Sunday, July 27, 2003
So Tracy sez, "am i the only person that can't help but think of underwater farting every time the title seabiscuit is mentioned...?"
And now that I think of "underwater farting," I find myself thinking of formal activities like "underwater photography" and "underwater polo." So of course I can't help but picture "underwater farting" as a group, team, or perhaps even competition event practiced by people in wetsuits who have loaded up on massive amounts of legumes and dairy protein. The question is, do their suits have a special trap door in the back, like old-fashioned pyjamas? Or do their rubber wetsuits just expand like balloons? Perhaps that's the object: first wetsuit to explode wins.
~
"TAG"-team, eh? ;-)
7/27/2003 05:56:00 PM
Monday, July 14, 2003
Shane Nil, Monday Morning 1
My car got in an accident this morning. Not me, just my car. It didn't have the decency to wait until I was driving it.
I had turned the motor on to warm up then gone back into the house when the car slipped out of Park into Neutral. The driveway has only a short, shallow incline, but that was somehow magically enough to give my car enough coasting velocity to travel 100 meters, crossing the road and two lawns to ding! my neighbor's two-door Honda. This despite the fact that the last half of its journey was uphill and on uneven ground that should have slowed it down.
My Luck breaks the Laws of Physics, and I pay the fines.
I walked out just in time to see the last 15 feet of my possessed vehicle's mad dash to freedom, just in time to feel completely helpless, just in time to think, Please -- PLEASE! -- slow down JUST A LITTLE MORE! DONT HIT THAT HONDA!
Crunch!
Cars never listen.
My neighbors were nice about it. I had never met them before.
"Hullo, Joe! Good morning, Liz! I'm Shane! Goodta meetcha!
...um, sorry to wake you up like this..."
They called the police. Liz suggested they not bother, but Joe said they had to, so I said, "It's no problem, call the cops. It's always a good idea. And you don't know me that well." Joe looked visibly guilty when I said that, which convinced me he's probably not such a bad guy. Kinda makes me feel good, believing in my fellow humankind and all, just once in a while.
The cop looked annoyed. I mean, who the hell do you cite when no one is driving the vehicle? Gotta cite someone. Isn't that some kind of cop rule? My opinion: You Cite No One. But I'm obviously biased. And I love No One. No One is always just the most brilliant bastard for taking the blame.
In the end, the cop really did cite No One. It was Monday morning and he was confused and he took the easy way out with just a simple accident report. Another nice guy! A regular philanthropist.
Liz told me she had had a similar experience when she was younger, but the cop did cite her. He gave her a ticket for "improper backing" or somesuch-b.s. So I guess I got off easy. Of course, her accident had been more dramatic than mine and had convinced the local gendarmes they needed to assign blame to someone. Someone other than No One, I guess.
I got off easier than Liz in many ways. She had parked a manual-transmission Toyota on a sloping driveway in neutral with the parking brake on. The parking brake gave out and the car rolled into the street directly at an oncoming vehicle. The other car swerved, hit a tree . . . and then Liz's Toyota nailed it.
Yup. Liz has my kind of luck. I knew there was something I liked about her right away.
I still somehow made it to work before 9:00 and immediately wished I'd gone out for a cappuccino to calm down. Sure, the experience had been over too quickly to really affect me. And I hadn't even been in the car, so the physical shock of impact that jars your nerves and disturbs your subconscious was missing. But, never underestimate the horror of being forced to watch helplessly.
PLEASE DON'T HIT THE HONDA! Okay, right, we covered that already.
My boss got a good chuckle out of the story. I noticed he was a little concerned, too, as if he'd finally figured out that I really do have strange luck. He should already have known this from the last adventure I had, the time I got a busted without even driving the car, sitting in a park on my lunch hour reading Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories on a sunny day.
Sure, my licence plate tags had been faked, my plates belonged to another car, my driver's license was expired, and I had no insurance . . . but I was just sitting there all innocent-like, reading and occasionally pausing to sniff the summer breeze. And my car looked perfectly fine. Only the most anal-retentive, nitpicking Law Enforcement Officer would ever have noticed anything. Why, a cop, especially a cop with a life, would never have paid any attention at all...
So it was a Park Ranger who nabbed me. An overzealous woman-in-uniform who probably needed some feathers in her Girl Scout, I mean Park Ranger, cap. She was probably bucking for a raise or a promotion: her sensitive suspicions were aroused by the fact that I had my license plate duct-taped in the rear window rather than properly and prettily bolted above the bumper.
Obviously anyone who flouts authority so blatantly with (*cue dramatic music*) DUCT TAPE! ...must obviously be a drug-addled mass-murderer hiding out in a stolen vehicle in the local Metropark. Better investigate!
*Sigh*
Only in Ohio...
So the car was towed and I spent the rest of the day in a Ranger's station being booked by someone who was probably writing her very first ticket. God knows it took her long enough. Hours. Then again, she was a little miffed at the fact that my creatively-altered tag had somehow disappeared from my license plate when I opened the back hatch of the car to, um... get my registration... or something. Heh. She could only get me for misuse of plates instead of forgery, which I suppose is technically a felony. Wouldn't that have been a feather in her huge Smokey-the-Bear-cap (which looked comically oversized on her 5-foot frame, as if she were a small child in a Hallowe'en costume impersonating an officer. I guess they just don't make those hats in XXXSmall, although her pants did appear to be XXXWide. Yes, Officer Dudley-Do-Good, I hope you're reading this, though I know you're not. )
I still have that license plate tag. It's my good luck charm. Heh, right. "Good luck." My kinda good luck, that is.
Anyway, at least I didn't get cuffed. Not this time. But that other time(s) is another story, one that was well-worth the experience for the insights I gained.
After all that fuss by the World's Most Diligent Park Ranger, the judge who fined me could hardly be bothered. He had a courtroom full of domestics and driving-while-suspended repeat-offenses and annoying small claims and petty thefts and, well . . . I got the feeling he was maybe a bit of a racist, too, or at least a stereotyper. I was the only well-dressed white guy in that courtroom, and I was in-and-out in ten minutes. Not that I'm complaining. Wait, yes, I am complaining. Obviously I'm in a complaining mood to begin with, but I'd feel a helluva lot better about the society I live in if he'd've fined my ass off like everyone else's. On the other hand, my faith in America, its laws and its justice system were damaged irreparably ages ago. May as well just fine me next-to-nothing and confirm my cynicism. It's better for my poor skinny wallet, too.
When it really comes down to it, though, Life only smacks me in the face when I need it. I've been way too angry, short-tempered and self-pitying lately, even though I've had things far easier than ever before. Isn't that how it goes? How quickly we become spoiled. A bloody nose on the playground of Life's School only makes me realize how good I really have it. Don't ask me why. It just does.
Oh, and if anything in this post should somehow come back to incriminate me at a later date: It was all just fiction. But if not, then it was all fact. Because, you know something?: Sometimes that's just how fiction works.
~
7/14/2003 09:16:00 PM
