a train with all cabooses pt. 2

I’m always a lot more concerned with brushing my teeth before bed as opposed to when I wake up. As if plaque is nocturnal.

“Is he asleep? Ok, let’s get to work.”

The clock read 5:62. The clock was broken.

If I knew how much it was off by and when it broke I could figure out what time it is but the math would be daunting.

Reminds me of a girl I use to know.

That’s how inanimate objects get names.

In my bathroom I saw a spider. Up in the corner above the toilet. There are never any bugs in my bathroom so I thought at the time it was an odd place for him to have set up shop. Every time I went to pee I checked to see if he was still there or if he had decided to finally go somewhere with more prospects.

Yesterday I noticed he was still there but he was dead. He starved rather than admit he’d built his web in the wrong spot.

I’m glad. I enjoy the company of his corpse.

The only difference between the old red Hawaiian Punch and the new blue? The blue wants to be spilled. I know science won’t back me on this but don’t kid yourself, turn your back on it for just a second and you will end up with a Windex-colored stain on your carpet.

It’s about time someone came right out and said it. Fuck manatees. There are just certain animals that are just too fat and stupid to survive. It’s not even survival of the fittest. It’s about not being the least likely thing to survive that has ever existed on the planet. They’re not even trying to evolve. It’s like they are on The Biggest Loser but they’re still eating fast food and sitting on the couch and gaining weight. They’re just relying on us to try to keep them around. Not every species deserves to be saved from extinction. Fuck ’em!

A great way to improve the Super Bowl would be, right after they have dumped Gatorade on the winning coach, dump gasoline on the losing coach and set him alight. The network should make sure they have a camera on his family to capture the looks on their faces when he runs across the field engulfed in flames.

I know it’s spelled orangutan but I like pronouncing it orangutang and frankly I hate people who say it correctly.

MySpace attempting a comeback seems to me like dinosaurs wanting another shot. Of course, with Justin Timberlake money … hello Stegosaurus!

If you’re trying to figure out why I chose the Stegosaurus to represent the MySpace business model don’t bother. It was the first dinosaur that popped into my head.

If you’re trying to figure out why a Stegosaurus was the first thing to pop into my head when I think of dinosaurs when there are cooler ones like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor might I suggest that you are greatly undervaluing the coolness of giant armored plates on ones back?

Which then makes me realize that perhaps stegosaurus was a bad analogy because MySpace will never have anything as cool as giant armored plates.

MySpace attempting a comeback seems to me like dinosaurs wanting another shot. Of course, with Justin Timberlake money … hello Pachycephalosaurus!

If you’re familiar with the Pachycephalosaurus you’ll see that it’s actually a great analogy to MySpace.

To all those actors and musicians who somehow feel, despite surrounding themselves with lackeys and sycophants, that their success is a fluke and they are not worthy of the praise and attention and the respect and the money I just want to say I agree 100%.

You’re right. You’re not.

I know about natural selection and how cruel nature can appear and all but I really believe that if a big dopey seagull is seen eating a puffin it should be mandatory to shoot it. Eating baby turtles is bad enough; we can’t let them just go around eating anything they want. Seagulls shouldn’t eat puffins, it’s wrong and if we’re the dominant species we should act like it and impose our will a bit.

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.