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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
So, I’m afraid of a lot of weird things.
I blame my mother for this. Now, I love her and all, but that woman is afraid of everything. Needles, flying, mice — you name it. You want to really freak her out? Strap syringes onto a bunch of mice and drop them on her from an airplane.
(Okay, so that would freak pretty much anyone out, come to think of it. But you know what I’m saying. Work with me, here. Don’t fight it.)
Now, I don’t share my mother’s phobias, for the most part. I’ve either rejected or overcome just about every fear that I’ve heard her confess. Mice? They’re cute; no fear. Heights? Went skydiving — now I’m over it. Menopause? Um… yeah, okay, so we share at least one fear.
(Hey, I’m married now — you think I’m looking forward to her hormone levels jumping and zipping around like a toddler on rock candy? No, thanks, man. I’m seriously considering ‘his and hers’ morphine drips for a few years to get us through the whole nasty mess.
And hey, maybe that’ll save me from having a mid-life crisis and buying a crazy sports car when I start losing my hair, too. I tell you, folks, this is a plan.)
So, anyway — let’s just say that I’ve gotten over a lot of bizarre phobias. Of course, for every one that I conquer, two or three more slither in to take its place. I’m doing my best, but my brain is hard-wired to worry, and I’m losing the battle. I couldn’t possibly make it through the whole list of things that keep me up at night, but I thought that a selected few might help you understand the screaming willies that I’m always just that close to having. One man’s bundle of nightmares is everyone else’s evening entertainment, right?
(Seriously, isn’t that how ER and 24 got started?)
In any case, here are a few things that I worry about on a daily basis, submitted for your snorting pleasure. I’ve even given each a name, to help us talk clearly about each. (Or to help you describe my various forms of dementia to the men in the white coats when the time comes. It’s all good.) Anyway, you enjoy these. Now that I’m thinking about them all at once, I’m gonna go hide under the covers. Let me know when it’s safe to come out.
Toepinchyphobia — This is the moment of anxiety that I have every morning, just as I’m about to slip my feet into my loafers, and I ask myself, ‘I wonder whether some big nasty bug crawled into one of my shoes during the night, and is in there now, waiting to latch onto my big toe when I dangle it in there?‘
Now, understand, people — I live in New England. It’s not as though I have to worry about giant desert scorpions, or tarantulas, or even big pinchy beetles being in there.
(Well, unless my wife is really pissed at me, and has been going through the ‘Exotic Animals of the World’ mail order catalog again. But I bought her lots of flowers last year, after finding an anaconda in the shower with me. Or should I say, *ahem* — another anaconda… um, no. No, I shouldn’t. Never mind.)
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that my little piggies are in very little real danger from anything that’s likely to sneak into my sneakers. Still, even squishing down on a bug would be pretty icky, whether it managed to fight back or not. So, I’m always very careful about slipping on my shoes.
What’s more, all of this paranoid worrying comes screaming back to me — sometimes (embarrassingly) literally so — when I feel something stuck in my shoe later in the day. Sure, it occurs to me that I might just have a piece of gravel, or some dirt, or a small child, in there… but in my mind, it’s far more likely to be a big spider, or a cockroach, or a pack of fire ants. So I’m compelled to fling my shoe off, willy-nilly, just in case there’s some creepy bug getting ready to feast on my footsie. Not among my proudest moments, let me tell you. And I lose a lot of shoes that way, as they go flying through windows, or into crowds, or at my boss.
(Um, accidentally, of course. Of course.)
All of which makes this one of my more expensive phobias.
Franticurinatophobia — This is a relatively new fear that I have, and it’s limited to the men’s rest room at one of the offices I work in. It all has to do with the way the room is set up.
See, there’s a shower stall in the bathroom, just to the right of the door. The back wall of the stall faces the door, creating a ‘tunnel’ for about four or five feet as you walk in the door. Just past the shower stall, along the wall to the right, is the urinal. In other words, you’ve got to walk along the back of the concrete shower stall, then take a hard right turn around a blind corner to get to the pisser.
So, of course, there are two really bad things that could happen here. Or, more correctly, one really bad thing and one really, really bad thing.
The lesser of two evils, of course, is that I’ll run in there one day, bladder full-to-bursting with water or Pepsi or last night’s brewskis, desperately needing to relieve myself. And I’ll burst in the door, unzipping as I go, and careen around the corner, already aiming for the bowl… and someone will be there, already occupying the space. If I’m really lucky, I’ll be able to stop myself, and I’ll make it to the stall — hopefully empty — at the far side of the room, without any ‘spillage’. If I’m only moderately lucky, I’ll manage not to wee all over the guy’s back, but I may not be able to say the same for the walls, sinks, floor, and ceiling between the urinal and the stall. On the other hand, if I’m unlucky that day, then I won’t catch myself in time, and I’ll soak some poor dude’s ass with pee.
(Hey, once the floodgates are open, they’re damned hard to stop, people. You guys know what I’m talking about.)
Now, I’ve never been in that situation myself, but I’ve got to imagine that it’s hard to come back from accidentally pissing on somebody’s butt. I’m not sure that Hallmark makes an ‘Oh, how I wish I hadn’t whizzed on your heinie‘ card, or that there’s any kind of present that’ll make up for that sort of, um, indiscretion. I’d probably have to quit my job, right there, and quite possibly move out of the Boston area, lest I risk running into the guy ever again. I might have to move to Montana or Utah somewhere, and live out the rest of my days in an isolated Unabomber shack, just to be sure. What could you possibly say to someone after that?
And all of that falls under the ‘lesser’ of two evils. The greater evil, obviously, is to be the person at the stall when the… unpleasantness occurs, and having a very unlucky — and very desperately full — person come in behind you. If the embarrassment and shame of being the ‘pisser’ is more or less complete and unforgettable, then the sheer creepy horror of being the ‘pissee’ is no less intense. Think about it. Your ass would never feel clean again. Is it any wonder that I don’t sleep well at night?
Nasofolliculophobia — I’ve stared, transfixed and powerless to look away, at plenty of people’s dangly nose hairs. Far more than I’d care to count, in fact. So I know, in my heart of hearts, that if my nostril locks were to be caught protruding from my proboscis, I wouldn’t be alone. It happens all the time. Such things are tolerated, if not downright overlooked.
However. If you’ve ever been caught, as I have, like a deer in headlights, gazing at someone else’s nasty nose fuzz, then you know that you’d never want to subject someone else to that ungodly sight. Which means, if you’re again like me, that every itch and tickle — any sensation at all, really — in the vicinity of your nose throws you into a panic of doubt about your nostrillary appearance. Is there a hair showing? Or worse, several? Could there be a whole thicket of the things poking out to say hello and wave at passersby? Is there a nose hair jailbreak going on that I don’t know about?
All of these questions and more run through my head, leading me to do the only thing I think may ease my mind — I assign my fingers to perform ‘perimeter checks’, as discreetly as possible, to see whether there’s anything poking out of my nose. I don’t venture up the nostrils, but I do rub along the holes as best I can, hoping to find any rogue follicles in need of trimming. Or wose yet, pulling. Youch!
Of course, all that checking just wiggles everything around a little more, and the itching and tickling continues, and so I have to check again. And again, and again, each time making certain that the last bit of action didn’t *sproing* loose a hair into the open. It’s a vicious circle, and the only way out is to find a mirror, do a no-touch visual check, and hope that the thing doesn’t itch any more. But the alternative is to be ‘that guy’, walking around with jungle foliage sprouting out of my nose, and I’m not going there. And if it takes an irrational, obsessive fear to make sure it doesn’t happen, then so be it. I’ll take (another) one for the team, so you don’t have to look at that shit.
So, there you have it — just a small taste of the things that keep me awake at night. Hopefully, if nothing else, this has helped to show you how reasonable and well-adjusted you are, by comparison. And if not — if you share these same ridiculous fears, or (*gasp!*) have even worse phobias — then… well, you’ve got even more to worry about now. You’re as screwed up as I am, or even screweder.
And if that doesn’t cause you to worry, then I don’t know what the hell will. Mercy.
Permalink | 9 CommentsI went to the New England Patriots game today.
It’s only the second regular-season Pats game that I’ve been to, and — if I’m counting correctly, for once — only the sixth pro football game I’ve attended at all. So it’s a pretty special occasion, I’d say.
(Hey, I know people who’ve had six children or more, so each football game I’ve attended is more special than those births, right? You know, proportionally. No? Relatively? Theoretically? No?
Eh, what do you know, anyway? You’re probably one of those ‘seven kid’ people. Weirdo.)
Anyway, it’s still a thrill to watch a pigskin showdown in the flesh.
(That’s me ‘in the flesh’, by the way, not the players. I’m not sure it would be a ‘thrill‘, exactly, to see a bunch of oversized corn-fed linemen, down in the trenches without their uniforms on. Some of these monsters push four hundred pounds — without all their clothes holding that flab in, their ‘three-point stances‘ would turn into six- or seven-point nightmares, as the rolls of cellulite from their thighs and stomachs and ankles and… um, elsewheres sag to the ground. Try and picture that. Go ahead; I dare ya.
While we’re at it, though, I should say that ‘in the flesh’ is just a figure of speech, too. I may be at the game ‘in person’, or ‘live as it happens’, or ‘in the building’, but I am certainly not literally there ‘in the flesh’. I’m no offensive lineman, but I am ‘offensive’. Oh, yes — ain’t nobody wanna see my rosy-cheeked, pearly-white ass dangling around at the stadium.
Oh, I’m sure I’ve got a ‘money-maker’ in there somewhere, but I’m not gonna shake it in public. Or private, for that matter. It’s actually rather high on my list of priorities to keep the shaking going on back there to a minimum. And I almost wrote, ‘bare minimum’, but I think we covered that ground — and my ass — already. So let’s move on.)
Where the hell was I, anyway? Ah, the football game. Righty-ho.
So, today was a ‘guy’s game’. Four of us boyfolks (damn, that sounds gay! Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course… but remind me never to use that around the other guys, or they’ll kick my ass) were scheduled to attend, while the two wives, one (newly-minted) fiancee, and one girlfriend that we have between us were to find their own entertainment for the day.
(Oh, and just in case there’s any confusion — that’s four pairs, with one girl and one guy each. It’s not like one of the dudes is hogging two or three of the women. This ain’t Utah, folks.
And while we’re at it, don’t any of you pervs get all sticky over that ‘we have between us’ line, either. Four pairs, one of each gender, no mixing and matching like a bunch of lubed-up Garanimals. This ain’t Vegas, either. Or Amsterdam, or General Hospital. We clear on all that? Good.)
Anyway, we ended up being just a threesome (why, oh why do I use words like that, just when I’ve got the pervs under control? Now I’m gonna have to hose ’em down all over again…), because one of the guys decided he was too sick to go. Or something — I never quite understood his excuse, really. Something about he just got over being sick, or he doesn’t want to get sick, or he was once sick, and didn’t really enjoy it… I dunno. He’s a fruitcake. Forget him. I won’t mention him again.
But the three remaining Musketeers got the day started at nine this morning. Which was painful, let me assure you. Nine am is approximately two and a half, maybe three, hours before my ideal Sunday would get rolling. I don’t like to see nine o’clock on a weekday, much less a made-for-rest Sunday. Now, add to that the fact that I had more than a little tequila last night, and let’s just say I was struggling a bit when my wife got me out of bed.
I got up and showered, though. Seriously, what choice did I have? Otherwise, they’d have left me there, sleeping peacefully but without a game ticket. And I couldn’t have that, so I schlepped out of the sack and got my ass in gear. Fifteen sleepy minutes later, I was ready to plan my outfit for the day.
And plan I did, because plan I had to do. (Apparently, I also had to write like Yoda talks for a little while. But I think it’s over now. Thankfully.) Anyway, as I’ve mentioned several times before, I’m not particularly a fashionista. I wear jeans or shorts and rugbys, and don’t give my ensemble much thought in the morning, or ever. Ah, but today was different. Not because several thousand people were going to see me as I moved through the parking lots and stands at the game. No, no, Nanette. Rather, it was because the temperature at game time was several thousand degrees below fricking zero, and I was gonna be out there in it, among the elements, with nothing but sixteen layers of clothes to protect my fragile widdle body.
So, I planned, and I dressed, from the bottom up. I put on a pair of boxers, as usual. At that point, I’d have liked to strap on some thermal undies, but alas, I have none. I briefly considered stealing a pair or two of my wife’s panty hose, but decided against it. If I were playing in the game, perhaps. (Hey, if it’s good enough for Broadway Joe…) But to just watch the game? Nuh-uh. So, I slipped on a second set of boxers — also known as ‘double-bagging my boys‘ — and hoped that would be enough. From that important decision, I was on a roll.
Two pairs of socks. Short-sleeved T-shirt, long-sleeved tee. Jeans, sweatshirt, another sweatshirt. Then the coat, gloves, scarf, and earmuffs. Oh, and shoes.
(Before the gloves, of course — ever tried to tie shoelaces with gloves on? It’s like playing Operation with salad tongs. Takes a full year off your life every time you try. No foolin’.)
So, anyway, not the most well-planned cold-repelling outfit, but it’s the best I could do on short notice.
(And at nine in the damned morning. With a smallish hangover. I’m surprised I managed to get dressed at all.)
In particular, I found that I was rather lacking in the ‘leg protection’ area — all I had between my beautiful knees and the cold, harsh elements was a thin layer of threadbare denim. But it was the best I could muster, so I soldiered on, and we three football kings made our way to the game.
We spent about two hours tailgating in a parking lot, and then three-plus hours inside the stadium, all the while exposed to the wintry New England weather. And I’ve got to admit — I don’t know whether it was the excitement, or the adrenaline, or just the novelty of it all… but I froze my fucking ass off out there. Fucking hell, it was cold! We were in the car for twenty minutes on the ride home before I could feel my fingers, or my damned toes, or — especially — my poor, frosty knees. It was unreal. And then, just in case any of us were actually becoming accustomed to the cold, the lords of football climatology saw fit to dump six inches of damned snow onto us during the second half. Whee-frickin’-ee-frickin’-ee. Ooh, ooh — can we do it again? Oh please, oh please, oh pretty please, can we? I think there are still some parts of my ass that aren’t entirely black with frostbite — let’s do it all over again!
Okay, I’m kidding. Mostly. It was as cold as Bill Gates’ evil dark soul, or the shattered remnants of Joan Rivers’ career. And I did have numbness in all of the extremities I mentioned above, plus one that — *ahem* — I’d rather not mention right now, though I would like to see it again soon.
(It’s okay, boy. We’re warmer now; it’s safe. Come on out, little dude — I’ll keep you safe. I promise.)
On the other hand, it was a hell of a lot of fun, too. We had good food and beer in the parking lot, then a great game in the stadium, and an easy Patriots win. Hell, I even got to bug by buddies whenever a Syracuse alum made a play on the field.
(Which was early and often, for the vanishingly few of you who would actually give a damn. Donovin Darius had several tackles, and Kevin Johnson led all receivers in the game with five catches for eighty-plus yards and a TD. Go, Orangemen!
And if you don’t give a damn… well, you’re not alone. The guys I was with didn’t, either, and I annoyed the steamy piss out of them with ‘cuse trivia. Much more than I’m annoying you right now. They almost left me at the game, in fact — I’d have had to hitchhike home in a blizzard, so I finally shut up. So just know that you’re in good company — almost nobody cares about this shit. Just think of it as my way of bringing all of the rest of you closer together.
Yeah, didn’t think of that, did you? See? It’s all about you, even when it’s not. Keep that in mind, folks — other blogs don’t love you like I do. I’m special.)
So, that was my day, or at least the biggest part of it. Five hours of excitement and icicles, football and freeziness, cold beers and even colder berries. But now that it’s all said and done, I’m finally warm, and I’ve still got my game-day memories. So the experience was more good than bad, and — assuming I don’t wake up with some sort of whooping cough flu tomorrow — I’d do it all over again.
You know, once my little fella comes back out to play. I think he needs a few weeks of warmth and TLC before he’s exposed to that sort of cold again. Maybe I’ll even get him into a sauna, or steam room, or something. He deserves some warmth for a while, after being such a trooper today. And I’ll tell him just that, if I ever see him again. He retreated pretty far up there, though — it was way cold, and I was out there a long time. I just hope I don’t have to use the plunger to coax him out. That’s never fun. Bleh.
Permalink | 3 CommentsI met a guy yesterday with the most unfortunate hair.
Now, I’m not one who can really talk about bad haircuts. For one thing, I have no idea what’s ‘en vogue‘ these days. Or any days, for that matter. I wouldn’t know a mullet from a mallard, a bouffant from a buffet, or a toupee from a tepee.
(Or, if you prefer, a wig from a wigwam. Or a pageboy from a Pueblo village. Really, pick any hairstyle-to-Native-American-dwelling comparison you like. I’m just here to provide the choices. Take your time.)
So, anyway, I’m clueless when it comes to ‘dos’. I’ve got no ‘do clue’. I’m a ‘do loser’, a ‘do dumbass’, maybe even a ‘do-tard’.
(Um, maybe. ‘Do-tard’ is so wrong, in like eight different ways at once. And that’s one, maybe two, more than I usually prefer to be simultaneously bad. I prefer to spread my snarkiness throughout the day, rather than concentrating it all at once like that.)
Anyway, let’s just say that I’m never gonna replace the hair guy on Queer Eye.
(Or, for that matter, the food guy, or the interior design guy. I think I could probably take over for that snarky blonde fellow — all he really does is make bitchy little comments and snipe at people. Yeah, I could do that.
Well, except for that whole ‘getting busy with guys’ thing. I’d have a bit of homework to do there, and I think I’d have to be really drunk to get started. And blind, and quite possibly unconscious, as well. But look, we’re pretty far off topic here. Let’s get back to bad hair, all right?)
So, my own ineptitude in the area of hair care is usually pretty obvious. I wait way too long to get haircuts. I I don’t use ‘product’. I don’t even know what ‘product’ is, and frankly, given some of the things I’m guessing that it might be, I’m not even gonna write ‘product’ without using those quotes around it. I’m not touching that stuff directly. That’s nasty.
All of which is to say: I’m no expert when it come to coiffures. But this guy yesterday had a problem that even a ‘do dummy’ (heh, forgot about that one) like me could identify. It all had to do with his part. Because it wasn’t so much a ‘part’ as a ‘radical separation’. A hairy segregation, a veritable follicular bifurcation. And whatever the hell it was (‘bifurcation’? Where the hell did that come from?), it was ugly. Seriously ugly — I’m talkin’ Abe Lincoln’s mole, Michael Jackson in a leather tutu, scare the women and children uuuuuuugly.
Now, I don’t know how the hell he managed it — or more importantly, why the hell he managed it — but this dude had a half an inch or more of scalp showing between his hair-halves. And scalp, my friends and compadres, is not pretty. Not with hair around it, anyway. Fully bald? Fine. Shaved? I’m cool with that. But just peeking through, with all those little hair ends and oil and stuff showing? Bleh! No. And if the gleaming and glistening and shinyness was any indication, the guy’s hair was full of ‘product’, too. I mean, lousy with the stuff. So all that goop and grease was glommed onto that strip of scalp, too.
(I’m hoping it was ‘product’ of some kind, anyway. Otherwise, I don’t wanna know what the guy had in his hair. Frog’s have been laying eggs on him, or birds have been scalp-crapping him. I don’t know, and I don’t wanna know. Let’s just call it ‘product’ and move on.)
So of course, despite my best efforts (and let’s be honest… my ‘best efforts’ really aren’t all that damned good), I found myself staring at the top of this guy’s head, mesmerized by the hair-gap on his head. I wondered how he managed to get his hair that way — simple combing and brushing wouldn’t accomplish this ‘Red Sea parting’ kind of look. Maybe he has two teams of horses, and hooks them up in the morning to puuuuull his hair apart. Or maybe he’s got a wind tunnel set up on the ceiling of his bathroom, and all the hair in the middle of his head gets industrially blown one way or the other. Or he’s found a way to sprinkle little itty bitty magnets pointing one way into one side of his hair (hey, the ‘product’ would make them stick, right?), and magnets pointing the other way on the other side, so they repel each other all day.
(And maybe if someone musses his hair, they get all out of sync and makes a mohawk in the middle; who knows?)
I never did figure it out. I don’t know how his hair got into that unholy condition; I just know that it shouldn’t be there. And if I know that… well, let’s just say that Helen Keller would catch on to a fashion faux pas before I would. This guy needs help, now.
Not from me, of course, unless this guy’s looking for the ‘Fozzy Bear‘ look. But help from somewhere. Maybe those Queer Eye guys will swoop down on him and make him fabulous, at least for a day. That would be great — clean him up, fix his house, teach him how to make a really good pan-seared tuna. All of this is well and good. But please, please, very first thing — teach the dude how to part his damned hair. It’s not a contest to see how far apart you can get the sides. Please, get this guy a ‘do clue’, before he shows his scalp slit in public again. Eek!
Permalink | 4 CommentsOh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
I don’t usually get into the whole ‘currently watching’, ‘currently reading’, ‘currently hearing’ type of things… but I’ve gotta tell you — I scored big-time on the movie front, and I’m a happy man.
From last week… on TiVo… without commerical interruption, from HBO… Better Off Dead. Again, I exclaim, ‘Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!‘ And to that, I add, ‘Hee!‘
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this movie all the way through, without commercials. And it’s been a while since I’ve seen it at all. Still — I know what’s coming. I can’t quite quote it by heart — it’s not a Python movie, fer goodness sakes — but I can come pretty damned close. I’m about halfway through — Lane’s just escaped the evil clutches of the ‘Two dollars!‘ paperboys, and found his little brother with the trashy women. And you know what that means, right?
That’s right. ‘Testicles all over me!’ time is coming soon.
(And believe me, folks, I’ve never been so excited to say that. No, really. This is even better than grandpa’s birthday parties. Um… ahem. Moving on.)
So, anyway, all we’ve gotta do is get through the talking burger and the ‘Franch‘ dinner, and then we’ll be there. Oh, I can’t stand it. Hee.
(‘Franch fries.’ ‘Gee, I’m sorry your mom blew up, Ricky‘… *snort* Hoo! How many Oscars did this thing win, anyway?)
Okay, enough about me and my Diane Franklin thing.
(Erm… did I type that out loud? Really?)
Well, I mean, it’s not a ‘thing‘, exactly. Sure, the (fake) French accent is cool. And that whole scene working on the car, with the little smudges of dirt on her face… um, yeah, there’s nothing wrong with that. Still, her hair reminds me a lot of my grandmother’s, and… well… look, let’s just move on. I’m all creeped out now. And I have this craving for French bread.
(You know, just like grandma used to make. Um, ew!)
So. Where the hell was I, anyway?
Oh, right — nowhere. I’ve just been blathering about this movie. Okay, fine. What else we got?
I’ll tell you something that’s been bothering me for a while, now — school zones.
Now, hear me out here. I’m not upset that there are school zones. Hey, ‘kids are people, too’, and ‘it takes a village’, and ‘just say no’, and all that other little children crap. I’m down with that. Protect the kiddies from speeding cars — fine.
But what I’ve noticed, just recently, is that all school zones are not the same. I always thought they were, but no. I’ve found that there are different speed limits, depending on the school zone.
Now, is it just me, or does this seem wrong, somehow?
I mean, who decides how fast cars can go in a given school zone, anyway? The parents? Teachers? Angry, emasculated, pissy principals? ‘Fuck it — let’s let ’em go sixty-five through here, and we’ll weed out the dumbasses. Survival of the fittest, man.‘
Seriously, though, I’ve seen a whole range of limits out there, from ten miles an hour all the way up to twenty-five. And all I can think is… why?
Are the kids just tougher in some neighborhoods? Can the junior high kids downtown survive a higher-speed impact than those soft, pansy suburban wankers? And how do they figure that out? Do they take a couple of the kids from detention and run ’em over, to see what their limit is?
Or maybe it’s based on grade point average. If your school falls behind, then the speed limits get jacked up. I can see that — it even serves double duty. Not only does it put the pressure on — if you don’t shape your ass up, then soon cars will be whizzing by like it’s the damned autobahn — but it also just might pick off a couple of the dumber kids, if they forget how to look both ways before crossing. Smear a couple of the loserly kids onto your bumper, and the grading curve goes up for everybody. Problem solved!
Nah, that’s probably not it. It makes too much sense. But I’m sure there’d be lawsuits of some kind, and Sally Struthers or somebody would get involved, and then we’d have to run her over… so yeah, I’m sure that’s not it.
Maybe it depends on how many kids are in the school. There’s probably a team of statisticians somewhere, geeking over their fancy caluclators, determining how many cars and kids can be expected theoretically co-exist before little Johnny or Jane gets squooshed by some soccer mom in a minivan. And then they get out the abaci and the slide rules and figure out how fast those cars can go, with a ninety percent chance or better of avoiding significant bloodshed. I’m sure it’s all very scientific.
Or… it’s just not. Probably, they just let a janitor or hall monitor or something roll dice until they find a number they like. Or they just settle on how many beers the health teacher / football coach / resident pervert can chug. That’s why you get some of these weird-ass schools with speed limits like ’12’ or ’18’ or something. Maybe. I dunno.
Anyway, it just struck me as odd. You know, while driving by schools on my commute. I mean, it’s not like I’m just hanging around schoolyards or anything. Or lurking, or skulking, or even driving back and forth by the playground… um, looking for exchange students… from, er, France, say. With hair like my grandma’s. Or — *ahem* — something.
Yeah, I’m not doing that. No, seriously. Hell, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. How would I know how fast I’m allowed to cruise around the parking lot? The rules are different everywhere! It’s so damned confusing! I’m never gonna find a chick with an accent who can ski and pitch and fix my broken-down Camaro. Dammit!
Permalink | 4 CommentsSo, I’m sitting here enjoying the first beer of the weekend — and is there anything sweeter than the first beer of a newly unwrapped weekend? — and I decided to take a stroll through the logs to see how things are going around here. And, I have to say, I’m pleased. Quite pleased, indeed. Here are a few selections from the last twenty or so query terms used by people who got here via a search engine:
Well. I think that record pretty much speaks for itself.
(Even if I don’t know what the hell some of those things mean. ‘corn header strippers’? Is that dirty, or agricultural? And tweener? Um… okay, never mind — I know what tweeners are. ‘Mmmmm… tweeners….‘)
Throw in ‘assbag’ and ‘dog snot’, and that pretty much covers it all. I can see I’ve got the search engines riiiiight where I want them. Exxxxcellent!
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