Two of the unlikliest suspects insist on promoting themselves as insane, and I want to know why. How many commercials air for "Crazy Charlie's" or "Wacky Wayne's" used car lot? And how many fireworks stands are operated by "Twisted Ted" or "Slippery Fuse Jackson" or "Weird Willy Boom Boom McBroome"?
Car dealers and firework shops? Really? There are some professions I could see operating out of poor mental health. Rodeo clowns, trapeze artists and daredevils immediately come to mind, mostly because participating in such activities shows in itself--at a minimum--a propensity or inclination toward being unfit for society.
But car dealers and firework sellers, these people must maintain some working level of cognizance. Otherwise bystanders get hurt. I do not want my car bought from or serviced by the Wacko Jacko Auto Mall, where the deals are so good they must be lower level primates. And I do not want my or my neighbor's fireworks coming from the Loopy Rocket Emporium, regardless of whether the inventory is so huge it promises, literally, to blow my mind.
Call me crazy.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Tagged
You want oddity, quirkiness, cause for concern? You got it.
The only secret I keep from people is a self-daignosed condition affectionately termed “the evens.” Symptoms are an insatiable need for having everything balanced between right and left in even numbers, from stepping across hash marks on a football field to eating with both sides of my mouth to the way air conditioning blows against my ear.
I hate to purchase anything. Any monetary transaction is to be avoided like the plague. Even at the grocery store, if the cost is more than $40, Anna has to pay while I stand beyond eyesight of the register.
I write songs celebrating or making fun of people, sometimes at the same time. “Hey Jukes,” “Meisy P” and the COW trilogy are but a few examples, as are the songs I wrote for my sister’s birthday, my wedding dance, my first anniversary and two songs—in the event of having either a boy or a girl—for the new baby.
I hate ice. I hate everything about it.
I always count stairs. No matter if there are hundreds, or if I have counted the same stairs already. Every time I take them, I count. At my parents’ house, for instance, there is a set of eight and another set of six, which I have counted probably a few thousand times in my life.
Until embarking on my current profession, I all but refused to use a telephone. I hate telephones almost as much as ice and transactions.
I believe everything I say. I say I have never flirted because, well, it’s true. For the same reason I say I am not concerned with what others think of me. I will never be past the possibility of being wrong, but never too accomodating to say otherwise.
The only secret I keep from people is a self-daignosed condition affectionately termed “the evens.” Symptoms are an insatiable need for having everything balanced between right and left in even numbers, from stepping across hash marks on a football field to eating with both sides of my mouth to the way air conditioning blows against my ear.
I hate to purchase anything. Any monetary transaction is to be avoided like the plague. Even at the grocery store, if the cost is more than $40, Anna has to pay while I stand beyond eyesight of the register.
I write songs celebrating or making fun of people, sometimes at the same time. “Hey Jukes,” “Meisy P” and the COW trilogy are but a few examples, as are the songs I wrote for my sister’s birthday, my wedding dance, my first anniversary and two songs—in the event of having either a boy or a girl—for the new baby.
I hate ice. I hate everything about it.
I always count stairs. No matter if there are hundreds, or if I have counted the same stairs already. Every time I take them, I count. At my parents’ house, for instance, there is a set of eight and another set of six, which I have counted probably a few thousand times in my life.
Until embarking on my current profession, I all but refused to use a telephone. I hate telephones almost as much as ice and transactions.
I believe everything I say. I say I have never flirted because, well, it’s true. For the same reason I say I am not concerned with what others think of me. I will never be past the possibility of being wrong, but never too accomodating to say otherwise.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Primary View
Want my vote? Come and get it.
Politics are useful enough, but I would give all the thumb waving and podium thumping ever mine to give for one candidate who might actually promise, let alone accomplish, something useful. Consider this platform.
From here forward, by federal law and its full range of punishments, no person shall ever be able to ask the first question that comes to mind. The second question is fine, as is the third or any subsequent question. But the first shall be forever banned.
Imagine the possibilities. No newspaper reporter would hate the virgin moments of each new encounter because that dreaded question--"so how long have you been at the paper"--would never come to sound. A teacher would not be asked each fall how her students are. No one would have to lie to minor acquaintances by responding coyly, "fine."
How much more interesting would this world be if people asked questions of others that required actual thought? Perhaps then the answers would follow suit. And an entire existence known as humanity would find itself in a place public policy, reform and promised idealism could never naturally take it--among the intriguing.
Politics are useful enough, but I would give all the thumb waving and podium thumping ever mine to give for one candidate who might actually promise, let alone accomplish, something useful. Consider this platform.
From here forward, by federal law and its full range of punishments, no person shall ever be able to ask the first question that comes to mind. The second question is fine, as is the third or any subsequent question. But the first shall be forever banned.
Imagine the possibilities. No newspaper reporter would hate the virgin moments of each new encounter because that dreaded question--"so how long have you been at the paper"--would never come to sound. A teacher would not be asked each fall how her students are. No one would have to lie to minor acquaintances by responding coyly, "fine."
How much more interesting would this world be if people asked questions of others that required actual thought? Perhaps then the answers would follow suit. And an entire existence known as humanity would find itself in a place public policy, reform and promised idealism could never naturally take it--among the intriguing.
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