Bite Your Tongue

I bit my tongue the other day. Not in the sense that I kept to myself what was on my mind, that never happens. (ask anyone who knows me) No, I literally bit my tongue. I was chewing gum and well, you know. It hurts, a lot. It got me thinking about some of the stuff we say to each other...

"Bite your tongue". What makes us think it's ok to ask others to physically harm themselves? Why not tell someone to "smack yourself in the nuts"? Is that so different? They both hurt.
Reminds me of the time I went to Hollywood to star in a big motion picture. My so-called friend pats me on the back and tells me to "break a leg". What a prick! So I said to him, "Fuck you, wreck your car on the freeway".

Here's one, "knock em' dead". Seriously? You want me to commit multiple, hammer based homicides? Who is making these up? Whats wrong with plain old vanilla, "good luck"? Sounds pretty good to me.
Oh, I made up the part about going to Hollywood. The tongue biting was real!

I Luv My Job!

A little history. I am a railroad conductor. A job is a job I guess and until my writing career takes off, this is what I do. Normally I have very few complaints. Ok, that's a lie. Don't get the wrong idea, I feel very fortunate to even have a job in this crazy economy. Lots of folks are out there looking for jobs, some even in my line of work. It's true, there are people lining up and paying serious money to go to railroad school. I get it that people need jobs, but to pay out cash to possibly get one? Really?
I have had tons of people ask me if they could get a job where I work. Sure, I tell them,but first let me give you a little heads up about what I do. The good stuff as well as the bad.

Bad news... There are no weekends, no holidays, no schedules, and no time clocks. Thats right. No Fridays at 5 pm, no Fourth of July, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas, and no New Years eve. The good news is there are also no Mondays and none of the problems associated with heading back to work after a long relaxing holiday break.
We do get vacations, thats good news. However the vacations are chosen according to seniority. For the first few years of your employment you will most likely be taking your vacation in January or February. If you enjoy cold, crappy weather this is good news. If, however you are one of the crazies who enjoys the springtime, summer, or fall weather...too bad.
Most people, with normal jobs, tell me they have an irritating boss constantly looking over their shoulder. Good news, our bosses never look over our shoulders. They hide in the weeds, setting traps and trying to fire us for not following the new rule they just made up yesterday.

So what is the job like? In a word...boring. If someone wants to experience it without coughing up the $6000 for 6 weeks of school, I tell them to get up at 2am and go sit in their bathroom for about 10 hours. No tv, no newspaper, no phone, and no sleeping. Then leave the bathroom and check into a hotel to sleep for awhile. You will remain in the hotel for an indeterminate amount of time. (I spend more time on my back in hotels than a $20 hooker!) Could be anywhere from 10 hours (the minimum), to my all time longest stay of 53 hours. Note, the last 18 hours of my 53 hour stay were on Christmas eve, sorry kids! Oh, you like staying in hotels? Cool, call me when you spend 200+ nights a year in one.
At some point, let's say 7;30 the next morning you can return to your bathroom for another 10 hour stay. Could this be any more fun?

The pay? Oh it's pretty good. It has to be. I spend in the neighborhood of $400 a month eating fast food and Quik Trip hot dogs. And then there's my cell bill, clothes for winter and summer, vitamins (thanks to the gourmet meals), health insurance, union dues, and retirement. And don't forget about the upkeep on a house I own, but never live in, and cars I don't drive much. One for me, one for my wife, and one for our son. See, we all need separate vehicles because we are never together.

It's fairly easy work. In fact it's the easiest job I ever had. Really. Most of the time I just sit and look out the window. When I'm not sitting I hop down and take off hiking a 6000+ foot train on uneven, loose, ankle-twisting gravel strewn with sticks, mud, glass, old spikes and pieces of steel rail. There are living obstacles as well. Snakes, possums, and rats. Hobos sneaking up on me to bum a smoke at 3 am. and pissed off motorists who want to know why my train is,
A: blocking their preferred route to work, or,
B: blocking their preferred route home from the bar. (depending on the time of day.)

Riding in a locomotive is something many little boys dream of doing. I guess I am living the dream. Bad news, locomotives have steel wheels that roll on steel rail so it is neither smooth nor quiet. And they aren't always so fresh smelling either.
A lot of people don't know that we have toilet facilities on our engines. Good news, most every railroad yard has a dump station and a crew to clean and maintain those toilets. Bad news, the crews usually don't have time for that so called non-essential portion of their job. What we get after a couple of weeks of sitting in the hot sun is something I call eau-du-funk! No big deal though, remember it's only for 10 hours or so. Hey if it gets too bad you can file a grievance with your union rep. He will help you fill out a penalty time slip, ensuring that you are compensated for your unwarranted misery. Then all you have to do is sit and wait, for a monkey to fly out of your ass eating a cheese sandwich. (He hands out the penalty checks.)

If you still think the job is for you, come on out and I will teach you everything I know. Maybe we will even have some fun doing it. If not, you should stay in school, study hard and hope the recession ends soon. Either way, remember, the next time you are blocked by a train try not to be angry with me. I would really much rather be rolling down the rails bored to death, contemplating my next blogger post.
Uh-oh there's the phone. Time for another run!

Ok, I Get It!

So sorry about my last post. ["So What, I Have Other Ideas"] Apparently it sucked. If you recall from my first ever blogger post, I said I wasn't a writer. Here's the problem, Now that I have had a crappy review, my bruised ego will undoubtedly need some stroking. This will be a tough time for me, and for any of you who are still reading. I will probably try to be extra funny and entertaining for awhile, like the guy at your dinner party who wasn't on the guest list till he overheard you ordering a six foot sub. I know, and I apologize in advance for the next three or four posts.
Come on now, it isnt like you never read a bad post before, just hang in there for awhile. They will get better I promise. And if any of you write a bad post I will continue to read them. I do it because I care.

So What, I Have Other Ideas!

I was reading some blogs today. There are some funny-ass writers out there. I would like to think that I could hang with this crowd. I think maybe I could in real life, but writing? No way. I'm outclassed by a mile. Ok, you all hear that? You're funnier than me!

That being said I am considering changing my genre. GENRE, smartypants, not GENDER!

Maybe I will write an ongoing mystery blog, (idea stealers take note) a kind of whodunnit. I could use other bloggers as my characters, their locations and little blog specific tidbits of information would almost certainly guarantee readership. Who wouldn't want to know if they were cast as a villian or a hero? Pretty solid idea I think. If any of you like it, lemme know.

Or perhaps I could try my hand at serious writing, I mean as serious as you can get in a couple of paragraphs. (like I'm really going to start using proper punctuation!)

There is always poetry. But I never found a word that rhymed with orange so eventually I would screw it up with some Dr. Seuss like words.

I could cast myself as a cyber action hero zooming around in the vastness of the world wide web doing good deeds and saving cyber-chicks from almost certain deletion after being mercilessly thrown into the deadly recycle bin by horny teenagers whose Mom just walked in to see how their homework was going. I'm really sorry for that last sentence. I realized it was too long but I wanted to get the entire thought in it.

How about a photo blog? Is that even an acceptable blogging medium? How many pictures of my cat do you think you could stand? I am new so I don't fully understand the rules yet.

(Oh, I have to tell you all that based on an episode of Mad Men that is on tv right now, I do not recommend running a riding lawnmower inside a crowded office. Wow.)
Sorry, short attention span.

Is That Your Dog?

I was riding in a cab today, past a familiar corner and noticed that the panhandler who was normally there had been replaced by a new younger panhandler. Thats odd, I thought, and for a moment I actually wondered what may have happened to the old guy with the sweet dreads who usually stood there. Then it occured to me that it was Saturday. "Well, it must be the regular guy's day off" I said. I used to feel bad about driving by "homeless" people on the road. After talking to a few of these people and some people who were previously homeless I don't feel so bad about it anymore. Take for instance the regular guy on the corner of Front St. near the casino. He has 2 vans that he drives to (work?) on different days he chooses which van to drive. On the other end of the same street there are several panhandlers that work as a group. Kind of a beggars union I think. They have shifts to work. I was curious about the amount of loot these people were pulling in each day. I don't know if it's true or not but I was told the Front Street @ I-435 crew was raking in $200-$300 per day!! Thats some pretty serious loot. Granted they have expenses, They have a wheelchair to maintain, and beer and cigarettes to buy, and from time to time they have to reprint their "Hungry anything helps God Bless" sign. All of which they share. One day we stopped and visited with one of the men there, as a friend of mine who is a habitual do-gooder had tried to hook him up with a job, and the man said he had quit the job after 1/2 a day because the business owner had only wanted to pay him $50 a day. Hmm lemme see regular hours, inside work, and very little chance of someone running over your drunken ass in traffic. Sounded pretty good to me. But there were other things to consider, like not being able to show up for work trashed on beer or crack, and not being able to bring my dog to work with me. What is it with homeless people and dogs? I don't want to give readers the wrong impression, I am sympathetic to the plight of real homeless people. The people I am referring to in this post are homeless by choice. They choose to hang out on street corners and beg because it is easier than getting a real job and following the rules that govern a civilized society. It is almost like a career choice and if it works for them, who am I to judge. If you are in doubt of a panhandlers needs, try offering him/her a cheese burger, I have found it usually just pisses them off. Their dog however will almost always smile a little. I wonder if he even knows he's homeless?

Unreal

Reality tv. I'm positive there have been thousands of blogs about so called reality tv shows so I must be in good company. There is not much real about reality tv. Maybe I am missing the big picture. Lately I was fortunate enough to watch a show that followed a young woman as she picked a husband from several candidates. What a hoot! Lets put you up in a beautiful home, get a dozen or so guy's with good enough jobs that they can be away from those jobs for a couple months without getting fired, and send you on several sweet, once in a lifetime romantic vacations all over the world. Don't worry we will pick up the tab! Come on now, this show is killing men at home. Some of us who live in the real world with jobs and kids and bills to pay are getting bashed for not being romantic enough. Would I like to run off to Spain with my wife for a date? Sure I would, my company wouldn't like it one bit and neither would the mortgage company holding the note on my house. "OH yes, we had a lovely time in Spain but now we are unemployed and homeless. Here's a t-shirt, can we move in for awhile?" Another one of my favorites involves a loud mouth chef who verbally abuses the contestants on his show. I just once would like to see someone punch that chef right in the mouth, and then say "Hey Chef, you can taste my dish when the swelling goes down around your lips" Thats reality. Oh there is another show on that followed a man looking for a wife from several candidates. "What? Already done that? No problem we will change it up a bit, lets make all the candidates 300 pounders with unimaginably low self esteem! Oh and every chance we get, show them in bathing suits or eating!" Some reality shows are just too stupid to warrant my watching them. How about the one that puts several people inside a makebelieve house inside a studio and watches them. How is that tv worthy? I bet a bunch of us grew up in homes with several people who had different personalities, argued , formed alliances for particular events, bullied one another and talked behind each others backs. Wheres my 500 grand? What could they possibly come up with next? I haven't seen a show with a live feed from the inside of someones ass during a colonoscopy. Cable networks are you listening?

Egg Salad

AGGHHH, What I wouldnt give to have an assistant or a sidekick to help me through rough patches in my world. I have an unusually short attention span that makes doing anything computer or technology related really tough. Today I went to facebook, now I can't remember why, and there was a note on my screen advising me to upgrade my internet explorer. Small headache begins. So off I go to download the latest and greatest IE stuff thinking it will take maybe 30 seconds or so to finish. Oh heck no, I sat here in front of this box for a few minutes and decided I was hungry. Went to make tea and checked back. Still updating! Headache getting worse. Went out again to see what I could find to eat...hmm 4 eggs, egg salad sammich! Put eggs on to boil and checked back on download process. Hooray it's done! Wait a minute, must restart computer? Full blown headache! Was re starting enough? oh no, now they want me to answer questions! They never offer "I Don't Care" when they give you the multiple choice stuff. I just want a circle to click that says, "I am satisfied with the way my computer worked yesterday, and prefer to have it that way again." You see, I don't feel like I have time to fiddle around on the computer. My facebook friends have games and polls and farmtown and mafia wars, and on and on. Where do they find the time for all that stuff? Maybe I watch too much tv? It could be that there is a battle going on between tv and computers. Which one is better? Or, which one is worse? I think right now the computers have the upper hand. Television shows are really starting to get weak and thus are feeding the wave of new computer people. Meanwhile the computer stuff is getting harder to understand for old guys like me so we are getting screwed both ways. It's a conspiracy.
You think 45 minutes is long enough to hard boil 4 eggs? Oh crap, I hope I have mayo!

What is blogging?

I was wondering to myself last night, What is blogging? Are bloggers writers? Well sort of I guess. So since I blog could I write a book? Probably not. Too many pages too many different characters and situations and there's no way I could focus long enough to finish a whole book. One of my favorite writers is Lee Child. He writes books about a character named Jack Reacher. Very cool guy, tough, always around when trouble needs a place to happen. Where do these characters come from and how do the situations and story lines evolve? It truly is a gift to be able to write a whole book. Nope, I just don't see it in my future but you never know. I will continue to blog because I like to write things down and share thoughts but I am borderline attention deficit disordered I think. I only go a little way with a thought then I let it go, or it morphs into some other thought sometimes totally unrelated. I'm ok with it though. Look at the free time I have. My friend wrote a book once, got it published, and is quite famous, well semi-famous, well I think she is cool. The time and effort that she put into her book blew me away. And she got it right too, her book is really good. I got a little sneak peek at it before publishing, which was kind of neat, I suppose that is what working for the newspaper feels like. You just want to tell people "Oh wait till you read this!" Kind of like the upper hand or an ace in the hole. I know something you don't know! If she is reading this post THANK YOU !! I bought a copy of the book even though I had already read it. I will be expecting her to do the same if I ever get published. Really I need the $7.99 Oh all right $1.99 on the clearance rack, behind the three month old tv guides. Why would they keep tv guides 3 months? Duh, for the crossword puzzles! Theres an idea for me, If I were to put some crossword puzzles and word searches and sudoku's in my book, I would appeal to a wider fan base. Maybe even some pictures for little kids to color in, I could do a deal with a crayon company to include those little packages of crayons that you get at restaurants to color in the placemats. (Don't pretend you never did it!) And my book could be in several different shelves in the book store. I'm a freakin marketing genius, or not, it remains to be seen. I have noticed lately that I am shamelessly begging people to read and follow my blog, I'm not exactly sure why. It was originally just for me and maybe a handful of others and I didn't care if anyone read it or not. Is this normal? Do other bloggers want blog-groupies, or would blog fans be a better statement? Hmm, interesting.

Experts

How many of us can call ourselves "experts"? What does it even mean to be an expert at something? If you look up expert in a dictionary it says "a person who has a special skill or knowlege in some particular field; specialist; authority." A special skill...lemme see, ooh I can clap with one hand. Once I saw a guy on late night tv stop a fan with his tongue. My cat sometimes gives me high fives. All these skills are special, but I don't think me or the nut job with his face in the fan or even my cat are what you might call experts. How about knowlege in some particular field... Okee dokee I know that yellow and blue make green, the fan guy knows that to stop the fan without getting your face shaved up like a deli ham you must go at it from the front, and my cat has the knowlege that if he bothers me long enough I will pet/feed/change litterbox. Now we have special skills and knowlege in some particular field and still I doubt we will ever be recognized as experts. Authority, ok given by whom exactly? Police officers are recognized as the authority in most civilized communities but are they experts? I doubt if they would catagorize themselves as experts. So where on earth do all the experts come from? And who the heck are "THE EXPERTS" Maybe there are only like 7 experts in the world and every time someone needs an expert opinion they call out the expert squad. I need their number. Everyone else has the number why don't I? Check the paper, "experts say....blah blah blah" Same thing on the news and the radio and talk shows etc...! Everywhere you look the experts are giving information to wealthy companies, and even governments....Hold it, I may be on to something here. If I had a product, or an idea that I wanted to sell to the general public I would need an expert to vouch for me. Thats it, the more loot I was willing to dole out, the more expert opinions I could buy. I think I will try my idea on a small scale just to see if I'm really on the right track here. If I wanted to sell beer I might ask myself who's a beer expert? I know, the 3 guys living in their car down by the tracks. They should be expert enough. they drink all the time and when they aren't drinking they are walking around picking up...wait for it....BEER CANS! Wow these 3 must be the ultimate authority on beer. So lets just say I needed their expert opinion on my beer, I would give them some to try, free of course, and come back later to ask them if they liked it. Next day I could make a commercial with other, different, more beautiful people saying that my beer was judged by THE EXPERTS to be one of the finest beers in the land. Im fairly certain it would work. My point here I think is, why let someone else tell you whats good, or fair, or economically sound? Lets be our own experts for awhile and see how they like that!

uh oh!

I have been spending a ton of time at the hospital. Each morning we rush around to beat the KC traffic jam only to find there are almost no parking places left in the garage at KU. Now I suppose this garage is pretty much standard for parking garages nationwide. 5 floors high, concrete, kind of dark, etc... My question is, why do they make the parking spots soooo narrow? Ok money right? Right. But really there needs to be a standard width of a parking space. Recently the cost for validated parking went from $1 up to $2. Thats a 100% markup. Imagine if a gallon of milk went up to $7 tomorrow? Yeah that would suck. Wonder if I could put tap water on my Cap'n Crunch? Eww! I guess if we all drove Mini Coopers, or VW bugs it would be ok, but thats not the way it is. Here's the deal though, I would gladly pay $3 for parking if I had an extra foot of parking width. Really I would. Something funny happened this morning when I was parking. My wife was carrying on about "Hey can you park farther away from that explorer, I don't want my door scratched!" She was referring to the vehicle on my side of our car. I told her, "Oh, theres plenty of room." To this she replied, "I don't want some fat-ass trying to squeeze into her car and scratch my door all up!" Now keep in mind that my window was down as it was a cool fall morning, and I said to my wife..."she's sitting right there why don't you tell her yourself?"...Sure enough there in the explorer sat a woman, hopefully so into her own thoughts that she wasn't paying attention to what was going on in the little car next door! Guess we will find out when we get back to the garage huh. UH OH better get maaco.

Buzzzz

Ok, today may not be a funny entry. Just thinking about something. I am hanging out in the hospital today.( A little background... My son is in the hospital with a very serious illness called HLH. He has been hospitalized pretty much constantly since the middle of May.) If you have ever spent time visiting someone in the hospital you probably already know that there is NOTHING TO DO AT A HOSPITAL. It is crazy boring here. I was just sitting here thinking about it a minute ago and it shouldn't be boring at all. It is 11:30 am. and we have already seen 3 doctors, a nurse practitioner, 2 nurses and the housekeeping staff. We have done a chest x-ray, a blood transfusion, breathing exercises, meds. changes, and consultations. This place is a freakin beehive of activity. It has patients, doctors, nurses, visitors, cleaning staff, transport staff, food sevice staff, and more! How could it possibly be so boring? So I tried to think like a bee..I am pretty good at having a buzz...(ok thats pretty weak.) It would be way entertaining to be in a beehive, provided you were a bee. If however you are a human you better just watch from the sidelines. You get in the way, you may get stung. there are protocols, and charts, and rounds to do... Very much like being in a beehive environment I think.

Healthcare

I watch television pretty regularly and the same thing seems to be dominating the airwaves day after day, healthcare reform. I have watched and watched and it seems there can be no agreeing on a plan that works for everyone. Senators, congressmen and women, and Presidents. Doctors, patients, and pharmaceutical companies. I figured the only way I was ever going to get something new to watch was for me to solve the problem myself! Guess what? I did it. In all my awesomness, I have come up with a win/win plan for healthcare reform. You gotta start with the problem, money. The doctors and hospitals and drug companies all want a boatload of cash.
So, I have decided that insurance companies should only pay doctors and hospitals minimum wage. If a doctor feels that 10 yrs. and $250,00 for college is worth more than minimum wage, he should seek corporate sponsorship. Thats right, beer and soda companies, big tobacco, giant hardware and building supply companies, and even some drug manufacturers would probably be willing to dole out some green for nothing more than a colorful patch, sewn onto a lab coat. I am fairly sure my plan works and heres why, NASCAR. Yep, just watch a nascar race and look at all those corporate sponsors. These companies are putting out some real serious money hoping that their car will win the race and get some press coverage. Look at it this way, insurance rates for you and me go down due to not having to pay out so much loot. Doctors get to keep their crazy high salaries because any company that can pay for a race car has plenty of extra cash to throw around. Lastly the doctors will try so much harder to heal patients in the hopes of sweeter sponsorships, think of it as a lived/died ratio. Other winners in my plan include garment manufacturers, new lab coats with each satisfied customer, not to mention how much nicer the doctors will look with their new colorful outfits. Another benefit to my plan is, repeat business for the docs. Say they are sponsored by a cigarette manufacturer, their patients see the pretty patches on the lab coat and bam, now they smoke! Repeat business. A drug and alcohol abuse clinic could have beer signs all over the office. There's really no end to to the possibilities. I like the plan and maybe the nicest part of all is the cost to our government...ZERO DOLLARS! As with any new idea there will undoubtedly be some critics. Thats too bad and to those critics i say think about the last time you had the tv on, did you see any commercials advertising drugs? drugs for depression, insomnia, and even some "help I've aged and I cant get it up" drugs. That airtime isn't free. Give the loot to the docs and let them leave my insurance company alone! I think this plan just might work!

BIG TROUBLE

Did you ever think about the stuff your parents told you growing up? Really, what would happen if Mom or Dad were to ever "have enough"? I remember getting several whacks growing up because the folks had "just about enough". So what would they do if they got to the point of, "ok now I have had enough!" A simple whack on the ass surely wouldn't suffice, no sir you have somthing special and terrible coming. It wouldn't be like it came without warning though, trust me my folks pretty much always were on the edge of just about enough. I heard it so many times I thought it was a mantra of some sort. Hey what if you were to do something really bad and you skipped a step in the enough chain? Say for instance you went directly from "just about enough" right to "ok thats too much". Ugh I shudder to think! And whats the deal with "BIG TROUBLE"? I noticed I was often in trouble but I don't recall ever being in big trouble. You can't just do something dumb and be in big trouble, big trouble has to be sort of pre-approved. ie: If you keep that up... you're gonna be in big trouble! Big trouble seems like it always carried some phantom punishment so terrible it couldn't be discussed in the light of day. Like the mere mention of it would bend time and space and leave mankind in a devastated state. BIG TROUBLE!! No thanks, I'm sticking with just about enough!

Shopping

I had to go shopping yesterday. Yes I know, scary! I was home alone, and getting hungry so I figured I would go grocery shopping. Now, I don't mind going to the store to pick up a single item or two. I'm perfectly ok stopping in for a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, no problem. The trouble starts when I realize I am buying food for a few days. The superstore I go to is a pretty intimidating place with all its people and colors and sounds... The fact is when it comes to shopping I am kind of a wuss. My wife usually does all the shopping, but she is out of town for awhile and so I am on my own. I noticed that there were few if any men there besides me who were alone and shopping, I figured out why. We need someone to shop with us! It is important to be able to ask for opinions while shopping. (Hey, you want cherry jello or orange? I hear lime is nice too!) I wonder if my wife gets all weirded out at the store like I do? Probably not, she is an experienced shopper. The answer may be for grocery stores to go the route of higher end department stores. The personal shopper! It would be great to be able to grab a helper on my next shopping venture. They could station them right there by the front door near the shopping carts. I guess you might even call them a shopping escort. Just someone to walk around with in the store so you never have to make awkward eye contact, or strained conversation with someone in the way of your tomato paste. You could say to your escort, "Hey, grab me some tomato paste please". It might even be a blessing to the grocer as the escorts could be trained to nudge the shoppers gently toward the products with the most profit margins. Honestly the service would pay for itself. Lets face it when some hottie says "Eww I never use generic charcoal, you should get the Kingsford!" youre gonna get the Kingsford! who cares its a little higher in price, your going to ask this chick over for a barbecue in like....never! She's way outta your league and your wife would kill you. So grocers of the world take note, offer your consumers what they really want, shopping escorts! And if youre wondering, I went with black cherry jello!

Secrets!

I guess today would be as good a day as any to reveal a secret. We all keep some secrets probably because thats all we can really have that is ours and ours alone. Unless we decide to share them, our secrets are our own personal property, almost tangible sometimes. Some people get giddy as soon as they get a secret, like HAH, I have a secret and it's mine, mine, mine! These are the people you see in the world with that funny look on their face and that crazy body language that lets everyone who sees them know, hey that guy has a secret! So whats the first thing you do when you see someone with a secret? You try to figure out what their secret is! In a way you are trying to steal their secret! Therein lies the problem, if you do manage to steal someones secret, guess what?...thats right, its no longer a secret! So you end up with pretty much nothing of value. You plot and scheme and the prize falls short. Great, what a waste of time. Secrets can be shared however, yes you and a good friend can share a secret and both get that stupid look and body language but it has to be done properly. You have to do a lot of verbal contracting, pinkie swearing and dancing around the subject before a secret can be passed on. You surely remember the contract from grade school..."cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!" Yeah its serious business this secret sharing stuff, don't screw it up! So that being said, needle in the eye contract binding to all parties forthwith, blah blah blah... my secret is that im secretly enjoying this blogging stuff and I have a co-writer. He is known as 'His Majesty The Cat' He's cool, he proofreads all my blogs and has in the past been known to type some words on his own. He types in cat language though so humans probably can't understand what he is writing. Here is his addition to todays blog, if you have a cat, let him/her look at the screen, Oh I think they will like what he has to say...bcv
kol'/ Nmn GHBl;.,yjhum p;['/10023/.;.
....ok guess he is done, must be funny he is laughing his ass off, hope you are too!!

Caterpillars

So today I took a drive and was surprised to see a bunch of caterpillars on and about the hiway. When I say a bunch I mean in the neighborhood of 100 or so. Thats a lot of bugs. They werent remarkable in their appearance, mostly black and fuzzy and around 2-3 inches long. What was remarkable was their activity. All the caterpillars I seen today were crossing the hiway. Now I had to ask myself why? First guess ...food. Im not an entomologist(?) or any kind of behavioral scientist so i'm just making guesses here. Caterpillars, I believe, eat plants and leaves and there seemed to be plenty of foliage on both sides of the hiway so i scratched food. Next guess...confusion. Maybe caterpillars just cruise around with no real direction looking for stuff to see and things to do? Except...none of the caterpillars were going up or down the hiway they were all going across it. Scratched confusion they clearly had their tiny minds made up. Guess #3... biological hazards on one side of the hiway. I thought perhaps some evil farmer who wanted to keep his crops intact and saleable had sprayed his fields with anti-caterpillar spray...nope, there were caterpillars crossing from both sides of the hiway...bio-hazard scratched! Then I began to think like a caterpillar (sidenote, I am fairly fuzzy). Why on earth would I, as a 3 inch bug with a top speed of maybe 20 ft. per minute, attempt to cross a busy 4 lane hiway with cars and trucks blazing by at 70+ mph threatening at any moment to make me a SPLATTERPILLAR? Then it came to me... these are probably all male caterpillars in search of some fuzzy lovin! Hey we have all done some crazy stuff in the hope of scoring some snuggle time with the opposite sex right? Which makes me wonder, are we so different than our fuzzy neighbors the caterpillar? I think not. Im off to eat a leaf and see the world from the other side. Please dont run over me.

Whats wrong with you?

Ok, I am not a writer as will soon become painfully obvious to any readers of this hodge-podge of nonsense. Often I completely blow off silly things like spell checks, and punctuation. There will most likely only be myself and one other person reading this and she already knows me and thus will not be surprised by my sad attempts at putting ideas into readable text. The reasons for this blogs existence are not many, 1. I currently have a lot of spare time, and 2. my texting doesnt allow enough characters per message so my stories are all broken up and stupid when recieved by friends. The screenplay was originally thought up by a family friend, I will call her 'Mary'. She is actually writing a screenplay and was bouncing ideas off me one night. Much to her dismay I started rambling on about foolish things that I feel are funny. Her screenplay is a comedy involving men who are in her mind relationship challenged. OK so we begin discussing what makes a profitable comedy movie? First it has to be funny. I know, it seems easy enough but how many times have you rented a movie thinking i was a comedy and got it home only to discover your $ would have been better spent on a six pack, or some pot, or whatever it is that makes your day better? Hey don't be embarrased, we have all been ripped off at the video store. You know though, the checkout person at the video store probably knew it was a crappy movie, but let you rent it anyway! For this reason I recommend stopping at every video store you see. Really, just pop your head in the door and verbally abuse the people at the counter for 1 hour and 42 minutes, or till the police get there. Anyway there will be different little stories, mostly made up, some true but embellished to the point of total made-upped-ness, and some so wacky you will swear I am self medicating. If you are lucky (?) enough to stumble onto this blog I hope you enjoy it, if not, too bad. I am using it to relay messages to my friend 'mary' so she can put funny stuff in her movie!