This is the last time I bulk food from a Chinese warehouse store. Not only am I still hungry, but now I have an extra cat.
She's hungry too.
Image by Rich Moore
Friday, December 15, 2006
Schrodinger's Box
This is the last time I bulk food from a Chinese warehouse store. Not only am I still hungry, but now I have an extra cat.
She's hungry too.
Image by Rich Moore
Thursday, December 07, 2006
The Good, the Bad, and the Flamible
Bad things happen. Stubbing your toe hurts, and so does nuclear war. Some bad things are just worse than others, it’s one of those nice little perks the universe has given us. But while we can’t control some things that happen, we are in control of how we deal with it.
Ah, April of ’99. To be so young and care free again. It was spring break and like any other kid, I was off my ass, out of the house and with friends. Particularly Joe, my good friend from Marine city. Him and I have a lot in common. Back then, we would spend hours on end in front of a TV playing video games. Nothing has changed, but that’s what we used to do. We both were riding the Single Train and loving it. Mainly because we didn’t know how bad it sucked. Us two have always been a pair, a team, partners in crime…
One day, for some reason, we weren’t sitting in front of a screen with a controller in our hands, but walking in the field across the road from my grandma Margaret’s house. She was a nice old lady, always had cookies for people to eat and called me Dennis for some reason. We wondered the path that was familiar to us, talking mindlessly of things that weren’t of any importance. Joe asked to see the lighter in my pocket. Wait, why did I have a lighter in my pocket? I didn’t smoke or anything… Oh, that’s right. Fire is cool.
So Joe took the lighter and we momentarily split paths. He went off into the tall grass and I went towards some shiny thing in the distance. Turns out it was a can of beer. But as I examined that can of Molson’s, I heard a cry that would change the rest of my life. Apparently, Joe had picked the fluffy end of a tall weed and set if on fire. He thought it was out and dropped it on the ground. If you remember spring of 1999, you’ll remember that it was a dry, bone dry spring. And fire tends to like things that are dry. Oops.
When I got to Joe, the ring of fire on the ground was big enough to safely park a Harley in.
“What… did… you… DO?”
“I-I-I thought it was out and I dropped it…”
We needed a plan, but none came to mind. We panicked, swore profusely, and tried reasoning with God… nothing. By this time, you could have fit a minivan on the burnt part of the ground. I was sweating like a fat kid in a burning feild. We knew we couldn’t do anything. It was helpless. Now, I could go into how my Grandma called the fire department, or how my Aunt Darlene just stood their and said “Hey, the field’s on fire.” Or how Joe and I flipped out in the basement, thinking of how we'll never leave this place alive. But I like the cold, hard numbers. After about two hours, close to 35 acres had burned. 16 fire trucks form three different divisions, two cops cars and an ambulance lined the street. The channel 7 News helicopter swooped by for a nice little camera shot. It got played on TV right before the Michigan State Basketball Riots.
Once the atmosphere had calmed down, I went outside to look at what I had help do. Thankfully, the fire stopped eight feet before the barn, which house several tons of hay and my uncles camper, fully loaded with gasoline and propane to be used in the coming summer. Had the fire touched the barn, the whole thing would have exploded. And luckily, my dad was smart enough to jump on a tractor and plow under the field by the forest so that too didn’t go ablaze. I was glad to see my dad on that tractor. I wasn’t glad to see my mom pull into the driveway.
Nature has it’s ways of making sure crimes don’t go unpunished. King Hamurabi had a code of laws set in stone that kept justice in his kingdom by chopping off the hand of those who steal. On the island of Hawaii, the goddess Paelae would smite those who hurt her lands by bringing down lava and rock form the mountains. And then, there’s my mother. While she may only stand five feet tall, she’s five feet of pure punishment. Though I haven’t seen it, I’m pretty sure she could take a man twice her size.
She saw me as she got out of the van and headed right towards me. Even though there were plenty of armed cops around, that would not have stopped her from killing me, right on the spot. She looked like a prison warden and I was the death row inmate.
Fifteen feet away. Man, there was something I wanted to watch on TV tonight…
Ten feet… I’m never going t eat ice cream again, am I?
Five feet… I’m going to die a virgin.
She reached me and looked me right in the eye. The last thing I was going to see was the look of pure anger. She took a deep breath in. Inhale, kill, exhale, simple as that. But then… she hugged me. The same hands I was sure were going to snap my neck were now embracing me. "Don't question it," I thought, "as long as she isn't ending you, keep your mouth shut."
She has yet to trust me with a lighter, to this very day. And what about Joe? He got off somewhat easy, but his parents told him if he ever did anything so stupid again, they would kill him. But, people have moved on. You have to, or else things like this will get to you. Don’t focus on the negative, look at the bright side of things. More than likely, after the dust settles, you too will be able to eat ice cream again.
Story by Dan Simons
Ah, April of ’99. To be so young and care free again. It was spring break and like any other kid, I was off my ass, out of the house and with friends. Particularly Joe, my good friend from Marine city. Him and I have a lot in common. Back then, we would spend hours on end in front of a TV playing video games. Nothing has changed, but that’s what we used to do. We both were riding the Single Train and loving it. Mainly because we didn’t know how bad it sucked. Us two have always been a pair, a team, partners in crime…
One day, for some reason, we weren’t sitting in front of a screen with a controller in our hands, but walking in the field across the road from my grandma Margaret’s house. She was a nice old lady, always had cookies for people to eat and called me Dennis for some reason. We wondered the path that was familiar to us, talking mindlessly of things that weren’t of any importance. Joe asked to see the lighter in my pocket. Wait, why did I have a lighter in my pocket? I didn’t smoke or anything… Oh, that’s right. Fire is cool.
So Joe took the lighter and we momentarily split paths. He went off into the tall grass and I went towards some shiny thing in the distance. Turns out it was a can of beer. But as I examined that can of Molson’s, I heard a cry that would change the rest of my life. Apparently, Joe had picked the fluffy end of a tall weed and set if on fire. He thought it was out and dropped it on the ground. If you remember spring of 1999, you’ll remember that it was a dry, bone dry spring. And fire tends to like things that are dry. Oops.
When I got to Joe, the ring of fire on the ground was big enough to safely park a Harley in.
“What… did… you… DO?”
“I-I-I thought it was out and I dropped it…”
We needed a plan, but none came to mind. We panicked, swore profusely, and tried reasoning with God… nothing. By this time, you could have fit a minivan on the burnt part of the ground. I was sweating like a fat kid in a burning feild. We knew we couldn’t do anything. It was helpless. Now, I could go into how my Grandma called the fire department, or how my Aunt Darlene just stood their and said “Hey, the field’s on fire.” Or how Joe and I flipped out in the basement, thinking of how we'll never leave this place alive. But I like the cold, hard numbers. After about two hours, close to 35 acres had burned. 16 fire trucks form three different divisions, two cops cars and an ambulance lined the street. The channel 7 News helicopter swooped by for a nice little camera shot. It got played on TV right before the Michigan State Basketball Riots.
Once the atmosphere had calmed down, I went outside to look at what I had help do. Thankfully, the fire stopped eight feet before the barn, which house several tons of hay and my uncles camper, fully loaded with gasoline and propane to be used in the coming summer. Had the fire touched the barn, the whole thing would have exploded. And luckily, my dad was smart enough to jump on a tractor and plow under the field by the forest so that too didn’t go ablaze. I was glad to see my dad on that tractor. I wasn’t glad to see my mom pull into the driveway.
Nature has it’s ways of making sure crimes don’t go unpunished. King Hamurabi had a code of laws set in stone that kept justice in his kingdom by chopping off the hand of those who steal. On the island of Hawaii, the goddess Paelae would smite those who hurt her lands by bringing down lava and rock form the mountains. And then, there’s my mother. While she may only stand five feet tall, she’s five feet of pure punishment. Though I haven’t seen it, I’m pretty sure she could take a man twice her size.
She saw me as she got out of the van and headed right towards me. Even though there were plenty of armed cops around, that would not have stopped her from killing me, right on the spot. She looked like a prison warden and I was the death row inmate.
Fifteen feet away. Man, there was something I wanted to watch on TV tonight…
Ten feet… I’m never going t eat ice cream again, am I?
Five feet… I’m going to die a virgin.
She reached me and looked me right in the eye. The last thing I was going to see was the look of pure anger. She took a deep breath in. Inhale, kill, exhale, simple as that. But then… she hugged me. The same hands I was sure were going to snap my neck were now embracing me. "Don't question it," I thought, "as long as she isn't ending you, keep your mouth shut."
She has yet to trust me with a lighter, to this very day. And what about Joe? He got off somewhat easy, but his parents told him if he ever did anything so stupid again, they would kill him. But, people have moved on. You have to, or else things like this will get to you. Don’t focus on the negative, look at the bright side of things. More than likely, after the dust settles, you too will be able to eat ice cream again.
Story by Dan Simons
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