Meeting Your Parents

Yesterday I was trying to figure out how old my parents were when I first met them. I know I met them when I was born, but I'm thinking more in terms of when I actually remember meeting them for the first time. They must have been pretty close to my age now. I either met them when I was climbing into the back seat of a brown station wagon they used to own, or it could have been the time I tried to ride my dog Sasha like a horse and was clotheslined by the bumper pool table within the first few seconds. Either way, they were helpful and nice folks and we hit it off right away.

Safe Road Trip Food

The safest place to eat when you're on a road trip through strange lands is at a truck stop. Not only can you guarantee that they'll have biscuits and gravy for less than $4, but it won't make you sick. You can rely on this fact because one batch of botchulism gravy will put a truck stop out of business. No one's better networked than truckers on their CBs, and if one of them gets sick from a truck stop meal, you know he's going to get on the radio and let everyone in the area know. If you're a trucker trying to get across the country, one thing you absolutely can't afford is having to stop and use the bathroom four times an hour.

Whiskey Tasting Values

I went to a bourbon tasting last month. A liquor distributor came into a restaurant and setup six kinds of whiskey for us to try. They made the mistake of giving us all empty tasting glasses and passing the bottle around so we could pour our own .5 oz tastings. Everyone at my table topped off their glasses and the bottles were empty before making it halfway around the room. Some whiskey socialist came in to redistribute the whiskey I'd worked so hard for, but we were all still left with quite a bit of the stuff. The tasting lasted slightly over an hour. During the first 50 minutes the distributor spoke about what makes a bourbon a bourbon and he shared some stories from his years in the whiskey business. We listened respectfully. The last ten minutes was tasting time. We started with the lightest whiskey and worked our way to the strongest. Fifteen minutes later it was as if someone had turned a fire hose on the room. People were standing on their chairs yelling, the guy in charge was trying to talk, and the humidity in the small room approached a rain forest. Everyone had something to say, and instead of waiting for the other person to finish, you just tried to talk louder than them.

Girl Problems vs Lack of Girl Problems

In high school an insightful friend asked why I was down. "Girl problems?" he guessed. I said no and he guessed, "Lack of girl problems?" To this day, I'm not sure which is worse. Back then our high school days were divided between A.C.E. days and B.D.F. days. The ACE/BDF system meant your classes were scheduled on a 6-day system that you pushed to a 5-days week, so your classes rotated between three and two days per week. The point is that if your girlfriend split up with you on an ACE week and you had several ACE classes together, then things couldn't get much worse. Add to that your shared health class where they have you put condoms on cucumbers and things get even more awkward.

Pabst Blue Ribbon

Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer is what's right with America. It tastes great, it's cheap, and the can even comes in red, white, and blue. I try to drink at least a couple every Fourth of July.

Where I live all fireworks are illegal. Even the sparkers that kids wave around burning at 2000F are illegal, but thanks to a neighboring state where lethal fireworks are available to anyone who can reach the counter, the sky lights up over my city in a real tribute to the outlaws responsible for kicking things off in this country. I normally reserve my fireworks for after bar time, but I might try to find some that I can launch out of an empty Pabst can to join the law-breaking fun.

Spare Change

I have two Martinelli's Apple Juice bottles filled to the brim with change and I'll be damned if I'm going to buy another bottle of this stuff so I can fill it with more change. I used to spend all my spare change on things like vending machines coffee or people playing guitar on the street, but now it piles up on my dresser at home. Getting rid of it is like trying to spend Canadian bills. I called my bank that's right up the street to see if they had a change counting machine. They don't and also said that none of the WaMu or Chase branches have them. Trafficking in change simply isn't profitable with all those expensive machines to buy and maintain. So now I'm left with this pile of metal money. I'm looking forward to the day that the metal in coins is more valuable than their monetary designations so I can sell it all as scrap.