Where were you?
8 years ago we watched as the twin towers crumbled in NYC. Each anniversary I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard that airplanes had flown into the towers. If you think about it, it’s funny that such a traumatic event I was merely watching on TV made my mind focus enough to remember the details of my surroundings. Unlike those in NYC and Washington, I was in no immediate danger, so I find it curious that vividly recall these little details. Hell, I even remember the underroo’s I was wearing.
I had agreed to pick up a friend and take him for a medical test that morning. I was sitting in the hospital waiting room and a TV played in the background while I browsed a magazine. I largely ignored the TV, until I noticed that doctors and nurses had started to appear in the waiting room and were all starting at the newscast. Live footage was being shown of the twin towers after the first plane had hit. All I could think was “what the hell happened?” As I sat and watched with these medical strangers we saw the second plane hit the towers. An elderly man who was sitting next to me in the waiting room, looked me dead in the eyes and said “you’re watching history, kid”. I was pretty much in shock and didn’t respond to him. I don’t think I took the meaning of his words so seriously until a few days later when it was clear this would be a defining moment for the U.S. I left the waiting room and went to find my friend so I could tell him what was going on. Like most other people, I spent the next week glued to the news reports.
No “Listen Lady’s” today. Tell me what you remember about that day. Can you still recall all the details?
Do you need a permit to wield that?
As I fought the throngs this morning to get to work I noticed a motorcycle pass me in the left lane. Normal motorcycle usage is relatively common in the area so it doesn’t usually strike me as odd. Except for this morning.
The motorcycle that passed had a metal baseball bat jimmy-rigged to the “bumper” of the crotch rocket. It was in perfect placement, sticking out to the right side, so that the rider could reach behind with one arm and take hold of the handle as though to wield it at other drivers like a machete. No lie. Listen Lady, I only WISH I could have gotten out my phone fast enough to take a picture.
I’m pretty sure that the bat-pod never came equipped with this devastating feature. The baseball bat stayed nice and sturdy, posed for attack, as the rider weaved in and out of cars. Which is pretty amazing considering the holster was made out of some bungee cords and duct tape. Interestingly, the rider had no other baseball equipment attached to his body or the motorcycle; in fact, he wore a suit and tie underneath his leather jacket. After this fiasco, I totally would have anticipated a homemade jockstrap flag.
Forget Hell’s Angels, there is a new brand of bad on the street. Watch out for the “BAT BITCHES”. Imagine the damage they could do to mailboxes and garden gnomes. It’s good to see that America’s favorite pastime is still alive and well.
Is this the newest way to road rage? Cause I’m totally a bad ass with a wiffle bat.
That will require a tourniquet.
Last week I spent my days in a training class for work, so my desk looked like it projectile voimted paper, post-it notes, and notepads. The volcanic eruption required a few minutes of my attention this morning to get things back to “normal” state for me; which is really only a version of semi-chaotic. In my attempt to clean/organize all these notes I went to grab a pile of paper and sure enough, I incurred a physical injury. PAPERCUT.
Commence arterial bleeding! I NEED A NURSE STAT! I quickly called the red cross to make sure they had a hefty supply of my blood type available. My forehead and hands were getting all clamy as I performed delicate surgery to cover the laceration and put pressure on the blood flow. No?
Ok, I exaggerate a little. Listen Lady, I was able to parse my hand back together with a kleenix and some scotch tape, but it’s more the actual thought of the papercut that drives me insane. I hate papercuts; despise them. I shutter just thinking about them and the way they have of slicing through delicate skin. It makes my skin crawl and I just want to assume the fetal position in a corner.
I react like a whacko on speed when I think about them. Imagine if you will, someone tells you that you have a spider crawling on your back and you proceed to flip out, start running around, and try to turn your body in a complete 360 degree fashion so that your flailing arms can shoosh this being away? Yea. That’s me. Only this occurs when I get a papercut. I could care less if a spider crawled on me.
And then there was that one time at band camp….
No, there really was that one time I was watching the movie Jackass and the guy VOLUNTARILY sat there while he received multiple papercuts between his fingers and toes. BETWEEN HIS TOES. I don’t think you are understanding the complexityof my reaction to this scene. I ran out of the movie theater. RAN. Like I was Usain Bolt vying for a world record ran. I dropped my ridiculously priced popcorn and made a beeline for the car where I continued to have the hibee-jibee’s for the next 5 years just thinking of this scene.
Every time I get a papercut now, I return to that nightmarish scene in the movie theater and have convulsions while I repair my wound.
That’s gonna leave a mark
The “ever-so-glamorous” city I live in decided that, after 60 years of highway repair, it was going to invest in ripping up a 7 mile stretch of our main highway and not only repaving, but relaying the entire foundation. Please note that this is only the main highway that connects one end of the city to the other. Thousands of people travel on this higway daily, so it makes TOTALLY LOGICAL SENSE TO DO YOUR WORK DURING RUSH HOUR. And this lovely renovation was going to take…oh…3 years, give or take about 15 months and 10,000 bumper to bumper accidents. Yes, you read that correctly. THREE YEARS OF ORANGE CONES.
As luck would have it (or lack of luck), I live on the west side of the city and drive through these orange beacons everyday as I work on the east side of the city. Rinse and repeat for the drive home. For 3 years I’ve been fighting the urge to drive head first into every orange cone that I see. After 3 years of sitting in backed up traffic, I would totally incur any damage to my vehicle just to drive into the damn cones. You so know that I would be the person who gets an orange cone stuck in their wheel well too.
Because of all this construction the highways have been reduced to one or two lanes. This leads for a massive pileup of cars as everybody has to funnel into one lane as their ass grows bigger from sitting so long in traffic. And I sit there and flip through radio stations at mock speed trying to find something to distract me from the people who will not let you merge. 
But, you want to know what really irks me. The thing that DRIVES ME INSANE. The shoulder lurkers. Everyone is sitting in traffic all trying to merge and out of nowhere this ball buster flys by you on the right shoulder in an attempt to pass the backup and merge into traffic ahead of everyone. OH NO YOU DIDN’. Are you really too above sitting in traffic like everyone else that you have to be a shoulder lurker and WHIP by me at a speed of 95 mph? Tell me you are at least shoulder lurking because you took a dump in your pants and now it’s uncomfortable? Listen Lady, unless you have flashing lights and a siren, that shoulder has not become your personal carpool lane.
So you know what I do? I’m the f’er that pulls my car WAY over to the right side and drives halfway in the lane and halfway on the shoulder so these lurkers cannot pass. AND BOY DOES IT EVER PISS THEM OFF. They pile up behind me and tail me to no end. They beep and flash their lights. (this in turn just makes me slow down even more). I even had a guy try to sneak in behind me and zigzag around my left side in attempt to get around me. Luckily the car in front of me saw this maneuver and came to a complete stop so the guy couldn’t pass, otherwise I was going to have to shoot Chinese stars out of my hubcaps. YES, I CAN REALLY DO THAT. I UPGRADED MY SUV PACKAGE.
But you know who the worst offenders are? (besides the old white hairs that lurk in the Cadillacs) MOTORCYCLES. Just because you are smaller than my car does not give you permission to whip in and out of lanes like you were a little sperm that has to reach the egg before all the others. I do not care about the speed of the crotch rocket underneath you; it is not an excuse to go all Evil Knievel.
Besides pissing off the rest of the traffic that you whiz by, let me tell you a little story to stop this ridiculous behavior. I warn you, it’s a little graphic, but points out the danger of the shoulder lurker. Once upon a time, a man decided to take his motorcycle to work one morning. Except he was running late, so he was speeding far too fast and there was lots of construction. To try to make up some time, he bypassed traffic and sped up the left shoulder. He accidentally lost control of the motorcyle on some gravel and was thrown onto the highway at an immense speed. Unfortunately for this man that was not the end of his injuries. The double-lane highway was divided by metal guardrails and he was thrown right into and split completely in half by the metal post of the guardrail.
See, shoulder lurking is bad. BAD. And that is totally going to leave a mark the next morning.
Commence Swelling
If you were to ask my friends to describe me in a couple words you would likely receive: Crazy and accident prone. While I have simmered since I got married and had a kid there are still the “occasional” accidents that slip through the cracks.
OK, maybe a little more than occasionally.
OK, maybe once a week I manage to injury some extremity on my body. HAPPY!
Once again, I’ve managed to sprain my ankle. I would like to tell you that I managed to do this jumping out of a plane or wrestling a crocodile. But in fact it’s far more embarrassing…I injured myself while playing Wii. Yes folks, that is correct. I managed to injury a part of my body by playing a video game. Point and mock. I deserve it. Now in all fairness I think this occurred while I was playing Wii Basketball, but the action is really irrelevant once you combine the words injury and video game system in one sentence.
Listen Lady, in my defense, it was a really intense game of basketball I was playing against myself. I guess it really shouldn’t come as a surprise as to how I injured myself. I mean you wouldn’t think that somebody would drop a couch on their head either. I, on the other hand, have already checked that off my bucket list. Don’t be jealous, it wasn’t as fun as it sounds.
I think from now on I’m only going to be allowed to play stationary video games.