Nothing Much

Thank freakin' God!

The longest work week of my life is finally over, and now I can get down to the business of laying around. Well I could get down to it, except that my long neglected home life needs some attention. Since I'm the designated Yard Nazi, I'm going to continue on my never ending Take Back the Yard March. I haven't got a million people to sign up yet (and thank God...they'd ruin the lawn) but I'm going with the "quality, not quantity" strategy. A little burning, a little mowing, a little poison ivy, a lot of beer. Repeat.

I should post a picture of the latest eBay truck, because I think it may be the ugliest one yet. But it runs great and I've decided there's a certain mystique to a really crappy-looking truck. For one thing, no one challenges me in traffic. In the unspoken but well understood rule of the road, we all do a quick assessment of who's got more to lose, and it's never me. So people don't cut me off like they did in my shiny SUV. They assume I'm crazy and let me go by. I roll down the window, rest my farmer-tanned arm on the window ledge, and cruise along at 45. Take that, Escalade-driving bastards. Yes I DO own the road.

Oh...and speaking of...the students are back in Carbondale. That means the bars on the Strip are packed until closing time, and after that it's keg parties for the rest of the night.

I left work at 1 a.m. last night. It was my earliest night this week and I was excited about going home before sunrise. but I had forgotten that the bars close at 1, so it was a like bumper cars at the carnival getting out of town. I managed to not kill any students, although some of them needed killing, and headed home in the middle of the touring group of Drunk Drivers on Parade. We went 70, then 40, then 70, then 40...they took turns driving in the right lane, then the left lane, then the left shoulder, then the dirt on the left side of the left shoulder, then the right shoulder, then back on the right lane...for 20 miles. I bailed at some point and took side roads. Even though I have less to lose, I'm not sure most of them were in any condition to notice.

So the week is over and the lives are all saved. I'm looking a three day weekend dead in the eye, and I won't be the one blinking. Three Day Weekend, I'm coming after YOU! And I'm bringing my weed eater!

Saving Lives Since 2004...One Life At A Time.

So I think it's the height of ironic that on my way home from saving the lives tonight, I almost took someone's, instead.

I drive through a small town on my way home from the hospital at 11 o'clock each night. The main drag has a popular storefront bar with parking across the road, and after 10 or 15 beers, the rules of careful road crossing get a little vague for the patrons.

And I know this. This is NOT my first Saturday night driving past Fuzzy's Bar, so I'm careful. But tonight's drunk was sort of deceptive. She looked like she was making good progress across the street towards the bar...until she fell to one knee in front of my truck.

Lucky for her one of us was sober, because after standing on my brakes and making a satisfyingly scary squealing noise that I hope will haunt her dreams tonight, I managed to stop before my bumper made contact with her skull...not that she'd have actually felt it. But I would have had to spend half the night filling out forms at the County Sheriff's office and probably wouldn't have gotten home in time for coconut cream pie.

So, I'm once again struck by my sainthood. Not only did I save the lives of all the poor innocents in the ER, but I saved the nice intoxicated woman laying down to rest in the road.

St. Evie of the Lab. I wonder if I can get an icon of that? Maybe a beatific woman holding a serial pipetter in one hand and a piece of pie in the other?