what doesn't kill ya

In Which My Childhood Fear is Realized

We all have little fears as children that we grow out of as adults.  The ankle-grabber hiding under the bed?  Well he can totally go fuck himself 'cause I am heading to my bed to pass out, just TRY and stop me.  That creepy old man who lives at the end of the block?  Eh, he's just cranky because he can't have a regular bowel movement and goddamit,  TV has totally sucked since they canceled The Lawrence Welk Show.  The toilet swallowing you up spontaneously, or worse yet, wielding a nasty snake from the depths of the sewers to bite your ass off?  Well, that's impossible.  You can't fit down the toilet and snakes don't find their way into your bowl.  We're grown-ups now, and we know better.

That is, until you're a grown-up working at your grown-up-like job, and like grown-ups sometimes do, you decide to check out the day's news via your local news agency's website, and you read a grown-up tidbit about stem cell research and yet another grown-up tidbit about the war in Iraq, and then, you see THIS:

"White rats pop up in toilets"

Jesus Christ, I need armor for my ass.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen songs that would seriously make me yearn for Chinese water torture, if played on a continuous loop:

1. "Foolish Beat" - Debbie Gibson:  Oh, excuse me:  Deborah Gibson.  The name change totally tricks us into forgetting her 80's teeny bopper days.
2. "Locomotion" - Kylie Minogue:  I'm having flashbacks of the video:  something about a spandex jumper, slouch socks and a side ponytail?
3. "My Immortal" - Evanessence:  I actually like this song, but the depressive factor is wayyy up there.
4. "Kokomo" - The Beach Boys:  Have I mentioned this one before?  I'm sorry.
5. "It's A Heartache" - Bonnie Tyler:  Forget the heartache.  Her voice gives me a headache.  But, whatever.
6. "Cheeseburger In Paradise" - Jimmy Buffet:  Wuh?
7. "I'll Be Loving You Forever" - New Kids On The Block:  Oh, man.  I have no words.
8. "Macarena" - Los Del Rio:  I had to Google this one to find out the name of the rat bastards that tortured the country for what seemed like infinity plus one.  And don't even MENTION the dance.
9. "For Your Eyes Only" - Sheena Easton:  Just:  BLECHH.  Pretty much anything this little priss sang gets my gag reflex going, kind of like the eating segments on "Fear Factor."
10. "Mandy" - Barry Manilow:  The musical version of "Old Yeller." 
11. "Mmm Bop" - Hanson:  There seems to be a correlation between the popularity of this song and frontal lobotomies back in 1997.
12. "You Light Up My Life" - Debbie Boone:  Ha! Innocent my ass.  Does she really expect us to believe she was singing about THE LORD??  I prefer the parody: "You... light up my pipe, you give me dope... to carry onnnnnn..."
13. "Ain't Nobody Humpin' Around" - Bobby Brown:  Just try to convince me that this dude's not a total headcase.

Suddenly?  I'm in a very foul mood.

Fashion at the Circle K

This morning I actually had enough time to stop and get a 3-gallon fountain soda (shut up, I live in the desert) on my way in to work.  There are Circle K's on just about every corner here, so I picked one and stopped.

After I filled up my jug, I got in line behind a tall man paying for some coffee and cigarettes.  He had on jeans, and this I noticed first because he wore Levi's in size 42x32, which I thought was an odd size and didn't seem compatible with his stature.  And no, I wasn't looking at his ass.

All this seemed innocent enough until I took notice of his shirt.  He was wearing a nice silk or rayon button-down short sleeved shirt, nicer than a polo but not as formal as a dress shirt.  This was all well and good too, but it had a print on it.  The print was bold, with pyramid and circular shapes splashed throughout the fabric.  I stood there trying to figure out what the hell I was looking at, and then it became clear to me, like when you stare at those a illusion thingies for a minute, waiting for the hidden image to appear.

The illusion unfolded, and I realized: the circles?  They were compasses.  And even better:  The pyramids?  They were TENTS.  Motherfucking tents.  Tons of them, all pitched for a nice camp-out next to the lake, with plenty of compasses to ensure nobody gets lost.

Sadly, this guy is ALL KINDS of lost and not even an RV full of compasses could help him.