Tuesday, September 19, 2006

A head with no brain - and two good ears.

My wife often complains that I don't listen to her. It's not true. I listen but sometimes, I simply don't hear. I'm pretty sure this is because my attention is focused elsewhere, absorbed in some other task, and so the message is lost into the airwaves, like a public access cable program nobody is watching. I'm not ignoring her, she just hasn't gotten my attention yet.

The other day I was busy doing... something... who remembers... and she asked if I wanted to fool around. My ears perked right up and she had my full attention.

Apparently this didn't escape her notice, because now whenever she has something important to tell me, the sentence starts with "Fool around, ..."

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Don't Try This At Home

Yesterday morning I notice I'm low on gas, so I take the next exit and head up to the gas station. After the exit there are two single-lane roads which merge into one double-lane road. After about a quarter mile it narrows into one single-lane road.

So I'm coming up on the left road and to the right, on the other road, is this grey Elantra. The car has huge rims, fartcan exhaust and a curious array of dents, as if someone carelessly rolled an anvil over the fender. Now, instead of slowing down and yielding to me, who is driving a superior and much more expensive car, the other driver accelerates so that, at the merge point, he is right next to me. This makes me nervous, since I have no idea what this idiot is up to. I fall back until I see he's going to stay in his lane, then I pass him because, well, basically, I don't like being behind anyone when I'm driving, especially on a one lane road when the car in front of me has a high probability of spewing gutted cat stink.

I am first to the one-lane portion of the road and phucknuts is right up my butt, like he's gonna give me a run. Whatever. Eventually, the road widens up to two lanes for a traffic light. I'm on the left and the Elantra pulls up next to me on the right, when I get my first look at the driver, who is looking like a proper modern gangsta. He looks at me and OPENS THE DOOR, and I'm like, great, is this how it's gonna end, getting capped at the stoplight by some guy whose wheels are worth more than his entire car. Instead, he leans out of the car and hocks a two pound loogie straight onto the ground.

Now, I'm no expert in street lingo, but clearly this was some form of ghetto dis, directed straight at me. No way was I gonna let this challenge stand unanswered. The light turned green and as I suspected, I got John Force next to me. So I nail it, enough to pass him and then keep slightly ahead of him in my lane. What sucks for him is I know this road very well, and coming up around the next blind right turn is a major intersection and there's a good chance there are a bunch of cars stopped at the light. So I speed up even more, knowing full well what might lie ahead and knowing that my superior brakes will be no match for that tuna can. So we're approaching the right, and we're into it, and sure enough, the light is red and we are suddenly hurtling toward about 12 cars across three lanes (two plus a left turn lane).

I reel it in and slip into the left turn lane while my poor little BEEYATCH, apparently driving too fast for traffic conditions, locks up his fronts. This is really a bad idea since BEEYATCH has never heard of weight transfer and all that dope racecar shit. Well he is learning about it now. I check my rearview, he has gotten all sideways and next thing he hits HARD, driver door into the Econoline plumbing van that was, up to that moment, minding its own business in the middle lane waiting for the green. Me, I didn't have to wait for the green since, at this point, it was the left turn lane's turn to go. The gas station was at the corner but I thought, I'm done here, and I have enough gas to laugh my way to the next station.

CYA L8R BEEYATCH!!!