She was skipping down the street. Skipping! For real. She looked to be 29, maybe 32, and she was actually skipping like she was in a peanut butter commercial and happily animated squirrels were dancing alongside her with their delicious peanut butter sandwiches in hand. The unbridled joy! See, to skip, you pretty much have to be happy about something. Otherwise, you don't skip. You sure as hell don't skip.
April 2, 2025
At a street corner, overheard a woman talking to her small dog.
-- Now listen, Charles, when I say stop, you have to stop. Ok? We on the same page? All right, let's try this again. Charles, stop. Nooooo, Charles. You don't keep walking away. How many times do we have to go over this? It's like the whole housebreaking nightmare all over again. You just don't listen. Maybe I should have your hearing checked. Maybe something is wrong. No wait, all I have to do is touch the dog food bag and you come running. No, your hearing is fine. Charles. Over here. Focus. Look at my hand. This means stop. If I hold it up like this, it means Charles, stop. Ok? Now, watch my hand. Charles...stop. Charles! Stop! Quit walking! I told you to stop, my hand was up, what's wrong with you? All right, let's work on sit, see if you can manage that...
April 4, 2025
He was nervous. It was a first date and she had been shy about her looks (her profile pic was her dog). Not sure what to expect, he parked the car, checked his armpits for sweat, blew into his cupped hands to see if his breath was dank, looked one last time at his hair in the rear view mirror and walked toward the house. Before he could knock, the door swung open and her mother said, Greetings, you must be Roy! Oh my god she was a knockout. He was stupefied by how hot her mother was. He didn't say a word but he did immediately start to sweat. Mom grabbed his arm and pulled him into the house. He had to fight an erection. If the daughter looked anything like her mother... His date appeared and she too was beautiful, too beautiful for words, too beautiful for him, way out of his league, and he knew right off it could never be between them. Women who look like that do not go for guys that look like him. This was depressing news. He was standing between two gorgeous women and all he wanted to do was flee. It was like they were dancing to Bruno Mars but all he could hear was Leonard Cohen. He lost whatever confidence he had about himself because he knew that as soon as they stepped outside together, every guy will stare at her beauty, and then look at him and think, What is she doing with him? He had already sweated too much, not said a word since he arrived, and knew he couldn't spend any more time with this stunning creature or her ravishing mother so he said, I'm sorry, turned around and hustled out the door. Mom was surprised. The daughter was confused. Only he knew the sadness of what could never be. Something undeniable and true doesn't make the melancholy go away, Roy cried to himself on his lonely drive home.
April 5, 2025
Some of you said Roy was an idiot. Some of you said walking away from a date with a beautiful girl means Roy never deserved her, and clearly, the girl and her mother were lucky that Roy bailed because he wasn't worthy. Some of you gave credit to Roy for realizing he was in over his head and left before something, anything bad could happen. Most of you wanted to know if I had pics of the mother and daughter. Was she still looking to date? Was the Mom as hot as Roy said? Was she available. My readers, curious, questioning, in it for themselves. Yea team?
April 7, 2025
I had been renewing a domain name for almost two decades and when it came time again, I decided it wasn't needed anymore. Before the final date, I had received 2 emails from the registrar reminding me of its impending expiry. After I let it slip, I have now gotten 8 more e-mails saying it's still available and have I rethought my rash decision to let it go, because I could still get it, they're holding it for me, all I have to do is give the word, fork over the cash and it's mine again, etc., etc. I gotta say, harassing someone after the fact is a terrible business model. It's just so...desperate.
April 8, 2025
Overheard a young couple on the street.
-- Listen to Miss High and Holy! Who are you to judge me?!
-- I'm your girlfriend, remember?
-- Oh yeah. Yeah. Ok. Ok. Nevermind.
-- Did you take your pills this morning?
April 9, 2025
I set up a Wi-Fi router in someone's home and when it came time for the SSID, I asked her what she wanted to call her network. She thought about it but couldn't decide right then so I named it Undecided and told her I would change it when she came up with a name she liked. That was 5 months ago. I ran into her in town today and asked if she ever renamed her network. "Nope. I'm still undecided so it shall remain Undecided." Okay. "You know what my mother said to me when she visited and I told her to log onto Undecided? She said, 'I hope you never have kids or they won't have names until they're teenagers.' Can you believe that?" I could. "My own mother!" Yup. "She said I dither!" Okay then, Undecided it is. Toodles.
April 10, 2025
I'm being trolled by Betty from Mobile. She says that she lives "right on the Gulf of America and it's hot as hell here so there's no goddamn way Canada has summer way up north there and it's obvious as hell that the country has been lyin' to turists for years." She added, "I guarantee you it's a land of snow and ice 24-7. They're at the damn North Pole! Santa ain't wearin' no damn bathing suit!" Then for good measure she piled on a few more worn tropes - "We know y'all live in igloos and eat polar bear meat. Yer savages!" Well Betty, American ignorance about Canada is nothing new, southern ignorance is certainly nothing new, but perhaps a little schooling for the uneducated?
This is Canoe Beach, a mile from my house. Does this look like we don't have Summer? Oh, by the way, you live on the Gulf of Mexico.
April 11, 2025
They were at the trail head when he looked at his phone and saw that it was at 7%.
-- I can't go.
-- What? Why not?
-- My phone will be dead and then we won't have any way to contact anyone when we're in trouble.
-- Jesus Jacob, we're just going on a hike. In the city.
-- Alana, the weather could turn freaky, it could get cold and snow or you could fall in a ravine and break your legs.
-- Break my legs? What if I push you over a cliff and listen to you scream all the way down?
-- Yes, emergencies. That's what I'm talking about. My phone will be dead, and perhaps us too.
-- Why did you say I would fall in a ravine? Are you planning on pushing me into a ravine?
-- What? No. I just don't feel safe without my phone.
-- Smartphones have been around for what, 35 years? But civilization is thousands of years old, Jacob. Horrors, what did they do without their cell phones? How did they survive?
-- They had swords and magic.
-- Why don't you just go on home and charge your little safety net while I enjoy a lovely walk by myself. Pick me up in an hour.
-- Just an hour? Heck, Alana, at 7% the phone should last a couple of hours.
-- If you turn it off, it will last all day.
-- But what about an emergency?
-- Then you turn it back on. Oh look, it's still at 7%.
-- Huh, I hadn't thought of that.
-- Yeah, I noticed.
-- Wait, if I turn it off, I won't know how far we walked, what my heart rate was, how many steps I took and-
-- Pick me up in an hour, Jacob.
-- Ok, maybe it's better this way. Then I can be your safety net.
-- I don't need a safety net, Jacob.
-- Alana, if you don't return in 1 hour I shall alert the authorities.
-- Gawd.
-- Safety first.
-- Yeah, whatever.
April 12, 2025
If you've lived past the age of say, 50, and you still don't know what the hell is going on, is that an issue? Should it be? At this point have you been curious enough to examine anything about your life? Or are you just winging it day to day, taking what comes, battling. Do you see this as something to address, change, ignore or continue pretending it isn't as strange and impossible as it seems. Look, you don't find old people on their deathbed saying, Gee, I have no idea how I got here. They know. They lived it. They created it. They know exactly how they got where they are. Shouldn't you? Before your deathbed?
April 13, 2025
I was thinking about this because our power was out due to a blown transformer and the Internet went to sleep for 4 hours. It was so quiet; no chatter, no trolls, no icky interactions with anonymous cretins. I mean really, before the Web, did we have any idea how many messed up, ill informed, stupid people there are in the world? There was no way to know, right? Now we do. There's tons of 'em. And they can all be found posting rubbish on the Net. Egalitarian? Perhaps. Annoying? 100%. What if they had to pass a test before being allowed on the Interwebs? Hmm, Question 1.) Is anything you're going to say have the possibility of annoying Keith? And so on. Come on, who's with me!
April 14, 2025
I shudder to think how much less my life would have been without the dogs and cats that have become a part of it. I miss the ones that are no longer here and revel in the ones who are. My life is good, but they made it rich.
April 15, 2025
Overheard the end of Chris and Bonita.
-- Chris, I've about had it with you! You're driving me nuts. So much cringe, Chris.
-- Now listen to me, Bonita, I am in no way going to stand for that kind of talk. Maybe in your country-
-- My country? Oh, now you're a racist too, Chris?
-- Bonita, let's face facts. You are an immigrant. I'm a native-
-- No Chris, you were born here, aboriginals are the natives. Cultural appropriation and more racism. Does it never end with you, Chris?
-- Bonita, I'm done being your punching bag. I can't do anything right with you. Maybe we should stop seeing each other and you can just go back to where you came...from.
-- What! Chris, did you just actually tell me to go back to my country? You racist pig racist pig. Oh hell yes, Chris, we're done.
-- I'm not a racist, Bonita.
-- Oh, but you are. Lose my number, loser.
April 16, 2025
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Stupid is as stupid does.
The Orange Cheeto shakes his head knowingly.
April 17, 2025
I keep getting asked why I haven't made my site more phone friendly. Google has pestered me numerous times to fix it. They've even offered to do it for me, like I'm somehow letting them down. They didn't say this but they basically said I'm quirky, stubborn, intractable, too lazy to recode it with bigger type and other such speculations. Oh, Google. The truth is, I could fix it but that would just be one more thing I have to do and I already have a lot of things I have to do. So I'm going to do those other things instead of this. Mkay?
