Get Out the Vote!

Come Again?

Quote of the day overheard at a local restaurant:

"So, I told her, 'You're not the only one the world revolves around!'"

What can you say to that? The comment seems to concede that the opponent may at least be among those whom the world revolves around, and raises additional questions:

Is the speaker one whom the world revolves around? Otherwise isn't this like saying, "You're not the only one who is better than me!"?

I've got a half dozen more but I'll leave room for the one other person who reads my blog...

I'm not the only one who doesn't have a life, you know!

Through A Glass Darkly

I was listening to an exchange the other day while hanging with a group of teens. One teenage girl whose voice keeps cracking laughed and said "I think I'm going through boy puberty." A younger teenage girl chuckled condescendingly and said, "That means you wet the bed."

Since no one else caught the innocent mistranslation...

I guess I'll be laughing alone.

Identity Crisis

Yesterday I was shoveling the sidewalk when a slender little boy from my hood approached me and offered to help. While he was too young to handle the heavy ice/slush, he seemed to enjoy trying and I enjoyed the company. I went inside and told my wife that one of the boys helped me with the snow. She asked, "The chubby one or the one that's not so bright?"

Tonight I've decided to help myself to a late night bowl of cereal, string cheese, yogurt, chips and salsa , and finish it off with a tall glass of screw South Beach. Because somewhere out there someone is trying to describe me, and I'd rather be the chubby one.

Worlds Collide

The Incident

It’s two o’clock in the morning and I am startled awake by shouting outside my window. I drift back to sleep only to wake fifteen minutes later, but this time the shouting is closer. In a daze, I stumble to my second story bedroom window and look down to see two young men sitting on my front steps, one cradling his bleeding hand. There is a frantic woman crying and flailing her arms and I can make out enough of the exchange to know that there was a fight.

Worlds Collide

How vast is the distance between the “drama at two o’clock” and the “in bed by ten” crowds? In my glazed-eye stupor I would say worlds apart. Yet somehow, in this moment our worlds collide.

Something moves within me as each drop of humanity hits my front door step.

Something in me says, “We are connected!”

Something in me says that as his blood drops,

So does my property value.

Zip It

I was mindlessly jamming to an Ace of Base classic on my way to work, convinced, at least for the moment, there would be no turning around. The song came to an abrupt end as the nasally DJ informed me that the brilliant question of the day (the real reason I listen to radio) had such an overwhelming response that it would be continued tomorrow.

The question was, drum roll please.....

"What sound do you hate the most?"

I made a conscious effort to reject the mind-numbing question and any attempt to find an answer, but the answer had already invaded my subconscious.

Knowing my answer, I turned the radio off.

The Subliminal

I woke up today with a craving for trans fat. A heated argument flared between the evil gluttonous demon and the disciplined dieting angel in my brain.

"Eat trans fat!"

"Don't eat trans fat!"

"It's yummy!"

"It'll kill you!"

"Eat a little bit!"

"Aaaah, it's slippery slope!"

Then an intercessory thought chimed in, "What the heck is trans fat?"

I don't know, but it must taste good if I'm not supposed to eat it.

I'm going to go eat a deep fried twinkie now.