, right next to her, another father/offspring next to them who were going to Hawaii again for the 92nd time, a married couple, a lady doing it by herself, me and Laurie, and these 2 middle-aged ladies.  One of the ladies was already happily married, and just looking to get over the fear of diving.  She wanted to “experience a world she hadn’t before.”  The other lady said first thing, “Let me start off by saying that I’m scared to death of this, and I’m not looking forward to doing it, but my fiancée is REALLY into diving, and wants to go on our honeymoon in Hawaii.”

Now, I’m not sure how to take this lady at first…  Do I feel sorry for her husband that he married a lady with such a dim outlook on something?  I mean, she has the audacity to follow through with it, or so it seems, but just belaboring the fact that she is scared to death of this.  The instructors try calming her down a bit, talk for 15-20 minutes on how this’ll be “the greatest release of your life”, and “it’s like a massage when you’re in the water.”  She just doesn’t buy it though, clearly.

We get to fixing our scuba gear, and setting it up, and low and behold, she’s complaining again about how she doesn’t understand.  Once again, I shrugged it off, lo and behold, I’m excited to go.  I get to the pool, strap on my gear, and I’m off in the water, ready to start getting busy.  Everybody is ready to go except for - yup, you know who…  She’s threatening to get out of the pool because she’s “had enough”.  I’m sitting there, just begging for her wish to be granted.  I wanted whatever the result was to be that exact wish, or else to have her liver eaten out each day by some monster.

I guess much the same as Prometheus, from the point of view of Zeus, of course.  He had an eagle gnawing at his liver.  Come to think of it, I wished that she WAS Prometheus, not because she’d save the human race, but because she’d be in pain and too busy to scuba.  Zeus slammed him up on that rock so many years ago for a reason.  He gave fire to the infidel human race.  This caused all sorts of havoc in the Ancient Mythological world.  Much like this lady was doing do us.  I sat there in the water and begged ol’ Zeus to have a pterodactyl or whatever picks people up out of the air these days, and chain her up to a rock.  Her fiancée might be sad at first, but really, look what he has to live with for the rest of his life.  Zeus would be doing this man a favor.  Give him 5 or 6 days and he’ll be well over her.  Prometheus eventually (eventually, of course meaning, a few hundred years) got off the rock by way of Hercules, and was whisked back to Mount Olympus.  Let’s examine the good in all this:

1.    This lady would learn her lesson not to be such an inconvenience and a sissy.
2.    Her fiancée could find something/someone that would compensate for this lady much better, like a volleyball, or a chainsaw, or maybe a rancid bowl of fish guts.
3.    The rest of the class wouldn’t have to listen to Ms. Slappybuttnugget talk about how she’s never going to scuba anyway, and she hates it.
4.    Zeus hasn’t picked on anyone in a while I’m sure.
5.    She could be immortalized in books, footnoted as a whiney baby.
6.    Better than drowning.  Wait, no it’s not, she’s getting her liver eaten by a eagle each day, never mind.

Nothing but joy and happiness for all parties involved I’d say.  I’m trying to think of an “as the old saying goes” quote, but none are coming to mind…  Maybe, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  But that clearly doesn’t pertain because she’s broken, and odds are, can’t be fixed.  Maybe “Even the best laid plans go awry.”  We could be talking about her parents, and this one certainly has more validity.
So really, I guess we should be blaming this all on them, but it’s not really their fault.  Unless, of course, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”  Then, again, it’s their faults.   But it could just be ONE of their faults, which leads me to believe clearly, “you sleep with dogs, you get fleas.”  So it’s REALLY the fault of the fleas.

I guess, overall, this is a really simple problem to fix that I just overlooked.  All I needed to do was to find Emmett Brown, using the flux capacitor, hop in the DeLorean, go back a couple decades, and just use a small dab of RAID bug killer to solve this conundrum.  All this time, you thought it killed bugs, and in actuality, it was a top-secret plan by the government to take out people in 30-45 years.  It all makes sense now, but I’d imagine RAID would sell more if their ad slogan mentioning something about killing idiots in the future…

P.S.  I didn’t really care for this lady…

More Technology, More Nerdy Glasses, Less Cool
Thought up: 7.28.03 – 7:41am
Written: 7.29.03 – 10:17pm
#13

So these new “hybrid” cars that they have out now are supposed to reduce smog pollution, give better gas mileage, travel faster because they’re aerodynamic, and can recover braking energy. Super, those are all really nice advantages for these machines. Above that, they all cost around 20K… Not bad for a brand new machine that will save you money in the long run. I can see the point, most people wouldn’t mind having this vehicle in their lives – saving the planet and whatnot. They’ve even come out with an SUV hybrid now.

I’m not sure as to the horsepower of the vehicle or anything, but I can imagine those engineers working on the project have done some thinking with it. They probably sit there day in and day out, on their computers, sending ideas back and for to each other. I’d say there are about 28 or 36 of them in a big room - swapping ideas, email forwards, pens, pocket protectors, video game hacks and cracks, eating donuts, wearing short-sleeve striped shirts with blue ties, Coke-bottle glasses with HUGE rims talking about last night’s episode of Star Trek the mini-series. I’m sure they’re really smart guys, I mean, I bet one or 2 of them have even seen a real live girl in their houses! And I’m not talking about non-internet-girlfriend either:

CutieJulie183: Hey, are you serious about how you are a multi-millionaire inventor / space ship pilot / writer / movie star / yoga instructor / stripper / pro baseball player?!?!?

HugeAssNerdKart: Hey honey, I’m whatever you want me to be. But, yea, basically, that’s what I am… I know it’s a hard life and all, but I’m a RAD dude. No, really, RAD! What’s your favorite Star-Trek episode?

CutieJulie183: Oh, you’re a real hunk for sure… Wait a minute. What are you talking about? Star-Trek?

HugeAssNerdKart: Yea, last night Captain Kirk really let those Volgorons have it with his Z-892K space de-modulizer! It was amazing! I remember back in Episode 128b, (NOT 128a where, of course, the Jaie people needed the transport unit moved to quadrant 4-38C) when the Z-892J came out! I couldn’t even BEGIN to believe it!

CutieJulie183: My my, look at the time; I really have to go and straighten out my stereo cords! And after that I have to re-lace a few of my shoes, so I’m gonna be busy for the next 17 years.

HugeAssNerdKart: So at any rate, I didn’t have time to read your last message to me, I had to get in a few levels of Warriors of the Unknown Corn Werewolves on my Playstation X4… I just love that game, however, not as much as…

Anyway, I’m sure that they’re really good guys and all, but it’s VERY apparent that God skipped them when he was passing out “style” genes. These guys have NO idea. It’s so obvious as to why NOBODY is driving these hybrid cars! I’m sure when people go to the lot to look at cars, me being one of them, I’m like, “Gee, I wish you guys had some really mid-priced cars that got good gas mileage, that look really really stupid and boxy! Have any of those on the lot?” I don’t have a lot of money, but I have a super trade in! I just got this new refrigerator and the box that it came in fit really nicely on these 2 wagon wheels that I found! It’s not really fast, granted, nor is it aerodynamic like the advertisement says, but BOY is she a beauty!

It’s really quite comical on the advertisement side as well. They advertise the vehicle next to kids being trendy. Surfing and partying, and then they show this car that the kids are driving in to be something really awesome that everyone would want to be around. Dancing and jumping off it and all, when the best thing that you could really do with it is to paint it yellow and write “SCHOOL” in big letters on the front. Granted, it’d be a bit shorter than even a short-bus, but only the designers would be the ones driving it, and that way, we’d know to ridicule them when we saw the Ass-buses, as they would clearly be called, driving by.

It all brings me back to a memory when my Pops was building his new house. He had a room specifically for his television, and the one he had just wasn’t big enough, and he could never see the scores of the game, or the sub-heads that would be on screen, so he’d always ask me the score. Got to be a bit of a pet peeve. So one day he said to me,

“Andy, I’m 50 years old, and I can’t see the TV. I reckon there is only one thing that I can do about this. I’ve been dreading it for years, but sometimes you just have to realize when your eyesight has gone bad. A lot of people my age get like this I suppose…”

“Yea Dad, maybe it’s time you get some glasses. They wouldn’t hurt, everyone has them and you can quit bugging me to read the screen for you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!? I’m not getting glasses; I’m getting a big screen TV!!! I don’t wanna look like a nerd!”

And from that day forth, I had a new outlook on life, a new quote to follow, much unlike these style-less guys building the hybrids cars… “Looks aren’t everything, except when you’re talking about hybrid cars, well, not even just hybrid cars, more like any cars. And while we’re on the topic of cars, we might as well say houses, and everything else cool that you might need in your lifetime, like guns, computers, clothes and nachos. And on top of that, don’t wear glasses, they’ll make you look nerdy; instead get a big-screen T.V.”

Worse Fates
Thought up: 5.13.02
Written:  7.17.03 - 1:41pm
#12

I can’t think of many worse fates than being a bearded woman in circus that just got fired.  That must be a tough break…  Guess you could go to another circus and see if they had any job openings…  I can imagine a bearded lady’s resume:

Olga Svonaiieka
822 W. Skiakile Road
East Helena, MT  59602

OBJECTIVE:
Elementary school grad looks to enhance her skills in the bearded lady industry.  Looking to contribute to a fast-paced well-organized circus.

SKILLS:
Being a lady with a beard.  Once ate an entire pig.  Knows car parts.

EXPERIENCE:
January 1989-present
Bearded Lady
I started out just being a mustache lady, pretty dark, thought it looked cool.  Turned 14 and started getting some cool sideburns.  Didn’t want to shave them.  Got teased a bit about it, but I liked chicks anyway.  By the time I dropped out of school I had a full-fledged beard!  Learned the techniques of combing a beard, and freaking out people.  Couldn’t work anywhere, they all thought I was a liar.  On the application it’d ask, “M/F”…  I’d circle the “F” for female, but nobody would believe me, and NOBODY wanted me to prove it to them.  I didn’t understand.  Found out about the circus needing bearded ladies.  Knew this was the job for me.  Since then I’ve been really enhancing my skills.  I can walk both to the right, and to the left.  I can gross out both men AND women with how strange I look.

December 1988 - January 1989
Lemonade Sales
I got into this industry to pay for my Copenhagen addiction.  3 cans a day is my staple.  Learned quickly how to sell, and how not to sell.  Well, mostly to myself.  Didn’t sell to anyone else, but learned how I enjoyed my lemonade in the middle of winter.  Needless to say it didn’t pan out.  Got out for personal reasons, and because my parents said I couldn’t go outside of my house.  They wanted me to sell it outside the neighbor’s house.  I obliged.  Neighbors kicked my ass and stole my lemonade.

EDUCATION:
Four Georgians Elementary School
1st through 5th grade
September 1976 – June 1985
Toughest nine years of my life.  However, learned more than 32 numbers, and all 24 letters in the alphabet.  Learned in 4th grade that I can’t eat Miracle Gro and raw hamburger for lunch anymore.  Decided on forgoing my final 10 years of school to attempt professional career.

REFERENCES:
Absolutely none.

Nobody Likes a Liar
Thought up:  5.7.02 – 1:32pm
Written: 5.17.02 – 11:28pm
#11

Today highway 287 took me from Helena, Montana to Choteau, Montana in a little over 3½ hours.  This may not seem too strange if your residence is outside of Montana, or for that matter, if you don’t know your way around Montana.  For those in Montana that do know the roads, a trip from Helena to Choteau is less than a hundred miles.  That means at very most the trip should take a little over an hour and ½ if you’re going 60.  And it’s not a bad road, there was no construction, no deer hopping about, nothing out of the ordinary on the road except for 3 inches of slush and drifting snow.  Granted, it is Montana, and some may say that it happens, some might even say they expect it, but it’s still ludicrous in my opinion.

Anywho, I was cruising along the highway at a steady 55, because it was snowing and a little wet on the road, so I was cautious through the canyon, and came out at the halfway mark, Wolf Point, in a little under forty-five minutes.  At Wolf Point is the turn to head to Choteau, and where the snow and slush crept ever closer to my car.  Not 2 miles into the drive, the snow and slush were blanketing the road making it impossible to drive even 35, let alone the limit of 60.

Now, I know how to drive on snowy/icy/crappy Montana roads fairly well, I’ve lived in Montana for almost 20 years, and I’ve learned that one can easily slip off the road going faster than the road allows.  So there I was, motoring along at 30 mph, knowing how bad these roads were and this guy comes flying up from behind me going easily 40-50 and had Oregon plates, wouldn’t you know it.  I see him in my rear view start to “attempt” to slow down for me, but instead starts to skid and swerve, and almost hit me, but regain control of the vehicle before it rolled over into me.  This made me a little nervous so I slowed down to like 5 mph to let this jerk pass me, which he did gladly, and as I attempted to speed back up to my hyper-speed of 30 mph, my tires decided to hit a patch of slush and start hydroplaning.

This isn’t very much fun on the highway, I spun around in a circle and ended up in the other lane.  I quickly backed up, adrenaline pumping, and got back into my own lane, and continued on my merry way.  “Damn May winter weather in Montana,” I thought.  My thoughts continued, what would have happened if there was an 18-wheeler in the other lane, hurling toward me?  I would have taken quite a lickin’ I’d say from him, and he would have thought that it was because of my poor driving that ruined his semi, when in actuality, it was that damn foreigner from Oregon that made me slow down in the first place.

My contemplation continued a step further.  What if I were lying in the ditch with a steering wheel stuck in my chest, and the truck driver got knocked out as well, and we were the only ones for miles in either direction?  He’d probably be ok because those semi-trucks are pretty tough, but me, I’d be in some trouble.  I’d have to lie there until help arrived.  At the mercy of a steering wheel that wouldn’t let go its grasp of my ribcage.

What would flash through my mind I pondered.  Would I think of the times I’d spent in college in Walla Walla?  Would I think of my family and friends?  Or the white-sand beaches I touched in the South Pacific?  People say that so many things rush through your head in the time before death, but what would rush through MY head?  I mean AFTER the windshield…  I think that I would probably be thinking,

“Gee, I wish that stupid guy from Oregon would learn how to drive, and then I’d probably realize that there was a steering wheel in my chest, and I was wearing a windshield collar.  “Gee, I wish this steering wheel would get out of my guts.”

And then I’d struggle to get out of the car, but by the time I decided to struggle, I’d remember that I have to have my entire life flash in front of me if I’m going to “move on.”  So I’d sit and wonder what might have been with so many things, and what is going to be.  But by that time, somebody would hopefully have found me and gotten me out with the Jaws of Life, or a crowbar or something.

The next day in the paper it would have read, Dumb Helena man in gruesome car wreck because he’s a bad driver!  The subhead would read, Mock, ridicule, and tease him if you get a chance to!  He is a terrible man!  And I would have been the bad driving guy for the rest of eternity, the laughing stock of the country, and I’d have been labeled as the worst driver in America, unbeknownst to that Oregonian who probably wouldn’t even have know there was an accident behind him.

I’d probably tell people that there was this crazy man that passed me from Oregon, and they’d just look at me and nod their heads, and really think deep down that I’m just making it up to sound good, and make Oregonians seem evil.  But really, I guess there could be worse fates.  (See next chapter.)  So perhaps if I were in that situation, I think I’d just blame it on someone that everyone hates alike, and say,

Me: “Yea, it was terrible, I was drugged by terrorists in Wolf Point,” and the cops would say,

Cop: “Mister, Wolf Point?  Are you kidding us?  Nobody lives in Wolf Point except for cattle and some real nice folks; terrorists don’t even know where Wolf Point is.  We did a study on it last month.”  I’d have to think quickly and probably say something like,

Me:  “Who asked you cops anyway, you’re probably terrorists too, I have rights you know!”  And they’d say,
Cop:  ”Listen buddy, you’re the one telling us.  We didn’t ask you anything.”  I’d say,

Me:  “Oh, yea, you’ve got a good point, anyway then, back to my story, I mean truth…  …  so they stuck me back in my car, and my feet were tied with barbed-wire, and I was blinded, and there was a brick on the gas, and I had to steer with my teeth, and it was really hard to see when I was going 80 in the slush, I didn’t know what road to drive on of the three I saw from the drugs, and then I that semi-truck jumped out of nowhere!”

Cop:  “Man, that’s some real tough luck kid.  What about your hands son?  Where were they during all of this?”

Me:  “Um, they must have cut off my arms completely officer!  Yea, they did!  It was horrible!”

Cop:  “Son, your arms are right there, attached to your shoulders where they’ve always been.”

Me:  “Oh!  Praise God!  They’re back!  They must have fallen back on to my shoulder joints when I hit the semi!  My mistake sirs…”  “The nod” would surely follow.

I’d conclude to myself that at least this way they wouldn’t accuse me of being a liar that hates Oregonians, because some people might like Oregonians, and I’m fairly sure, most people don’t care for terrorists, but boy, I’ll tell you, nobody likes liars…

Tropical Heist
Thought up:  5.6.02 – 7:23pm
Written: 5.13.02 – 5:27pm
#10

A couple weeks ago my friend went to the Virgin Islands for his brother’s wedding.  He had a late night partying one evening, and, being the gentleman that he is, told a young lady that he’d walk her back to her hotel room.  He dropped her off at her room about 3 in the morning and proceeded to walk back to his place.  It was about that time, some  locals decided to do their “work.”  They jumped out and grabbed him with masks on and pointed guns at him and demanded his money.  He doesn’t carry his wallet around all the time, and this was one of those times, so he said he didn’t have it.  They searched him and agreed.

Then decided that they would all go to his hotel room and get what he had there…  Now, I don’t understand this part exactly, but apparently they all got up to his room.  He gave them the 100 dollars he had, and the 25 that his little brother had in his wallet.  The men concluded by telling my friend and his little bro that if they told anyone, they would be killed because the masked men “knew where they were staying.”

Although it is a sad and possibly traumatic story that took place in a beautiful place to a good man, it still makes a guy think…  Not that I don’t trust my friend; why would someone lie about something like this, but…  How did these men get up to his hotel room I wonder?  It’s not like three men can just walk into a hotel with masks on, and have guns to a guy, and just cruise through the lobby.  Unless you did it like they do in the movies where 3 scary locals are walking through a hotel which they obviously aren’t staying in with a white person, who is obviously a tourist, and walk up to his room unsuspected.  Perhaps they do this a lot, and know the receptionist at the counter…

Jimbo:  “Hello Betsy, nice to see you tonight!”
Betsy:  “Why hello Jimbo, I haven’t seen you in a while.  Work hasn’t been so good to you lately?”
Jimbo:  “No, since the recent downfall of the American economy, we’ve kinda been on tough times robbing tourists.”
Betsy:  “I can see that happening Jimbo.  Well have a good night, and hey, nice new mask!  It really accentuate your eyes.”

Not too likely, but I guess it’s as likely as 3 locals coming into a nice hotel with a gun to a white guy, going up to his room, coming back down with guns by their sides and calmly walking out the front door.
I just wish there were some way my friend could have thwarted these criminals that wouldn’t have put his life at risk.  I rolled a few ideas back and forth in my head for a while, and came up with this idea for him:   As soon as these guys jumped out and stuck guns on you, act REALLY drunk.  Stumbling around, and slobbering all over yourself pronouncing,

    “Oh, thank God you cops are here, I have NO idea where I’m at or how to get home!  Praise the Lord for you guys!”

And then fall on the ground, pretend to pass out, and, even if they frisked you, they wouldn’t get anything, because you have no money.  And even better, I’m certain that they wouldn’t kill you, because you wouldn’t have given them a reason to shoot you.  You’re just a drunkard that has lost your way.  But if they did get smart with you, and said,

 “Oh yea, we’re the cops son, just tell us your hotel and room number, and we’ll take you right there.”

Then maybe you’d be in trouble.  Are they really undercover cops on a sting operation or are they really dastardly robbing professionals?  I guess that’s a risk you’ll have to take if you’re going to play the slobbering-drunk-guy-act-when-getting-robbed-in-a-tropical-island-paradise-routine…

A Hotdog Stand in an Avalanche
Thought up:  5.3.02 – 1:40pm
Written: 5.12.02 – 5:20pm
#9

I’ve had a lot thinking time in my travels around the state of Montana this year, and I’ve come up with a few astute observations of the animalia in the Kingdom of Peculiarity.  I know exactly where to hunt, and, coincidentally, where the best food is for all the state’s animals.  15,000 miles worth of travel in 4 months around this area has confirmed my observational analysis that the best food is on the highway, or at least right near it.  As the highway is the most dangerous place to eat, only the most courageous deer will dine there.

A driver can easily examine this strange behavior of these “dare devils” by simply driving from Anywhere to Someplace in Montana.  Who are these “dare devils”, and why are they so “daring and devilish”?  It is fairly evident that animals, deer for example, grow from the ground at around 6:00 a.m., and wreak havoc on drivers for the better part of the next 20 hours.  Some animals even seem to sleep by the roadside, evidently to eat the grass first thing in the morning.

Granted, they sleep in strange positions, with their necks cranked all the way around, and legs broken, and bleeding profusely from all over.  And they attempt to disguise themselves, I think, by paying ravens and other scavengers to “pretend” to chomp away at them to distract would-be hunters.  If you ask me, they’re just asking for it sleeping there!  Any car could accidentally swerve and hit one of them!  Then who would pay those ravens for all their hard work?  The whole scam is a bit asinine if you ask me!  It must be like having a hotdog stand in an avalanche.  It’s not a great idea as far as safety, but, on the other hand, who doesn’t like a nice hotdog…

It seems that deer like to eat the grass by the roads most of all, they stick close by it at all times.  They wouldn’t want to actually go back in the woods where it’s peaceful and quiet and no 1-ton iron horses are hurling forward on spheres of rubber towards them.  That makes no sense to them I guess.  In order of brainlessness deer are only defeated by the brainless…  …deer.  Yes, they’ve taken up the top 2 places on my list because they seem to really enjoy living life’s adventures.

Perhaps the deer by the road are the real rebels of the deer community.  Maybe, just maybe, the deer that hang out there are like the “extreme sports deer” that live life on the edge, not knowing what the next day will bring.  They are looking death, or an 18-wheeler’s grill, in the face each day.  Or maybe deer are kind of like fish.  Fish work as splendid bait for catching other fish.  Perchance deer enjoy some nice cannibalism every once in a while, as a delicacy or something.   I can just imagine it…

Bartholomew the deer:  “Hey Hector, where should we dine this evening?”

Hector the deer:  “ Oh I know this great little spot down by the big black patch of asphalt in the forest with a dotted yellow line in the middle of it that has some really “exhausty” tasting grass with a lot of gravel mixed in with it.  It has a distinct taste of deer guts and blood.”

Bartholomew:  My, that sounds like a splendid little treat if I do say so myself!  Let’s get going!”

It’s really shocking to believe that these animals aren’t all extinct yet.  There must be about eleventy-billion of them killed each day.  Apparently they haven’t used the 100+ years of deer evolution, since the automobile was invented, to know that they shouldn’t eat near these areas.

But let’s not forget the always-brainy gophers that come in third on the list of brainlessness.  I use the term “always-brainy” because I don’t think gophers have a short-term memory.  They always seem to forget what they have just done and then their brain has to work once again to re-reason, hence, “always-brainy.”  These rascally rodents will bolt across the road not even knowing what’s on the other side for the most part.  I think that they believe once they get to the other side, there’ll be a 5-gallon drum of popcorn seeds waiting for them.  But once they get to that mystical “other side” they realize there isn’t anything over here.  But then, again believe that there must be a 5-gallon drum of popcorn seeds waiting for them on the other side of the road.  (Repeat these last 3 sentences as many times as necessary to realize what it is like to live as a gopher.)

Next on the list of brainiacs of the animal world are cats.  People may say that they are far smarter than dogs because dogs just jump around with their tongues hanging out and chase anything their masters throw, roll over for treats, and roll in their buddy’s turds, but you don’t see many dogs lying with their guts sun-tanning in the road.  Cats just don’t get it, and therefore, receive the #4 stupid rating.

Rounding out the top five on the list are skunks.  Who really knows what skunks eat.  I sure as hell don’t.  Possibly they just eat other skunks, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a skunk eat anything.  And if they eat each other, that would explain their lovely scents.  Think about it - have you ever seen a skunk eat anything?  We usually just see them on TV spraying something with their smelly goodness.  Boy, maybe they just get a bad rap.  In my mind, I suppose I could picture a skunk gnawing on a dead deer, which would explain why they take the #5 spot, but I guess I can also see them eating grass, or a rock, or a hammer even.  Who knows!  Is there a skunkologist around that could help me out?

All of these animals are very high on the list of animals with no brains.  If animals are judged for smartness by their dead presence on Montana highways, then baboons, rhinos, and sharks are the winners.  I almost never see them on the roadside…

Frolicking 4 Leggers
Thought up:  5.4.02 – 8:41am
Written: 5.11.02 – 12:13am
#8

Animals sure do love to frolic.  It seems that every animal I’ve ever noticed likes to bound about without a care in the world.  I guess most of them don’t really have any cares in the world though.  Maybe they have to decide to eat this grass or that grass, and sleep on this patch of grass or that one, but that’s about it.  I’ve noticed, however, there are a few that obviously don’t enjoy frolicking around.

1.)    Cows.
2.)    Pigs.
3.)    Alligators.

Have you ever seen a cow frolic?  Even a little bit?  True, you’ve seen the calves romp around here and there - but full-grown cattle?  I think not.  Never has a pig jumped in the air for joy (except in Charlotte’s Web, but that doesn’t count).  And alligators, well, nobody has ever claimed an alligator to be a frolicker.  But alligators couldn’t frolic anyway, they have Tyrannosaurus Rex arms and legs, so they’re disabled animals (frolickly challeged is the politically correct term) I’d say.  So they don’t count.  But I got to thinking why cows and pigs don’t frolic, except when they are younger, and just for a short time.  Granted they do get bigger and fatter, but I’m sure there are plenty of fat people that still like to frolic.  If I were a larger man, I would frolic to the park, and other such places where frolickers are welcome.  But really now, let’s examine this.  Why don’t cows and pigs frolic?

Well, in all my research* on this I’ve come up with a few ideas that I’ve narrowed down.  Cows and pigs must both have their own language first of all.  And, as with any mammal, they have to grow up a little to understand this language.  Human babies can’t talk until like 1 or 2 years.  I imagine it is the same in the cow and pig world.  It’d only seem logical…  Anyway, when cows and pigs are born, they jump around here and there, and play with the other animal babies that are around the farm, and they have a good time.  But they can’t talk to each other, so they really don’t know what’s going on.

Until one day the calves learn their language, and the piglets theirs.  Before you know it, they’re too old for each other, and they just go about their lives, right?  I beg to differ!  I think that when cattle learn to talk to the other cattle, the older cows start saying to the younger ones, “Quit your damn frolicking!  That’s a way to an early death sonny!  No cattle farmer wants a skinny cow that frolics all over the place!  It’s a waste of his money to keep a skinny cow around, so he’s going to kill you if you keep that crap up!  Besides, we’re stuck inside this fence for the most part anyway*, and there is all of this delicious grass everywhere, why waste your time romping and bounding about?  We only have 2-4 years at best that we’re going to be on this farm before Farmer Joe hits us in the head with that damn sledgehammer.  (I don’t know if they call it a sledgehammer, the cattle term for it might be different like “Moo Mooooooo Moo” loosely translated as “Ouchy Head Smasher”.

Furthermore, I guess that none of these words are the ones that the cattle use either, so maybe using the word sledgehammer is ok, because I don’t speak cow, and I’m sure none of you do either…)  So we might as well make the best of it, and eat all his hay and grass and show him who’s the boss, by eating everything he gives us!”
By this time the baby calves realize, “Hey, those older cows must know something, and maybe they do have a point.  Maybe I should quit this frolicking.”
At about 5 or 6 months, you don’t see anymore frolicking, just getting fat, and playing right into Farmer Joe’s hand - that crafty Joe.  The pigs deal with the situation the same way, but I’m sure it’s in pig language, because who has ever heard of a pig speaking cow language?  That’s just preposterous…

* - research not really conducted, but one time I did see a cow.
*- See story Cattle Guard.

Reminiscing Scents
Thought up:  5.4.02 – 10:15am
Written: 5.10.02 – 3:15am
#7

When I was 17, I had my first girlfriend.  We spent most days together, just even sitting around and watching T.V. sometimes.  Not really having an idea of where we were going, or what we were going to do.  I met her in the summer of ’96 and I knew that she was going to leave in August because her mother was marrying a nice guy from Caldwell, Idaho.   The thing I remembered the most about her was the smell of her hair, I can’t describe it, but I would remember if I smelled it again.  Anyway, every time I’d pass someone that used that scent, I’d say, “Hey, I remember that smell.”

Well, when I graduated high school, I made a few visits to her house during the year because it wasn’t that far from Walla Walla, WA, to Caldwell, ID.  It was only 200 miles, and I had myself an ‘86 Dodge Aries.  It wasn’t a gem to look at, but it got me from point A to point B each time I asked it to.  It was reliable, until my sister drove it into a tree a few years later (totally beside the point, but I still think I got stuck when she got a new car out of it, and I was left with nothing).  But while it was in its prime, I made that trip a good handful of times.

About 15 miles out of Caldwell, Idaho, it really starts to smell like horse and cow feces.  I’d usually get there around 6 pm, right when it was starting to get ripe.  At first I didn’t mind it.  It would permeate around her house, and in her house, through the air conditioner and in the outhouse (ok, there was no outhouse, but I bet if she did have one it would smell).  I got used to it.

So every trip I’d know that I was close when I could smell that sweet aroma.  I got to thinking one day, I don’t really remember her for the shampoo.  I remember her for the smell of cow poop.  Maybe that poop was trying to tell me something – warning me of what was to come.  If only I’d have listened to that poop.  But I didn’t.  Maybe it’s that “love is blind”, but I think mostly I didn’t listen to it because hey, everyone knows that poop usually can’t talk…

Are We There Yet?

Thought up:  4.29.02 – 11:41am

Written: 4.30.02 – 1:27pm

#6

When I was young my family used to go on vacations.  We didn’t have a lot of money, so our vacations would usually include one or more of the following:

1.)     Sleeping in the car as opposed to a hotel or campground.

2.)     Not really going anywhere, but more just driving around for 2 days, and stopping at rest areas and monuments and such.

3.)     “Vacationing” to gramma’s house.

4.)     Eating the 45 Shasta-smashed-bologna sandwiches packed in a hand me down green cooler in the trunk of our beautiful, spacious, stealthy 1989 LTD Crown Victoria.  (By “stealthy” I mean stealthy like a hippopotamus on fire.)

5.)     Me getting beat up by my parents for beating up my sister because I couldn’t beat up my brother, who had just beaten me up… yea, I got beat up a lot.  It was a lose-lose situation, but I guess I never quite figured that one out.

When you’re a kid, you always want to be able to know where you are, when you’re getting to where you’re going, and when you could just stop and get out of the car.  Well, for years, as every kid does, we’d ask, “Are we there yet?”  And for years, my dad would always use the reply,

“Almost, just a few more miles.”

Isn’t that what he’s supposed to say?  That’s what they always say, but we’d always just come back 5 minutes later,

“Are we there yet?”

Until apparently one day my old man got to thinking about it, he was ready for us to ask the inevitable question.

“Are we there yet?”

He looked back in that rearview mirror, raised up one eyebrow, smiled to show all of his off-white teeth, (kinda like that Grinch, when he finally realizes he could steal Christmas away from all the Whos in Whoville, and he starts to rub his hands in a circle, like when one dries their hands under one of those automatic dryers in McDonalds…) and said, much to our disbelief,
”Yup.  We’re just looking for a parking place.”

Uhhhhh, what does a kid say to that?  Because technically we ARE there, because he said so.  And in our family, for all we knew, the vacation COULD lead to this very location on the highway.  So for at least the next 3 or 4 trips, we had no clue how to respond to that one.  We’d just gaze out the window and look for something that we might stop at, never really knowing where we’d stop.  Boy, kids sure are dumb.  I hope I never become one…

Speed Checked by Radar
Thought up:  4.23.02 – 1:36am
Written: 4.27.02 – 9:27am
#5

I’m gonna take some time to analyze the sign we see on the roads ALL over every state:  “Speed Checked by Radar.”  As opposed to…?  How else would you track the speed of a car?  What kind of idiot decided to make this sign?  What a splendid way to waste money in state government!  I’ve thought of a couple of other ways to combat this “Speed Checked by Radar” (SCBR) dilemma.  I propose, for the sake of taking down all those signs across the nation, to have speed checked by other means.

Option 1:  There could be like 326 or 471 frozen goat heads randomly placed in the middle of highways and interstates.  These heads will be set on 3-foot tall glass shafts.  The SCBR signs will be replaced by Speed Checked by Flying Goatheads (SCBFG) signs.  When the car runs into this goat head, (these goat heads will be very well camouflaged to dissuade people from missing them on purpose) it gets whacked a certain distance.  And that’s where the state workers come in.  State workers will be placed at 300-foot intervals along every major highway and interstate where the goat heads on glass shafts are erected.  (Don’t worry, they don’t have REAL work to do anyway, might as well have them do something useful.)  So when the goat head gets hit, a state worker will run out and see how far the goat head flew thus calculating the speed the driver must have been driving to hit it that far.  Anyway, put like a good 357+ of them around various locales where these goat signs reside.  When a perpetrator flies by the sign and thinks to himself/herself,
Himself/Herself:  “Gee Self, my speed is being checked by radar.  Should I slow down?  (2 second pause to think about it.)  Hell no!  Radars only live on police cars, and there are no police cars within sight, so that sign is a waste of everyone’s money!  Boy, I’m sure showing those radar-sign-making people a thing or two.”

And before they know it, WHAM, a goat head is splatted onto their car.  And then I bet they’ll be the ones feeling sheepish…  Get it, sheepish - wink, wink, nudge nudge.

Option 2:  This might make animal activists a little angrier, but it would provide a different means of checking speeds on major roadways.  We’re going to need a snail, a turtle, a boa constrictor, a mouse, a duck, a 3-legged cat, a dog that just got spun around like 15 or 16 times, an elephant, and a cheetah (might be hard to get a cheetah, so maybe a track with a toy train on it that can go 80 mph.  I could make a suit that looks like a cheetah, or I guess a person could just ride the train with my cheetah costume I wore for Halloween).
Anyway, we’d line these animals up at random locations along the highway and as a car would shoot by, a race would begin.  The animals would start running when the car passes them, and they’d race for 100 yards.  Wherever this car finishes in the 100-yard race in comparison to the animals would give a relatively close estimate as to the speed of the car.  True, the animals may become tired, but it’s all for the sake of sign preservation.  And besides, who wouldn’t want to be driving along a highway, and look out their window and see a boa constrictor racing against them…