Letters To the Editor

Dear God,

I understand you are the editor of the Bible.

I would like to recommend a revision.

In Exodus 10.some_numbers, the Lord threatens Egypt with the plague of locusts.

Perhaps this shook appropriate fear in more agrarian times, before people could afford to or needed to loose weight. Now days though, we all rest comfortably knowing a few things. One, there are locust-proof foods, like twinkees, fruitcake, rice cake flavored cardboard and McDonalds. Two, it might be an easy way to loose twenty pounds. And lastly, Fear Factor taught us how yummy those locusts can be anyway.

So the threat of locusts is not nearly as frightening as in times past.

After the past week, I have an excellent recommendation for substitution.

Teenagers... with cell phones.

Yours truly,

A Captive Sharing a Cell, with Teenagers, With Cells

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I am sorry for my lack of updates. My captivity prevented my blog updates. Now that I think about it, I should have just dictated to one of the teens my blog thoughts for posting. They can type 50 WPM on their cells. (A feat to be watched should the opportunity ever arise.)

Don't get me wrong. I am not far from being a teenager. And I too sleep with my cell phone (it does vibrate after all). However, I do not get seven or more calls, all ringing some loud obnoxious song, between 1 am and 7 am, and I definitely don't answer everyone. They are not doctors. They are answering their phone to hear this sentence, "Man, I am so wasted." Now that is absolutely a have-to-answer-this call. I was captive in the room; I heard every word of the conversation. (Old people turn up the TV, young people turn up the music and their phones.)

I couldn't understand why they slept so much initially… and then I realized, as night after ringing night I was getting more grumpy, the reason they "slept" 12 hours is they spent 3 or so of those hours on the phone. Silly me, I was getting up after a mere eight. (No alarm clock needed, I would just get up whenever the first phone call after 7am came.)

After a couple nights, I emailed my parents and apologized profusely for being so intolerable.

My Dad wrote me back, "The Definition of Teenager: Punishment from God for enjoying sex."

At very least, they certainly are a form a birth control.

Things Remembered And Used For The Arbitrary

I graduated from college in 1999. Today, nearly six years later, I was asked for my college student ID number. I stumbled, then it came right out, fluidly, as if I had used it just the other day.

The guy behind the video counter asked me to repeat it. That seemed odd. It seemed a rhetorical question. "Why?"

Apparently, you now need at least a partial college education, or the student number of someone who has had one, to rent a movie, in my town.

Seems to me that this arbitrary divide could be used better elsewhere, like in fireworks sales.

(By the way, the mudslides arrived a little early, but the forecast was generally correct.)

Oh Yeah, It Will Be Some Temperature Too

The forecast for the upcoming week according to the channel four weatherman in Los Angeles:

"As you can see (graphic of next five days of weather displayed), tomorrow will be rainy and in the mid-sixties. But you won't want to put that umbrella away after that because Sunday's forecast is heavy rain and possible flash flooding. By Monday, we will be seeing that flash flooding and some mudslides. Tuesday, we should see…"

Note, apparently on Monday there will be no traditional weather. No degrees, no sunny, cloudy or rainy. Just nouveau-weather, flooding and mudslides.

I love living somewhere that considers "flooding and mudslides," one, a weather forecast, and two not a particularly unusual one for this time of year.

Why is it that…

Why is that, when you are up until three am working on something, the neighbor's gardener, his lawnmower, his leaf blower and his edge trimmer, start working on something different at seven thirty am?

My friend Beth has since reminded me to re-read section 612 part Q subsection 112 paragraph 2 of Murphy's Law.

Was it left, Or Right?

I just realized why cars now come with navigation systems.

Men would rather spend $1,000 on a gadget they can hit when it doesn't work than stop for directions.

Oh, By the way… (funny)

My sister was hit by a bus yesterday.

I found out this morning. My dad, my sisters and I had a lovely restaurant breakfast. As the waiter walks toward the table with the check, my sister Jackie says, "Oh you guys, did I tell you? I was hit by a bus yesterday."

My dad, my sister PJ and I, look at Jackie.

We stared at her.

Time, momentarily, stood still.

Then we burst out laughing so hard the waiter ran away.

I love my sister, cause she is very much like this. She will forget to mention something minor, like being hit by a bus. And when she remembers, it is a casual comment, "Oh by the way…"

So, my sister was hit by a bus while minding her own business on the sidewalk yesterday. Obviously, as she was at breakfast, she was fine, making the whole thing the permissively hysterical.

I very much look forward to her next, "Oh you guys…."

Expanding My Preferred Genres

Because there is not always enough reading material on the rear of the car in front of me, I have had the opportunity to diversify my reading habits.

A homeless person was at the end of an off-ramp downtown, dirty, disheveled, wearing too much worn clothing (shirt, sweatshirt, jacket) for the seventy-degree weather. Held for display was a written message on the traditional battered square-ish piece of cardboard.

The message?

"Financially Challenged"

Some Short Thoughts

Sorry… I have been ridiculously ill. You know you are in trouble when you are chewing the aspirin as readily as the anti-nausea mints.

I mentioned in my last post, the local lesbian with balls enough (bad pun) to put her sexual orientation on her license plate, LESBIAN. What I did not notice before was the little sticker under her plate which says, "Shhhhh, nobody knows I am a lesbian." I thought that was hysterical.

Here are a few random things:

You know you are an adult when you spend Saturday night moving your 403b funds to a traditional IRA.

License Plate: BRMSTCK (broomstick)

More people watch the four-hour super bowl than the one-hour state of the union. What does that say about our culture?

I have the best wall calendar in the world, EXTREME Ironing. (The latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.)

You know there is a serious problem when it occurs to you that you probably should check the expiration dates on those condoms.

My friends have the funniest chat conversations.

More, better, four-wheel-drive posts to come.