Pump and Circumstance

After a big Mexican meal and Bromo, I do pump my own gas. So despite the fact that I don’t drive as regularly as most people, I am still generally familiar with the process of fueling stuff including suspicions, rumors, and a college-aged kid. Today however, I was having trouble with a pump NOT pumping despite my best effort to make nice with the nozzle to deliver the drizzle.

When did these machines become so complicated? I had to choose a financial purchasing method, decline a car wash, and request a transaction receipt ALL PRIOR to actually swiping a credit card (from another guy) for payment. Not only did I have to decide on a grade of gasoline to top my tank’s drinking habit, but I also found out that sunshine and Sprite quenches my personal thirst for life as well. Even better, if I ever decide to slow smoke my sack o’ cellulite, there is a whole DOLLAR with my name on it if I buy three packs of cancer sticks in exchange for my diaphragm’s dwindling last tar-laced hack.

With so many life-changing decisions and commerce-inducing opportunities, even at the speed of light, you can imagine what a ‘slo-mo’ world of wonder buying gas is for cave-bound creatures like me? I would read the little matrix display screen and punch a button. Then the machine would beep, bleat, but never speak its domineering demands with a fanciful flash. I would stare, study and bump yet more buttons on the pump in hopes of quenching its seemingly insatiable appetite for human touch. No wonder aliens don’t want citizenship – buying gas in this country has become much harder than getting fake UFO insurance or voting multiple times on their own lifeless planets.

Despite all the attention and coaxing I had rendered, the machine stood stiff like the lip of a Royal guard. What do I have to do to beg for a jar of low-lead for my moped - buy this persnickety gassy-hose a dinner and a movie? I checked the nozzle and wondered if the station’s tank and my luck were running on empty? Probably more likely, this was some devious Shell game designed to force the pricier high octane Molotov juice on ‘dimwitting’ pumping patrons like me?

Apparently not though, because seeing the protracted and befuddled struggle on my ‘muggle’ proved too much even for the patience of the uncooperative machine. Sounding a bit sorry, irritated, and bored all at the same time, the pump finally succumbed to my dogged problem-solving charm to simply speak LOUDLY for all near to hear - "Uh … lift the LEVER to turn the pump on !" “Cheeky pushy Pump” I thought – “ I hardly know you” - I liked our relationship a lot better when you were MUTE!

High Fidelity Terminated

Hey I don’t care if you were or are a fan of California’s former Governator, 'Swarze-whatever' – aren’t you getting tired of these high profile losers and their lack of fidelity? Gee can’t anyone find Arnold a quality pair of lead-lined chastity lederhosen to contain his steroid-shrunk enthusiasm? I know she isn't Jewish, but if I were Swarzy’s wife and my hubby’s stereo-enhanced Hi Fi behaved this badly, I would have ALREADY had its amplitude modulated permanently!

Now I really could care less what kind of maiming the Terminator and his ‘full-of-themselves’ famous ilk do in their free time no matter how discourteous. But once one signs up for these top-shelf jobs working for the public and IN the public eye, you might want to remember not to SPIT in it at the same time. Oh I know it’s a lot to ask for just a whisper of decorum from a dumb hunk of Douglas Fir but remember you are supposed to be a ‘role model’ NOT a ‘roll with a model’!

It’s obvious those massive dark shades ‘Termy’ wears all the time aren’t working. It seems that the guy’s hypnotic red wandering eye has designs on just about anything that has big pixels. I have seen so many of Swarzenegger’s pixilated offspring this week that my vision is getting MORE blurry. No wonder the poor guy keeps trying to procreate – he just longs for children to focus on that actually have distinguishable facial features.

Oh sure we’re all indignant now but just wait until the dark forces of Skynet and James Cameron rear their ugly movie-heads with more Terminator sequels. The high-calling for pure hearts and ethical fidelity will both soon be forgotten. We will forgive Arnold’s granite jaw, lead head, and wooden speech to make him just as popular as ever, and indeed his stupid adoring fans WILL be back. Too bad though, it’s never that fickle-fun or easy for the toxic left-overs from yesterday’s meal. Despite Swarzenegger’s muscle-bound brain, the REAL heavy lifting in this apocalyptic mess, has been abruptly thrust upon yet another supposedly idyllic ‘public family’, and their TERMINATED remains.

Disconcerting discoveries

Hey I am a fan of exploration just like any average blowhard, but there are a few great discoveries that are not so special particularly when they are happening to you! To this day my folks still remind me of this fact just because I was a tad eccentric as a kid. I NOW know the tuna fish sandwich hidden in my room’s desk for a few weeks was a dumb idea, but back then it was an edible experiment in marine microbiology ‘to gnaw’ on.

So since I apparently STINK at the sciences and look too cartoonishly fat to study Yoga bare, at times I turn to the laundry room to clean up my act. But sadly recently, along with my dried-up duds, tucked under the multicolored blanket of fabric fur, I was horrified to extract a flattened insect body out of the dryer’s lint trap. Now I understand why my Underoos BUG me so often - they offer safe-harbor to disgusting brown dung beetle McNuggets.

Now discovering unwanted ‘grubbies’ upon your body may seem unpleasant, but I can tell you it’s really not all that bad, and anyway you can always choose NOT to have children. But if you do, the only other mouthy parasite which can take the cake even faster at a younger age are weevils. Yes there is nothing like baking and inhaling a tray of tasty cookies only to find they are tasting you back. Aside from me, my kid is the only pesky pantry pest infestation that my wife willingly tolerates.

Whoever said ‘ignorance is bliss’ was probably referring to that ‘bugified’ food or more likely the half-pint capacity of my ‘stubble-covered’ tub of ‘I can’t believe it’s gray matter’. I really hate being so oblivious but at least I provide a valuable service so my blonde friends have someone even dumber with which to match wits. After all who wouldn’t be in awe of getting home from a lovely sunny walk to discover they’ve been blessed with a hole-ly garment malfunction. Getting sunburned in the shape of a zipper may not rank as one of man’s greatest disconcerting discoveries, but indeed it proves I do have oddball tendencies!

ONE size matters

Does anyone know who decides the official sizes of stuff because I’ve got a jumbo BEEF with them. If you decide to manufacture extra large hot dogs and call them ‘JUMBO’ then you need to grind up more goo and truly make those dogs noticeably larger than cocktail wienies. Even foot-long hot dogs are only about 9 inches at best which makes those fancy franks 25% short of a full ‘furtter’.

Buying shoes for my giant-sized calloused dogs is equally frustrating. Some things don’t get better with age so over-ripe Kong feet are one of them, and consistently sizing footwear is another. Can’t the world’s rubber and glue gods choose just ONE unit of measurement (preferably ‘feet’) for shoes and stick with it? Even if my feet-flops are made in Bangladesh, Burma, or the bastion of New Balance, Boston, my meaty tarsus and toes can’t possibly be a size 11 through 13 all in the same day!

Also somebody should explain why all dryer sheets are the same shrinky-dink size? Since loin cloths for most cave dwellers like myself come in varied lengths and widths, depending on orientation, why can’t I buy dryer sheets in full, queen, and king size as well? The same rule should also apply to facial and toilet tissue, though in a pneumatic pinch, a burly roll of paper towels can do nicely - in both the North and the South.

Bed sheets all seem to be correctly sized, at least for those who possess identical children, have just eaten, or know Californians named Mary. This is important not so much for bed-making as it is for shroud shopping. Yes as long as you remain hoodless, it doesn’t matter how many X’s in front of L’s you are, because sweet sheets beat all when it comes to the impossible variance of sizing togs.

So now that top ‘dawg’ of sizing knows why I have a femur to pick and a too-tiny sheet of Kleenix to pick it with. It doesn’t take a Great Dane or even a mediocre German Dachshund to understand, like buffets and bank accounts, only ONE size matters as long as it is YOUR size. Especially on a blustery day, you landlubbers had better heed my advice and choose the smaller sheets though. Because no matter how big a dog you think you are, finding yourself ’3 sheets to the wind’ is one GIANT headache and a guaranteed trip to the pound.

Bigger IS better

I generally am not a big fan of nails, nine inch or otherwise. Whenever I have tried to build houses with nails, the birds don’t like the pounding since one side of the nest will get loose as the other side gets hammered. To avoid this problem I prefer using screws and aspirin to hold the birds together. This is why the popular term of elation ‘Nailed it’ has a much more negative connotation to me than the phrase ‘Getting Screwed’ does.

Since I’m old and nails are cheap, I make a point to have lots of them AROUND since only stupid kids appreciate ‘screwing around’. I figure when the economy really goes south, I will use my nail hoard just like money. It makes a lot of sense actually because instead of leaving a tip when you’re done with your meal, you simply will leave a pile of ‘FINISHed’ nails (POLISHed nails always look prettier, but those manufactured in other countries will work just as well too!)

Where did that stupid expression ‘Tough as Nails’ come from anyway? Whenever my hooves exceed the tips of my toes by the slightest of margins, they bug me and splinter off easily in ‘half-moony-cure’ crescents. If nails are so strong, how come the wimps bend so easily when smacked and leap to retreat at the first clickety- clack snap of a 99 cent Walgreens chromed clipper? If the true toughness of keratin is the measure, like any guy, I would rather face life with a big burly beak than your run of the mill fancy-nancy nails.

If I had that big nose it might make sense, but with my big mouth instead, I have never quite understood the attraction to long fingernails either. Why would anyone want to paint, fritter, and tease a set of wild thing talons anyway? Except for opening stubborn bags of Fritos, I don’t want 10 giant protein enhanced Xacto spikes fastened to phalanges, anywhere near my exceedingly soft tissue. The only exception to this rule is for bears because as long as I have a hot jug of joe and my current girthy gusto to keep me company, everyone knows that the BIGGER the bear, the BETTER the BEAR CLAW!