*!&>!#F*(&U*(&...

It finally happened. The inevitable. I was pulling into my birthday luncheon Saturday and as I was looking for a parking spot to my right, I noticed a car slowly pulling out to my left. I was close enough that she should have seen me and too close for me to backup out of her way, so I blew my horn.

I blew my horn, then blew it again, then laid on the horn for a full four or five seconds. I want you to count five seconds so you can realize how long and loud I blew my horn. Thinking she'd hear me and stop, I didn't shift into reverse to try to move out of her way. BUMP!

Dammit.

Luckily, she also had a Toyota, so it just did a bumper car thing. I pulled into a parking spot. As I walked toward her, she rolled down her passenger side window and SMILED and said, "Did I hurt anything? I was on the phone. "

Then, she smiled again as though by smiling I would then say, "Oh, well, stuff happens. You have a great day, now."

I just glared at her, speechless.

She smiled again and said, "I was on the phone. I really shouldn't do that."

By now, Bonnie had come out of the restaurant because everyone inside had heard my horn blast. Everyone INSIDE the restaurant had heard my horn. Psycho Telephone Driver, however, never heard a thing.

I looked at her and said, "No, you shouldn't do that."

I turned and walked toward Bonnie and said, in a not nice tone, "She was on the PHONE!"

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Psycho Telephone Driver slowed down when she heard me say that to Bonnie. For a moment I thought, "Great, I'm going to get my @$$ kicked at my own birthday party."

Too bad she pulled away. It's fun to think about my whole family driving up and having a nice little Cajun type "conversation" with her about telephones and driving.

Why I was late to work today

You Can Follow Me Anywhere

I was looking at my cell phone display the other day and noticed a symbol I didn't recognize. I pulled out my instruction book and, lo and behold, my phone has some sort of GPS system.

I know that most people don't like the idea of the possibility of being tracked all the time. However, as a person who once suddenly came out of some sort of trance while driving down Dowlen Road and panicked when I didn't recognize the backside of Barnes & Noble, I think a tracking device, in my case anyway, is a great idea.

I wouldn't mind if you all had a little display in the corner of your computer screens watching me drive to and fro, hither and yon. That way, if you noticed me circling the same block two or three times, you could call me and point me in the right direction.

I also would not be opposed to the medical community or the government or Bill Gates implanting a little chip in my wrist so that hospitals and doctors' offices could scan me and know my complete medical history. Go ahead. Barcode me, baby.

Anything that would keep me from having to fill out one more medical history form in one more doctor's office is fine by me. Auto accident? No need to go back and look for that toe. One quick scan of my wrist implant would tell you all about my unfortunate tractor accident of 1986.

Who cares if all my information accidentally went public. Yeah, I've had most of my nonessential internal organs removed and the aforementioned unfortunate toe incident. If that's going to make me a social outcast or unemployable, I don't really care. That's just how much I hate filling out forms.

By the way, I didn't lose my toe in a tractor accident in 1986. It was a poker game in Nam, 1972.

Driving Tip #562

If you’re driving along and notice you’ve missed your exit, drive to the next exit and backtrack. Really, there is actually another exit ahead. I swear, I’m not making that up. Basically, what I’m saying to you is this. Instead of cutting across three lanes of traffic going 75 miles per hour, just keep going and turn around instead of driving like an empty headed, brainless, dickless, asswipe.

By the way, I wrote down your license plate number and, as soon as the technology is available, I look forward to tracking you down like the dog you are and gleefully zapping you into oblivion with my Anti-Matter Turbo 4000 (patent pending).

Don't Try This At Home

The following is reprinted from an article by D'Arcy Rickard, "The Red Deer Advocate", Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.

STETTLER -- An 18-year old Stettler man tried to eat his underwear in the hope that the cotton fabric would absorb alcohol before he took a breathalyzer test, provincial court heard this week.

David Zurfluh was subsequently acquitted of a charge of impaired driving because he blew .08, the legal limit.

But the testimony broke up people in Judge David MacNaughton's provincial court here Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Zurfluh was collared by RCMP Const. Bill Robinson after he ran from his vehicle, which had been seen weaving down the highway.

While sitting in the back of the patrol car, Mr. Zurfluh tried to eat his shorts, Const. Robinson told the court.

Mr. Zurfluh said he ripped the crotch out of his shorts, stuffed the fabric in his mouth and then spit it out.

A class of law students from William E. Hay Composite High, in court as observers, was removed by the teacher when testimony enlivened the proceedings. The Grade 11 and 12 students had difficulty maintaining composure.

"People were leaving the courtroom with tears in their eyes, trying not to laugh," said RCMP Const. Peter McFarlane.

REDRUM

Today, I was driving home from a long, crazy day at work, contemplating murder. I watch all of those murder stories on Court TV and you’d be amazed at how cheap it is to hire someone to kill someone. I saw a show the other day with a guy on it who hired a guy to kill his ex-wife for $5,000. I remember thinking, “Is that all it costs? I can come up with $5,000.” It sort of scared me that I thought that but, it was good information to have. Just in case.

The person I wanted to murder today was a total stranger. I was stopped at a stop sign when a guy in a huge-ass truck, talking on his cell phone, nearly took off the whole left side of my poor little Toyota as he turned the corner. As he passed me, within inches of my driver’s side door, he looked down at me, looked straight into my eyes...and smiled. He actually looked down upon me from above and smiled. I wanted to kill him. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want him to get a ticket. I-wan-ted-to-kill-him! I could come up with $5,000.

Little River Band - Part Two

Before Old Horsetail Snake sends out a lynch mob, I better do a real post before posting my usual Saturday Night Standup.

The Little River Band played on Crockett Street last night as part of the Gulf Coast Motorcycle Rally. Half the parking lot was blocked off so the thousands of anticipated motorcycles could park. I went in the back gate and didn't realize this. It's hard to find a parking spot downtown so I saw a spot on the first row and was deliriously happy. The only problem, I thought, was that to get to the spot I had to squeeze through a narrow space left between a car parked on my left and a van which I thought was illegally parked on the right.

The van, actually, was not illegally parked. It was, unbeknownst to me, there to keep idiots like me from going into that section of the parking lot. I expertly navigated the narrow opening to enter Nirvana, the perfect parking space. As I drove down the row, however, I noticed that right before the perfect parking space, there was a barricade and a row of orange cones. F**k!

I looked around and there was no space to turn around and no one to move the barricade. It was 5:30 p.m. (my sister, Bonnie, and I were meeting right after work for dinner and margaritas at Rio Ritas) so it was early enough that there was no one in the parking lot to help me. A few hundred feet to my right, however, Little River Band (or their roadies) was on stage doing a sound check and had an excellent view of my dumb ass.

I pulled forward. I pulled back. I turned the wheel left. I turned the wheel right. I pulled a little forward. I pulled a little backward. You get the picture. After about five minutes, I finally got turned around and even in my embarrassment, once again expertly navigated the narrow opening out of Nirvana and parked waaayyy at the back of the lot.

I don't know if Little River Band saw my parking lot antics but I swear they were pointing and laughing at me during their show. I think I read the lips of the lead singer telling the lead guitarist, "Crazy Texas woman driver, front row."

Of course, he was probably saying, "Drunk Texas woman in her push-up bra, waving her hands in the air, diving for guitar picks, singing along with every song off-key, front row."

NOTE: The evening was wonderful and got a lot more interesting and if I had posted last night when I got home, you would have gotten a much more entertaining post. I hate to make more promises, Old Horsetail, but one day, I might be brave enough to elaborate.