For several weeks I dropped out of all news content. Usually it’s a planned effort to maintain perspective while the press shrieks “Ignore the forest! Stare at all these trees!” This go round it was just the mundane chaos of life. I did the following:
- Woke up to a flat tire. I manfully jacked up the truck and swapped tires in front of a hotel room in the middle of nowhere. As far as I can tell the entire town drank coffee and watched.
- Miles later, approaching midnight in a crowded city in a different time zone, I drove over a nail and toasted a different tire. I called it a night and parked at the nearest hotel. Nothing says “fun” like pulling dual wheels in the snow at dawn and that’s precisely what I did.
- Fortunately the third flat, in a third tire, in a third state… which made me start wondering if I was cursed, was in my driveway. All I had to do was roll around in chickenshit while it rained.
- Been physically groped by the TSA, psychologically raped by overpriced hotel drinks, shoved like cattle through chutes, and emotionally battered by the psychotic monsters in a Salt Lake City terminal. Those bastards told me they had “craft beer” and then delivered a pint of 3.2 pisswater.
- Made reservations months early, paid full freight for a flight, checked in two hours early, and still got dumped into “standby” because “fuck the customer” is apparently a valid business model.
- Stepped on a cactus. I do not blame the cactus.
- Ate a cactus. (It was a different one.)
- Slipped on ice and wound up in a ditch.
- Found a magic flashlight. (More on that later)
- Went on an adventure. (This was actually pretty cool. Maybe I’ll mention it later. Maybe I won’t.)
- Went to a rock concert. (This is VERY rare. The last time I saw live music was a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Mrs. Curmudgeon got the tickets and talked me into it. She loves me y’all!!!)
- Worked my ass into the ground.
Stay tuned for sober reflection as I pass from unseemly chaos back into order.