The Most Horrible Day of The Year

It's been days since I've written. A week, now that I think about it. There's been a lot of crap going on that's interfered with my blogging abilities. Most notably we've had our now annual Holiday Layoffs here at work. I'm still here. (Like right now. Right now I'm here at work, sitting alone in an empty office. I think some other people are supposed to be working today. I hope. Because I can't put out an entire paper by myself.) Anyway, not a very happy Thanksgiving for us but I won't go into all that.

Instead I'll use this time to complain about the annual Day After Thanksgiving Shopping Story that all newspapers and all TV stations feel the need to do year after bloody year. Why? Why? Why? What kernel of truth do we glean from these stories, what wealth of wisdom washes over us when we read these stories or watch them on television? And does anyone read these stories?

My personal opinion - no, no one reads them, no one cares. They look at the photos of people waiting in huge ass lines or fighting over the last Sponge Bob Square Pants doll and they say one of two things: 1) "We were in that line and it sucked and it was freezing!" or 2) "Those people are crazy. You couldn't me out of bed to go wait in line like that." So why do we feel compelled to write this story year in and year out? I think it's because we're scared to stop. Scared that somehow, NOT doing the Day After Thanksgiving Shopping Story (DATSS) will cause subscriptions to fall at a mind dizzying pace; scared that there won't be any other news that day to fill the newspaper; scared that God will strike us down if we do not write the story.

And now for the biggest question of all - Why, no matter what my job is, do I always have to go out and write the DATSS? I hate the day after Thanksgiving. I hate it with a passion unmatched by anything else. Hate is not even a strong enough word to describe today. Oh, let me count the hours till the work day is done. Eight hours and counting....

Not Really Worth a Title

I notice some time has passed since last I wrote, but sadly I have little to report. The carcass of the dead thing was never recovered but we've had no subsequent bad smells, at least not coming from dead things. (There was this incident recently with refried beans but I won't go into that now.)

My life has returned to the mundaneness (my dictionary says this is a word but none of my spell checks recognize it, so I'm not claiming ownership it) for which there is little of note to speak. Perhaps something exciting will happen this weekend as I trek down to Louisiana. It is possible something exciting will happen before then, but only slightly more likely than my winning the lottery. The best advice I can give you, my three readers, is check back next week, round 'bout Tuesday. Perhaps I'll have some news for you then.

The DMZ

Taking a break from the political landscape that I hardly ever write about, I'd like to get back to a more important issue that the pundits and public should be engaged in right now, namely, the dead mouse in my pantry.

That's right, living in an old building as I do, we have the great joy of frequent mousy visitors who apparently take great pleasure from dying in our walls and closets. Right now there is quite obviously a dead mouse in the kitchen pantry somewhere (if you put your nose to the computer screen I think you'll actually be able to smell its demise), and a debate has been raging in the household on where said smell is coming from and was the death a natural one (cat attack) or unnatural (all that rat poison the landlord keeps putting in the basement).

The accepted facts are 1) something is dead 2) it is most likely a mouse since we find them dead quite often in our flat and 3) the dead, alleged mouse is most probably located somewhere stage left in the pantry, so deemed by the scientific method of that's where the bad smell is strongest.

So tonight, boys and girls, we face the very unpleasant task of removing every item from the pantry in a quest to find the DM. It is my great hope that I will not be the one to find it. In my life I've had to discover the rotten-potato-behind-the microwave-with-maggots and the dead-kitten-in-the-kitchen (not making either of those up) so I think my life-time quota of dead and disgusting things has been reached. It is now someone else's turn to do the finding.

Please wish us luck and God Bless the U.S.A. and also football.

Where are you, Reds?

Yesterday was a bizarre day in which everyone here seemed to walking around in a daze. Tempers were short and voices were drained of emotions. I live in a red state but I have no idea where all these reds live. They must be on the other side of the state or something because everyone I talked to yesterday from a nurse at the VA to a guy that does PR for a medical device manufacturer sounded like they had just gone 20 rounds with a polar bear. My email inbox was full of messages of woe and misery. I'm pretty bummed myself, but I don't think it's the end of the world. And I have to get back to my everyday life, which is monopolized with earning's statements and concerts, not red states and blues states and gray states.

Thus far today, the inbox has been filled with "look on the good side" messages (all with the disclaimer "I know it's not much but...) in response to yesterday's Revelations-style predictions for our future. So here's my look-on-the-bright-side message: At least we have something to bitch about for the next four years.

Voting, Ghetto-Style

Seriously, my voting precinct is the saddest precinct in the whole world. It's a senior center in the ghetto. (I'm not just calling it that, it's officially the ghetto. My nearest neighbors are a drug and alcohol recovery center and public housing.) There's no way to keep the door unlocked so you have to knock on the window (stand on tip toes, force hand between bars) and one of the elderly poll workers hobbles out and opens the door for you. Then you go into a dark, dingy room where people are shocked to see you (well, doubly shocked if you're young and not black, both categories I fall into). Once overcoming their shock, the poll workers lead you on a complicated process of signing multiple documents and directing you to the correct machine.

I can't accurately describe my voting machines to you. But let me start by saying, although they are touch screen, it's not the kind of touch screen you're imagining. These things were the ORIGINAL touch screens, apparently built in 1968 and sister technology to the very first computer ever built. They have curtains that are stiff with starch or maybe decades of cigarette smoke and grime, I'm not really sure. You slip into the voting booth hoping the curtains do not touch you and press the people/issues you are voting for and then hit the giant green VOTE button at the bottom to lock in your decisions. It's really a pretty sad experience, especially knowing what palaces of technology and cleanliness the suburban folk vote in. In my ghetto we are not technologically advanced enough to have hanging chads.

Anyway, there's still time for you to have your own fun poll experience. So, get out and vote, bitches! (Then come and tell me all about it.)

Bucky's Meek Return

Well I had a rough week but I've made it through. Sorry I couldn't post but I was extremely busy. And now I've had a most unrestful weekend. I finally bought a (used) motorcycle on Saturday. Drove it home no problems. Then yesterday I drove it to Oxford and back to visit a friend. I am sooo sore and discovered that I have a problem keeping the bike from falling over after I've stopped. So far I've only encountered this problem in parking lots, but it has made me deathly afraid of stopping on the street. It's a mid-weight bike but that's still pretty heavy and takes two people to get it back on its wheels. (It's been amusing watching men try to upright it by themselves before moving over and letting me help.) But I think the biggest problem is that my feet do not completely touch the ground. Only the front of my feet...more than my tip toes but not a whole solid foot. Harley makes a ladies bike that is supposed to be better heighted (yes, I made that word up) to women, but I'm not really a Harley enthusiast. So I plan to take the bike to my parent's house in the country and practice my stopping, starting and turning out there with the horses and pastures. That way if I fall over at a stop sign in the street no car is likely to come run over me. Maybe a dog will come sniff me, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Also, for all you none riders up there, a piece of advice: Do not, DO NOT try to pass a motorcyclist on an one-lane on ramp or off ramp. Fools, you'll kill us both!

Halloween was fairly uneventful, otherwise. Not a lot of ghouls and goblins this year. But did go to another rockin' philosophy student party Saturday. At this point I might as well enroll in the graduate program myself.