a train with all cabooses (part 2)

(originally posted 12/12/2013)

I was building a deck and needed some wood so I reached out to an old friend who owns a lumber yard. He told me that recently prices have skyrocketed and he apologized a million times for not being able to do better with the cost of what I needed. I didn’t mind so much the extra money, it was the fact that he had me standing there for 35 days listening to him say he was sorry. You know how that is, your legs cramp up, you just want to leave, it’s awkward.

Knowing that dogs have hearing far superior to our own I have for years whispered hello to the dog across the street each time I walk from my driveway to my front door. The other day he gives me this look as if he resents the fact that by whispering to him it somehow implies some deeper understanding of the natural world and therefore a more intimate connection between us that simply isn’t there. Rude dog.

Just once I’d like to be nice and let someone pull out in front of me in traffic and then have them stop their car and get out and tell me that they are fabulously wealthy and in return for my thoughtfulness they hand me a check for a million dollars.

Sometimes I put the TV on a channel where they are speaking in a foreign language then just leave it on in the background and pretend I’m on vacation.

I once dated a Japanese girl named Suki. I was tickling her one day and she accidently farted. I thought it was funny but she was embarrassed. She excused herself and a few minutes later she committed Harry Caray in my bathroom. Holy cow! Ended up ruining most of my towels.

In the spring I like to sit in the woods, listen to the birds singing and pretend I’m a judge on American Idol. Nothing beats sending a dendroica fusca on to the next round.

Let me be clear on this. It’s not that I find ventriloquists interesting; it’s that I think they should all be institutionalized.

As I farted I suddenly saw in my head those old locomotives belching out great clouds of black smoke and for a moment I felt like the Little Train That Could. I just can’t figure out what it is I think I can I think I can.

This morning as I was brushing my teeth, right after I was done loading the brush with the requisite paste, I happened to catch the end of the tube on a few bristles and those bristles bent back in such a way as to hurl their pasty contents directly into my eye. I reeled back in agony. Then I thought about it. What were the odds that I could unintentionally flick toothpaste off my brush and have it land dead square in my eye? They would have to be astronomical. There was simply no way it could have happened. My eye stopped hurting.

I wish they made those vacuum sealers they use on sandwich bags for a bed. That would be cozy. I would dream of cold cuts every night.

Whenever I’m reading my fifth rejection letter in a row I suddenly pretend I’m 100 feet underwater and start to hold my breath. I know it will take a full minute to get to the surface and about 40 seconds later I can’t hold my breath anymore. It reminds me what’s truly awesome. Air. Air is awesome. So I take a breath and I’m thankful I’m not going to drown and everything is ok. My apologies to those of you who will drown today.

Every nursing home has that one guy or gal who wants to sit and dish out advice to younger people. Avoid this person at all cost. The advice is good but you won’t take it and it’s one more regret you’ll have when you become that person.

Fun scientific fact: If you built a shower large enough to use up all the water on the planet in 10 minutes, no doubt prompting someone to stand next to the enormous curtain and yell “Hurry up in there, the ocean called and said it was running dry,” it could be seen from space (no doubt prompting the first alien to see it to observe “They are either very large or have a lot of time on their hands” and the second to answer him with “This smells of Lance Manion.”). *Note: I am much more widely read off this world than on it.

I wonder how many car crashes I could cause if I recorded a hit song where all the lyrics were sung as I was yawning.

There’s not much use for a manic-depressive tire. They’re flat, they’re over-inflated, they’re fine. It would be exhausting for the other three tires. They would get uneven wear. Maybe a tire-swing. Kids are more forgiving.

She looked at me and said it was over. She said she needed less television out of me and more mailbox.

Universal Law #37: When viewing a children’s athletic event you will want the kid in the headband to tear his/her ACL.

If a black guy who is really racist dies and becomes a zombie is he eating only other black people or nothing but white meat? Will he eat an Asian?

Sometimes the itching is so bad it overshadows how nice it feels to scratch it. Like it’s not even worth having the fungal infection in the first place.

Whenever I have the misfortune of sharing a bed with someone you can be sure of two things:

1. I will eventually get comfortable only to then feel a finger or toe on me which will make me wildly uncomfortable but I will be too polite to ask them to remove it for fear of insulting them so I will lay there awake for 8 hours imagining punching them in the solar plexus or until they roll over.
2. I will feel their fetid breath on me which will remind me that they are using up all the oxygen in the room at which time I will begin to take in great gulps of air. That is one battle I’m not going to lose.

I saw a puppy get so happy at seeing his new owner return to the house that he actually began to pee. I’d like to see that at the Oscars.

The best a parent can do is raise a friserang. A Frisbee that is slightly off. A child with enough flight to launch themselves on whatever journey they want to take but enough boomerang that they eventually end up coming home.

Whenever there’s a shark attack they always put a picture of a great white next to the story. Clearly that isn’t the same shark that killed the surfer so why is it that they feel they can just show a picture of any old great white? Seems a bit insensitive. Imagine if they did that with the “Hispanic man robs liquor store” story.

The first I heard of it were rumblings from the boys up north … which was very exciting. Not because of the news itself but because I’d never heard rumblings before.

I hate when I go to buy a favorite product only to approach the shelf and see the word “New” splashed across the package. It was fine. It worked … and now they went and fucked with it. Often I will drop to my knees and let out an anguished “Why? WHY?!”

What is it about holding a knife that always makes me wonder if I could kill somebody? I can’t make a sandwich without running through some scenario in which I’m forced to conceal it briefly up my sleeve then lunge out and slit somebody’s throat with my mayonnaise-covered blade. Shocking huh? You didn’t peg me as mayo guy.

I’m sorry to see all the video stores disappearing. I’ve always had a secret wish to manage one so I could select the movies in the “Manager’s Pick” section. The power … the influence. I get lightheaded just thinking about it. If people didn’t choose them they would start ending up in their bag anyway. Anyone attempting to rent Ted instead would get 3 O’clock High and a note saying “You’re welcome.” Perhaps it’s best that video stores are disappearing.

The rocky object that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago may have been a comet, rather than an asteroid, scientists say. In other news, experts say it might have been a tomato (to-may-toe) that caused the red stain on the couch as opposed to the original hypothesis that it was a tomato (to-mah-toe). I apologize to those of you who would have gotten the Gershwin reference without pronunciation assistance but it was simply too funny not to include everyone.

I was sitting in a Starbucks listening to James Brown singing I Got Ants in My Pants (and I Want to Dance) over the sound system and I noticed my orange mocha chino had me so jacked up that my head was twitching and my shoulders were gyrating wildly when I saw a girl across the room completely hidden behind the counter except for her head. Her twitching head! She was totally grooving to the song like I was, rocking violently in time back and forth to James. She walked toward me and my heart began to twitch inside my chest. She turned the corner and I suddenly realized that she had cerebral palsy or something and that I Got Ants in My Pants (and I Want to Dance) had nothing to do with the twitching. Still pretty hot though.

You’ve got a little something on your … no, other side. Lower. On your cheek. Your other cheek. Yeah right there. A little lower. There, it’s gone. No wait. You missed it. A little below your cheek. Right there. Nope. Still there. Now it’s gone. Wait, now it’s on your other cheek. Well, a little below it. How am I supposed to know how it got there? No, I’m not kidding. It’s right there. It looks a little like a … right there. Lower. Now wait, it’s right there. Ok. It’s gone now And it’s back. That’s weird. It’s back on your other cheek. Don’t believe me? Fine. Let it sit there and walk around with it on your face all day. On your cheek, right there. Right there! Yes. Ok, you got it. It’s gone. AAAAIEE! It’s back on both cheeks. What is that?! Don’t come any closer. Stay away from me.

I was walking tonight just after dusk but before it got really dark and I saw a lone house on the horizon. It had large bay windows and inside it was lit up all bright orange. It literally looked like it held the sun within it and I got the impression that the house itself was setting. I tried to come up with a premise for a short story worthy of this image inside my head but failed miserably. It’s there somewhere.

I hate when people get defensive about how fast other animals are and say that we can run 27 miles-per-hour. Uriah Bolt can run 27 mph. Take a good long look at yourself. Note how un-cheetah-like you appear. You’re built like a burro at best.  “We” can’t run 10 without having our knees explode in a red mist that sends bone fragments shooting out all over the place.

I wonder what the rest of the colony would think about the ant that wanted to forgo his duties and instead spend a large amount of time and resources, assuming you’re a fan of the theory of opportunity costs (although ants have little use for either guns or butter I grant you), climbing to the top of the tallest tree just to be able to say he did it.

When somebody tells me that they want to “come clean” I usually take them at their word. It was just the creepy way that he said it…

I remember when I was a kid we’d have pick-up games of baseball but not have enough for full teams so we’d have to modify the rules. For example, you get could get somebody out by catching a fly ball, forcing them by touching first or hitting them with the ball as they ran between bases. “Is he out?” “Yeah. And I think you killed him.”

I knew it. Once they started to talk about tomatoes being fruits instead of vegetables it was going to open the flood gates. Now they want to say that cucumbers and green beans are fruits. Stop it. Just stop it already with the enclosed seeds crap. They are both fucking vegetables. How do I know? Because they taste like fucking vegetables. That’s how you can tell. Put on a blindfold and eat one. You can’t give these pricks an inch; I’ve been saying it for years now. Don’t speak up about tomatoes and next they’ll be after your bell peppers.

They really should make a deodorant especially for online gamers. I’m no expert in chemistry but I know the sweat produced by tossing a football around in the backyard isn’t the same as the sweat produced by five straight hours of defending your elven encampment from orcs. One smells all manly and the other is like a combination of entropy, Mountain Dew, piss, Axe body spray and quiet desperation.

Recently I had the flu. To combat it I took a flu medication that claimed one of the side effects was flu-like symptoms. Later when I still felt crappy I didn’t know if I still had the flu or if the medicine had worked and I was just experiencing flu-like symptoms.

My next door neighbor kills prostitutes and then buries them in his backyard. His lawn is gorgeous. Ironically enough, my other neighbor is a cop and he also kills prostitutes and buries them in his backyard. His grass is not as green. He’s not using enough Scottish is my guess.