Safety Second

I realize that in today's fast paced society one does not have the time to complete all of the day's monotonous tasks all by their lonesome. So certain times a person must be able to juggle a few of these at a time in order to save a few of the precious minutes of the day.

I see a lot of these combinations applied when driving an automobile and it is beginning to scare me. I can tolerate people talking on their cell phones while driving, eating a cheeseburger, or even watching their dashboard dvd players. But today I witnessed the coup de grace when it comes to vehicle multitasking. A young girl, no older than 18 years old, was driving the steering wheel with her knees and using both of her free hands to operate a eyelash curler, all the while leaning forward peering into her rearview mirror for reinforcement. I frankly could not believe my own uncurled eyes when I saw this. Here I was driving down I-80 at a 70 mph clip, all the while driving next to a chick paying more attention to her own shapliness than the very road in which we were sharing.

What is so important about curling eyelashes that she couldn't wait until she was in the comfort of her own home? My life could have been hanging in the balance with one unfortunately placed pothole or obstacle in her lane. She could have swerved me off the road and my whole body could have ended up spiraled like a Taco Bell cinnamon twist. Now thats a curl she would have been green with envy over.

Here I thought I was doing a pretty darn good job when i could brush my teeth and put on my pants at the same time. This girl was turning her car into a beauty salon. Maybe next time she could put rollers in her hair and start filing away at her toenails and have the little cotton swabs in between the toes to complete the treatment that she apparently immediately needed.

It just seems everyday I lose more and more faith in humanity.

Eye Can't See!

I have come upon a very scary moment in my life. You guessed it, it's time for an eye exam to fix my failing eyesight. Lately I have been blind as a bat and I'm not too happy about it. It has gotten to the point that I have even started to squint behind my specs. I'm just hoping after I am done that I don't end up getting glasses that look like Jerry from that episode of Seinfeld where he has to wear the bottlecap frames. But at this point any improvement will be a welcomed one.

My whole future of seeing rests squarely on this eye test, which is a daunting proposition. Everytime I do one of these things I am more nervous than Michael Jackson in a day care. I think back to all the other eye tests I have taken in my life and my stomach toils just thinking about it. The worst part is sticking my head in that machine and making these important decisions and not being sure what the hell I am doing. As the doctor goes back and forth between the different screenshots all the doubt in my head creeps in and I'm never more unsure about anything in my whole life. "The first one. The first one is definately clearer. Wait a minute...maybe it was the second one now that I think about it. Can you go back to the first one again? Ok, now back to the second one. Wait are you sure this was the same second image as before? It looks different. Each one of them is fucking blurry, I can't distinguish between the two! You're killin me doc."

Why do they have to make it so hard to be able to take this test? It's like trying to tell the difference between Mary Kate and Ashley while watching Full House reruns. But I feel so embarrassed asking the doctor to go back and forth between the images that I'm relegated to settling for horrible sight as opposed to looking like a kid who escaped from the short bus because he can't decide which one he can see better.

So here I am again, on the precipice of taking another one of these eye exams that will determine whether or not I am able to look at something further than 20 yards away without having to squint as hard as French Stewart of 3rd Rock from the Sun fame. Wish me luck!

Move Over Football and Basketball

A few months ago I was able to rediscover one of my favorite past times after a long absense. On my trip to Worlds of Fun last summer i was so pleasantly distracted from the nausia endusing rides by one of the greatest games ever invented....skeeball. Now, I know you all probably skoff and smirk at this notion, but let me take a moment to remind you about the wonders that accompany this game. Skeeball, in fact, is as old as time. Not many know that skeeball was one of the first Olympic sports. Thats why the Olympic symbol has 5 rings. They all represent the cylinders from a skeeball game board. Also, the Incas and Mayans held skeeball contests where the losers were stoned. After the conclusion of a rousing contest, the victor would bludgeon the poor loser to death with the balls. This was serious business folks.

It takes an incredible amount of deft touch to be able to fling that wooden ball into the 1000 point cylinder. I know it took me quite a while to be able to regain just the right amount of english to be able to convert the attempt.

It is also a game of great gambles. Sitting all alone on the sides of the game are the 1000 point cylinders. Now if you try for these and miss you are giving up a whole mess of points. You will only be awared 100 points for a failed attempt. A conservative player can play towards the center of the board and get more guaranteed points, but also never maximize their score to its highest potential. Personally, I prefer to take the Kenny Rogers route and go for broke and the big points. After a few consecutive successful attempts, I then take it down a notch and go for some 400's and 500's like any sensible person would. Thankfully, my strategy paid off at Worlds of Fun as I was able to obtain enough tickets to be able to swap them for a stuffed animal.

Since my love for this magical games was rekindled, I have recently entertained the thought of building my own skeeball machine. It would take a lot of work, but it would definately be worth it. To be able to hop up from bed and rocket off some skeeballs before my morning coffee would be priceless. I'm sure my neighbors would be lining up to try their hand at the game that will soon be sweeping the nation. I'm hoping to lead that skeeball revolution personally. When I open up my sports bar I will definately be including a skeeball machine or two for some heated competition.

Hopefully ESPN starts picking up skeeball tournaments to air, since they are now showing mini golf, spelling bees, and dominoes. If people watch those things, certainly they would tune in to watch the drama and prestige that skeeball presents. If ESPN does not have the foresight to put skeeball on the air, perhaps they can put it on their sister station ESPN8, "The Ocho".

My wish is that soon everywhere children across the United States hang up their kleats, retire their basketball jerseys, and put the baseball glove in the garage. I will be there to hand them a half dozen balls and show them just a little glimpse of the good life my friends.

No Cure for this Cold

As the harsh chill of winter fastly approaches I once again realize that I have the luxury of being able to predict the approximate outside temperature simply by listening to the most accurate weatherman i know, my Jeep Cherokee.

All I have to do is listen closely to how the engine purrs to me, and I become Punxatawny Phil. I can accurately predict within 2 degrees simply by feeling how long it takes my body temperature to rise back to my comfortable 98.6 from my frigid beginnings when entering the vehicle.

The first thing you must understand about my jeep is that it is old, rickety, and has more cracks and openings than a brothel. Heat leaks out of this thing like water would from a puncture in the Hoover Dam. I have to constantly have the heat on high, which starts off at around 42 degrees just to try and get this thing at normal room temperature. And the vent air rises in temperate about 2 degrees a minute, so you can imagine it takes quite a while to produce enough heat to be able to warm up that glacier wannabe. A popsicle in Alaska would warm up faster than my car. I'm thinking of keeping a blanket in my car to put over my legs so that I can keep my legs from falling off from hypothermia. I think it may be my only hope this winter.

The scale is as follows:

-If it takes me the duration of my drive to work in order to get my body to stop shaking, then it is definately under 15 degrees.

-If it takes more than 3 seconds to ignite the car, then it is under 25 degrees.

-If the sound when the door opens is a louder squeak than a family of mice all under a spring loaded trap then it is between 11 and 16 degrees.

-If my trusty 4-wheeled friend refuses to start, then it is under 5 degrees.

-If the battery is the reason it is not starting, then it's Tuesday.

-and lastly, if get trapped in the car with a frozen shut door, then who cares how cold it is, I will probably just end up dying.

It may be time to invest in a new mode of transporation, but it will be tough to say goodbye to such a trusted comrade. Hopefully I can make it through this winter with all my extremities intact, and can make enough money to buy a car that doesn't make my fingers numb simply at the touch of the steering wheel.