Le Justice!

Here we have a woman holding the door of a subway car open so that she can finish her phone call, even if it means that the whole train gets held up.
Yet even in France, sometimes a hero arises to save the day.


It's going to be a while before I get tired of watching that. I'd love to see that guy start riding the DC Metro.

More people who need to be kicked

Self-important women with a whole cart full of groceries who jump into the "11 items or less" express item line ahead of the guy carrying ONE ITEM...and the cashier that lets her.

And in this case, I'm talking about a red-haired overweight woman at Food Lion who saw me approaching with my one item and actually picked up speed to beat me into the only express lane with her cart. I'm also talking about the young male cashier who just looked at me as she began putting her items on the belt and put his hands up as if to say "what can I do?"

I'll tell you what you can do, Casper Milquetoaste. You can tell her to take her fat ass over to one of the regular lanes and stand in line like everyone else...and you might even suggest that she put the Haagen-Das back in the freezer because she sure doesn't need it!

Suffice it to say, my one item was deposited on the Customer Service desk and the employee there was told that I'd be back when they actually got serious about customer service.

Road Trip

So this morning, I loaded Murphy and a broken machine gun up into my SUV and we headed off for the wilds of Pennsylvania, taking the gun back to it's creator, gunsmith extraordinaire Charlie Erb.

Murphy just came along because so far he's a horrible passenger and I want him to get used to riding and settle down.

We got out to Frederickstown, PA a bit after noon, following a drive complicated by lousy Bing Maps directions and a minor incident as a gas station where I'd stopped to get a real map. My leg was troubling me more than a bit, so I stepped into the rest room to take it off and re-adjust it. No sooner was I in there though when the door began to rattle. I told the impatient person that I'd be out in a minute, and I could hear a child outside announcing to someone that he had to go poop.

Well darn, kid. I need to get my leg put back on. and at that moment, it was completely off and I was trying to clean the residue of a large burst blister out of the liner and disinfect the area around said blister. Needless to say, I was in a foul mood, both from the pain and from being somewhat lost, so I didn't respond terribly well when someone else began knocking on the door and a woman's voice yelled: "Hurry up in there! My son's going to poop his pants!"

I'm sorry...how is this pending event that affects you and your son exclusively in any way MY problem? Do you think that I just came in here to read the graffiti, or enjoy the smell? I again announced that I'd be out in a minute and returned to re-assembling my leg, trying to get it to fit just differently enough to take the pressure off of the damaged area.

Another banging on the door. "My child needs to use the bathroom!" the woman yelled, confirming that she really believes that I'm supposed to vacate the rest room instantly in response to her kid's demand.

Whatever. I ignored her and focused on putting my leg back together. I finished in short order and it felt good enough to get by, so I opened the door and walked out to find a fattish woman glaring at me as a boy next to her who was probably five or six was dancing around like some sort of Special Olympian on crack. Shame on me, but when I walked out and pulled the door shut behind me, I seem to have inadvertently re-locked it. Oops. My bad. Hopefully the teenager behind the cash register had a key somewhere.

Back on the road, I reached the Erb estate about half an hour later and met the legend himself. Charlie Erb was 31 years in the machine gun business, during which time he built and serviced countless machine guns, and even though he's retired now he's still willing and able to help out people who own the guns that he brought to life decades ago. Charlie took my sick gun into his machine shop and tried what Mike and I had already done: Banging on the operating rod end with a steel rod and large hammer to no avail and saying "Wow..." a lot. That sucker was still locked up tight. Finally, after considerable effort was expended on it, I agreed to write the bolt off, and he put the gun on his vertical mill and ground the bolt out by cutting it through the ejection port and top of the receiver then busting the remains with a hammer, allowing the barrel to be removed. (The bolt, when in battery, locks the barrel in place.) He was able to determine that the gun's ejector had been blown up into one of the slots on the bolt collar by the explosion of the steel-cased cartridge, and with the ejector forced up into that slot, the bolt and barrel were effectively locked together and the destruction of the bolt was the only way to separate them again. This happens rarely to M60's but it does happen. My luck, it happened to mine the first time out. A contributing factor was likely an excessively worn operating rod and/or bolt. These parts had seemed ok to me when I inspected the gun prior to firing it, but I am admittedly no expert on this weapon system yet.

Anyway, the gun was cleaned, lubricated and reassembled with a new bolt and operating rod, and a few other minor kinks were ironed out of it as well, since it was open and on the table. Then we took it out to his test range and I put nearly 400 rounds of assorted BRASS-CASED ammunition through it--everything from surplus to my own reloads--and the gun ran without a hiccup. This thing is great, and after an inspection and rebuild by it's actual creator, the man who built it originally in the early 1990's, it's in better shape than it was before the catastrophic stoppage turned it temporarily into a 23lb. paperweight. An added benefit was that I got to learn all about this gun from the master himself, and my ability to diagnose it and keep it running has greatly increased.

Here's the man himself with the gun. He originally built 50 of these M60's, and numerous other great guns, including Stens, Sterlings, MP-40s, 1919s, Vickers and Maxim guns.

And here's Dave, Charlie's "watch rooster", who tormented Murphy incessantly by walking around and around my SUV and utterly ignoring him no matter how much Murphy barked. Dave knows that dog ain't getting out of that truck.
Finally we headed for home. Since I'd forgotten to bring food for Murphy, I slid through a drive-thru and got him a couple of burgers. I'd meant to give him the burgers once we were on the highway so I hid them from him by putting them under a jacket that was laying on the front seat, but when we got on the highway and I looked for them, they were gone. I looked in the back where Murphy was and I found the wrappers for those burgers, torn and empty and covered with dog spit. He'd helped himself, and done so in such a stealthy fashion that I didn't even see it go down. So the question is, if the dog steals food that's basically his food, is it still theft?

I'm thinking yes, just on principle.


But now we're home. The M60 is back in the gun safe, Murphy is in his dog bed, and I'm fixing to retire and read a few chapters of T.E. Lawrence before calling it a night.

Hey Paul McCartney--Kiss my ass!

And kiss Lagniappe's ass too, while you're down there.

Freshly returned from his vacation to Chicago where he chose to go in lieu of honoring our troops on Memorial Day, (So much for his pledge that he "will not rest" until the oil flow is stopped...) Obama was partying at the White House again last night while the oil in the Gulf continues to flow. This time, he and his wife and Nancy Pelosi were rocking and singing along with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney in a private bash where Obama gave McCartney an award for being such a great pop music artist and credited him with making the world a better place. McCartney, rather than show some respect and honor to our country in return, instead took the opportunity to slam President George W. Bush.

After the show — and apparently after the President had left the room — McCartney thanked the audience and noted how nice it was to receive the award from the Library of Congress, and “in fact, after the last eight years it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.”

Well speaking in response, as one of the Americans who helped put George Bush in office back in 2000, let me be among the first to say to McCartney--a man who is not even a United States citizen but merely a guest in our country--Fuck you, and don't let the door hit you on the way back out. This country has been awfully good to you over the past several decades, making you a millionaire several times over for nothing more than singing and playing a guitar as one quarter of a talented but out-of-style band. You could have showed some class and just been grateful for the award, but no--you had to be what your people call a "wanker" and take a cheap shot at one of our former leaders.

So screw you, you classless punk. Just stay in Britain from now on. And keep in mind that the next time Germany threatens to take over your country, you'll be wishing and praying for a George Bush type in our White House to send American troops back over there to save you again, because your idol, Barack Obama, wouldn't have a clue how to respond.

From now on, just shut up and sing.

People who need to be shot.

When I get to be President, certain offenses will be punishable by immediate termination, without appeal or even trial. Today's events have brought two such offenses to mind:

--People who walk into a coffee shop or take-out place at lunch time with a list of orders for several other people who are not present, especially if it requires the entire staff of the establishment to ignore everyone else while they work on assembling that one large order which could have been faxed or phoned in yet wasn't. I will deputize anyone standing in line behind such people to summarily shoot them.

--People who coast along obliviously (or deliberately) in the left lane--which is known as "the passing lane" for a reason--of a multi-lane highway at 55mph at rush hour, clogging up the whole damned highway by preventing anyone from passing them. However in the spirit of trying to educate people first, I will only have offenders executed for second offenses. First-time offenders will merely be pulled from their cars by squads of ex-LAPD officers and publicly beaten like Rodney King.

Home

Lagniappe and I are home. Expect many updates here (and pictures) tomorrow or shortly thereafter. Much to do here tonight already, but most of that stuff is getting put off until tomorrow as well. I'm tired.

I did want to give a shout-out to the fat woman in the Mercury who was jamming up I-95 south of Richmond, VA for several miles by coasting along in the left lane, cell phone glued to her fat melon head, while keeping perfect pace with the slowest truck that she could find in the right lane as the rest of us backed up behind her and fumed/screamed/wished her dead. It was hardly a surprise that when I was able to finally get past her (because the TRUCK finally sped up), I saw that her car's rear had two Obama stickers on it. Apparently she wasn't content with just helping screw our country up, her entitlement attitude seems to have extended to also wrecking the schedules of anyone who was actually trying to get somewhere on I-95 up today.

The next machine gun I buy will have an adapter to allow it to be mounted on and fired from my vehicle, just because of inconsiderate boobs like this one.

There's always gotta be an asshole...

And the latest Asshole of the Day award goes to this guy from RS Granite World who saw fit to drive slow in the left lane of Route 7 all the way from the Route 9 intersection to well past the Greenway exit yesterday morning. And he did this despite the fact that there was a vehicle right behind him—mine—that was flashing it’s headlights at him trying to get him to move to the right lane so that the line of other cars stacking up behind him could get by.

But no, this douche (thanks to Nicki for that lovely descriptor) who made eye contact with me in his mirrors several times, just continued to drive along in the left lane, making no effort to either pass traffic to his right or merge in with it. And everyone else in northern Virginia had to endure the resulting traffic backup that this clown was deliberately causing.

Let me say first of all that people like this guy truly need and deserve to be yanked out of their cars and beaten with baseball bats. Life’s too short to have to put up with assholes and this guy was going out of his way to be one.

Unfortunately we live in a society that protects assholes from the consequences of their assholery, so it’s actually illegal to administer the beating that this guy earned while smugly obstructing rush-hour traffic.

However that doesn’t mean that we can’t identify the company that he either works for or owns. This is easy, at it was on a sign on the back of his truck, literally jammed into my face and the faces of all of the other people that he was taunting. And my recommendation is, of course, that you avoid ever doing business with RS Granite World, because a guy who will screw with people in traffic just for the apparent hell of it is also quite likely to deliberately mess up a job in your home or business just because you’ve irked him or he thinks it’s funny. And if you’ve ever been pissed off by someone who drives like this guy was driving, feel free to give RS Granite World a call and let them know what’s on your mind. The number’s right on that back of that Toyota in the picture, or you can e-mail the company at rs.gworld@gmail.com. Let 'em know that you read about it here.

Idiot of the day--the Fat Guy from Budget Pest Control

So here I am, trying to get gas today. I pull into the gas station and observe a line of three cars on one side of the pump island (one filling and two waiting), and one vehicle on my side. I note when I pull up to it that it's parked with it's gas tank door away from the pump and that there's a two gallon gas can sitting next to the pump in front of the truck--a white small pick-up bearing the logo of a local small company, Budget Pest Control.

OK, I figure. This shouldn't take long. Obviously the guy just went in to give the cashier a few bucks to fill the gas can. I can wait.

And wait I did. While I waited, the car on the other side of the island finished fueling. Then the second car pulled up to the pump, completely fueled up, and left. Finally, after I (and the cars in line behind me) waited almost five minutes--and the third car on the other side is filling--out of the gas station waddles this fat crotch monkey with a big sack o' groceries. He walks around to the driver's door of the Budget Pest Control truck, puts them inside, and then calmly waddles over to the gas can and begins to fill it, totally oblivious to or unconcerned about all of us who have been sitting here while he blocked the pump because he was too lazy to park right then either get in line or just walk over with his gas can after he finished his shopping.

And to set the scene properly, let me explain that this gas station has numerous parking spots away from the pumps for people who want to buy store goods, and there are signs right on the pumps that tell people to park in those spots before going into the store to buy groceries.

You would not think that a sign would be needed to tell people this, but this certified ass-hat in his Budget Pest Control truck has just validated that need. And he still ignored it and several people had to just sit and clench their teeth while he was inside the store buying pork rinds and moon pies instead of actually buying gas from the pump that his truck was parked in front of.

Now to be fair, I have no idea how this guy is at his job. Having Googled his business, I have concluded that he's his own sole employee as he operates out of his house at 79 Muskrat Run, a rather seedy dirt-road subdivision not too far from this gas station. But judging by his thoughtlessness exhibited here at the gas station, I would never trust this bozo to spray toxins in and around my house because I doubt that he's sharp enough to kill all the pests and not kill me, Lagniappe, my neighbors, etc. I also doubt that he'd be considerate enough to do the right thing and correct any problems that I would probably find with his job after he left--people who are this inconsiderate generally aren't too worried about their reputations and can be counted on to provide poor customer service.

So if you need pest control in the Harpers Ferry, West Virginia area and you want someone who is actually smart enough to pour piss out of a boot, I'd recommend that you avoid this guy like the plague.

Peace on Earth...but first shoot these losers.

OK, I'm just back from my first foray into the Christmas shopping maelstrom (I decided to start early this year) and in the process, I've come up with the beginning of a list of people who need to be shot for their thoughtless and downright idiotic behavior.

First is that person who drives past the long, long line of cars waiting to turn into a mall parking lot, only to stop at the very head of that line and put his or her turn signal on with the expectation that someone will let him/her just cut in front of all those people who have been waiting.

Then there's that inevitable milquetoast who actually lets the above-mentioned turd burglar in. WTF is wrong with you?! If it weren't for saps like you there wouldn't be people like the ones above.

Then there are those people who just sit in their cars with the engines running and no intention at all of getting out of their cars or moving them from parking spots in very crowed mall lots. Who are all of you and why are you in these lots just sitting in your running cars? Is this some sort of club initiation or are you just sick and twisted people?

And special mention goes to the morbidly obese woman in sweats who parks a full shopping cart in the grocery store checkout line then leaves her slack-jawed teenage son to watch it while she waddles off to buy more high-calorie food that she doesn't need. Of course she doesn't leave the kid any money to pay for the stuff that he loads onto the conveyor belt, and you know she's not hurrying back, so the rest of the people in line who actually waited to check out until they had everything that they wanted now have to sit there and wait for her to come back with--I kid you not--a big pail of ice cream.

I'm gonna expand the last one to include all morbidly obese people who wear sweats out in public, if only because that particular one warranted more than enough negative karma to overwhelm any one individual. So put it on all the fat people who go out in public looking like slobs.

Next is all the people who walked past the poor confused old man in the parking lot, ignoring his pleas to help him find his van. Some of us did eventually find it and get him and his cart over to it, but no thanks to you other canker sores who just blew him off.

Finally, there's that numbnuts who fills the gas tank on his white pickup truck and then after looking at the people waiting behind him to get to the gas pumps, goes inside--supposedly to pay--but doesn't come back out for almost ten minutes and then he's carrying a case of beer and a bag of grocery items. People who do that crap honestly deserve to be seriously beaten down by all the people who sat there waiting in line to get gas while he shopped.

Merry Christmas, but if you're one of those people, I hope that Santa Claus just squats over your chimney and takes a big dump.

Christian is sick...and annoying

So here I am, riding home on the bus after a long week of work. I just want to close my eyes and catch a nap like I and others typically do on the long ride.

But today, naps were pretty much ruled out by a guy named Christian.

Now I've never met Christian before, and never spoke with him directly. I wouldn't have noticed him much less learned his name except for the fact that he kept either making calls or taking them on his cell phone.

Granted, people talk on their phones on buses all the time. They aren't even deterred by signs like those posted on our bus reminding riders that these are "quiet buses" where cell phone use is discouraged. But then again, most people talk quietly, whispering into their phones or at least talking in a low, quiet voice.

But not Christian. Nope, this lout had to shout at his phone like he was talking to someone several seats away from him. And he did this pretty much continuously during the trip, earning scowls and stares from several other passengers. But because Christian valued his loud, casual conversations more than he did the right of others to relax, we were all treated to his conversations, which babbled on about bike riding, and grocery shopping (he just bought eggs and rice...white rice, because he can't eat brown rice) and his diarrhea problem, which was better today but still a problem.

You see, Christian has colitis. He just had a colonoscopy, in fact. And half the riders on the Loudon Transit LC 20E bus heard all about it when he was talking to friends like "Charlie", whose name he yelled out so loudly, waking me and at least one other rider from our slumber.

You know, it takes so little effort to be courteous of others. And it's not like it's hard to talk quietly to your phone instead of shouting at it like you're rooting for the Steelers. But Christian apparently wasn't concerned with being inconsiderate so he didn't even make a token effort to ensure that the rest of us weren't repeatedly disturbed during the hour and a half that we were forced to suffer his obnoxious presence. But consideration for others requires intelligence, and if Christian actually had any of that, he wouldn't have loudly given his phone number out to one of the people he was talking to / shouting at.

His number is 1-540-270-9235. I wrote it down the second time that he gave it out.

So if any of you have any advice about common courtesy or suggestions as to what he can do about his diarrhea, feel free to give him a call. Let him know that while I'm less than sympathetic to his plight, Lagniappe at least feels his pain.

Random musings on random idiots

Is there anything more annoying or stressful than being late for an appointment and winding up on a two-lane road about five or six cars behind some stroke patient who insists on driving 40-45 mph in a clearly posted 55 mph zone in perfect weather? And you look past the guy and there's not a car in sight clear to the horizon, yet after a couple of miles, there's a long line stacked up behind that car. But he/she just keeps puttering on, totally oblivious.

Yeah actually there is something worse. It's when that certified retard finally goes to turn off and you pass them and see that it's not my grandmother driving but some young fat chick blithely gabbing away on her cell phone.

It really needs to be legal to sideswipe someone's car for that.


And then it's time to stop at the 7-11 for coffee. Only there's some Carhart-wearing jackass filling a thermos up. He's obviously got a cold because he's coughing constantly. But I notice that he's not ever trying to cover his mouth. He's just coughing directly on the coffee pots, the cups and the lids. So when he's done, I pick the pot least likely to have been contaminated, and I do this by casually asking another guy at the coffee counter if there's anything that the guy didn't cough on. Of course I may have said this a bit loud, because the cougher looked over at me from where he was standing in line and asked me what I'd just said. I told him rather nicely that he really needed to cover his mouth when he coughed, especially around the open coffee. He looked at me like I had three eyes or something and asked me if I had a problem. Now I'm standing here on my crutches since I'm having some leg issues this week, so I tell him that yes I do. I tell him that I already lost a foot due to someone being careless and I really don't need a cold because someone else can't cover their mouth. It saddens me that anyone over six years of age actually needs to be told this.
He didn't take it any further, which is probably good for both of us. I'm not having a very good week but I still got enough to put my remaining foot in this guy's ass. I hope that the next time he's in a hurry, he gets stuck behind some fat chick yapping on her cell phone.

Observations...

Just some random musing today... still trying to forget that a federal judge ordered FEMA to dole out MORE welfare cash handouts to "victims" of Hurricane Katrina who for some reason still have not managed to find work or housing after well over a year. All I can wonder is "which taxpayers are going to just give ME bundles of cash should I decide to just sit around and not work or look for work someday?"


The other day, while traveling for the holidays, I was in a roadside rest area with my father when I noticed a rather obese guy who was carrying a "concealed" pistol beneath his shirt. Now I probably would not have noticed it had I not been looking for the tell-tale outline of his pistol, but I was motivated to look him over more carefully after observing that he was wearing a "Heckler and Koch" hat. That hat made me reflexively look for the pistol outline on his waist and sure enough--there it was on his left side. Moral of the story: if you're trying to conceal the fact that you are carrying a gun, don't advertise it by wearing gun company logos or other items which might suggest that you are into guns. Yes, I'm one of the good guys, but bad guys can figure it out too and the bad guy that does figure it out might just decide that he's got to drop you from behind before he commits the robbery or other crime that he was planning to commit just before he saw you. Smarten up, gun owners.


And speaking of carrying guns, I had mine on when I went into the 7-11 the other day to get my daily papers and a cup of coffee (24 oz, half-and-half French Roast and 7-11 exclusive Blend).The only person ahead of me in line happened to be this woman who was apparently grocery shopping for her family of eight for a whole month. She had a ton of stuff and it took the lone counter woman a while to ring it all up while I and others waited in line behind her. But then, after the items were bagged and the total run up, the lady says that she wants some lottery tickets. And then she proceeds to direct the counter woman to hand-pick the different cards that she wants--she can't just take five of one type but has to have one of each off five different rolls. Then she gets told that she can't pay for the tickets with her debit card, so she swipes for the groceries then digs out cash for the lottery tickets while we keep waiting. Then, just as we think she's going away, she asks for a pack of cigarettes. Marlboro. In the box, of course. The counter woman first hands her a pack in the regular cigarette pack because they don't have any boxed Marlboros at the counter, but the lady insists on boxed cigarettes so the counter woman goes into the back of the store to get her one box of cigarettes. The line behind me is at almost a dozen other shoppers by now. I was contemplating drawing my pistol and whacking the lady over the head with it for being such an insensitive clod by the time that the counter girl came back. And of course then the lady wants to use her debit card again. Grrrr... This is the sort of thing that would tempt the Pope to bitch-slap a nun.


But at least someone wound up happy today. I got the craving for chicken and rice today so I cooked up a pan. After an hour and a half of baking, the whole lair smelled of chicken. I was famished as I took it out of the oven and unwrapped the tin foil from the pan. Lagniappe was watching me from the kitchen doorway because he's not allowed in the kitchen when I'm eating. Suddenly one of the three pieces of chicken stuck to the foil as I lifted it away from the pan and it fell towards the floor. I grabbed for it but it had baked so nicely that it just fell apart as I tried to catch it and most all of it wound up on the floor. Lagniappe just looked at the chicken like a kid contemplating the presents on Christmas morning. "Bon Apetit, dog" I said, allowing him to rush in and devour the morsel. My dinner was more rice than chicken tonight but Lagniappe is still giving me those "I love you" looks from his little rug in the corner. ...

Fun with asshats

"What is an asshat," you ask? Well it's one of those people that go around with their head up their... well you can figure it out.

We see them everywhere. They're always ahead of us at the store, with 26 items in the "12 items or less" line. (They usually want to pay by check too.) Or they're at the ATM ahead of you, continually re-inserting their card to conduct a hundred different transactions, totally ignoring the line building behind them. Sometimes they're at the drive-thru restaurant window in front of you. They're the ones with the long list of what they're eight co-workers all want to eat. And of course they want to have the cashier ring up each order separately. These are the people that just don't think--or care--about other people as they wander along through life.

Well I met one today. I went to the post office in town and as I waited to turn left across traffic into the small parking lot behind the building, a rather obese woman in a small, newish SUV made a right turn into the lot ahead of me and pulled into the only two parking spaces there. And she really did--she straddled the line between the two sports almost perfectly, effectively preventing anyone else--me included--from using either space. I pulled in behind her and rolled down my window as she got out.
"Excuse me," I asked nicely. "Can I have one of those parking spots?" She looked at me and said "I don't see why not," then turned to walk away.
"Ma'am, you're blocking BOTH spots," I said loudly, figuring that she'd get the clue and move her SUV. I mean, here I am still using crutches and both they and my Handicapped Parking placard were clearly visible to her. But she just shouted back: "I'll only be a minute" and quickly walked off with a small box of mail under her arm.

OK, so it's going to be like that, huh?

I took note of her West Virginia personalized license plate. It was something like: "MARNIE". I could remember that tag. I then squeezed my Jeep Cherokee into the spot to her left. There was just enough room for me to get my Jeep in there, but it meant that my passenger side was 6-8 inches from her driver's side door. Oh well. I took my crutches and got out, then I headed into the Post Office. As I hopped up the steps, "Marnie" was just coming back out. She avoided making eye contact with me. Asshat.

So I went inside and waited for the clerk. There was only one person ahead of me and he was just about finished. Cool. That almost never happens here. Usually you wait forever. I got to the counter and told the clerk that I needed a money order, and just as he began to make one out for me, Marnie stormed back in. She pulled open the door and glared at me. "You need to come out and move you car," she said loudly.

"My car is legally parked and I'll be out to move it when I'm finished," I replied, turning back to the clerk.

"You need to move it now! I can't get into mine and I need to leave!"

I took the money order from the clerk and turned to look at her. "Lady, you're the one that decided that you needed both parking spots. I asked you to move into one or the other so I could have one and you blew me off. I needed to park too and I used the small space that you left me. Now I'll be out in a couple of minutes and if that's not good enough, you might want to use your passenger side door and just scoot over." Then I began filling out my money order. As she turned to leave, I called out to her again. "By the way," I said. I know your license number and I know where you work." (The box of mail that she'd brought in was still sitting on the counter and it all bore the return address of a local business.) "If there's so much as a scratch on that Jeep when I get out there, I know where to find you.

She turned and stalked out, doing her best to slam the door.

I finished my business a minute or two later and hopped on out the door. Marnie must have managed the passenger door trick after all because her SUV was gone and there weren't any fresh marks in the dust on the side of my Jeep.

I realize that it wasn't very nice of me to mess with Marnie like that, but shame on me. I have this character flaw that always tempts me to engage asshats and sometimes I just can't resist. I hope that Marnie realizes that had she not been an asshat, this never would have happened. But I doubt it. Asshats rarely realize that they are asshats so she's probably still fuming about it. And I'm still chuckling.

Coffee shop memories...

I stopped by a coffee shop today while I was downtown and suddenly it dawned on me that I'd been to this particular coffee shop before.

It was about three years ago. There I was, minding my own business as I stopped by this coffee shop one morning for a cup of coffee. The store sits on a three-lane, one-way street, one lane of which is taken up with parked cars. However, right in front of the store, there's a black Mustang parked so as to block one of the remaining two lanes. Now I've legally parked about a block back because I don't approve of illegal parking like that, even by me in a marked unit. Sure I won't get a ticket, but it just looks bad.

I go in and get my coffee, and when I come out, it's still there. So I ask the people sitting at the patio tables if any of them own the Mustang. One young fella in his mid-20's sitting there with three friends says that it's his. I tell him he needs to move it, and he looks at me and says "You're not the city police, are you?"
I told him that I wasn't, and he said "Well when a city police officer asks me to move it, I'll think about it." Little punk said it in front of maybe two dozen people.

I just said "OK, if that's how you want to play it..." and I walked away sipping my coffee. and I prayed that he wouldn't move the car in the time it took me to walk back to my cruiser. Apparently he was unaware of the fact that my agency and that city have concurrent jurisdiction. I have as much authority as any city officer but rather than argue with him...

It took me maybe a minute to drive back to the store and pulled my cruiser up behind his Mustang, which he'd obligingly left right there. And right in front of those two dozen people, I got out my city ticket book and started writing the ticket. Now he wants to be reasonable.

"OK, Ok...I'll move it right now," he says as he runs over and jumps over the little patio fence.
"Yeah, you will. Just as soon as I finish writing. Go back over there and sit down."
He started to plead and apologize and he told me that he didn't know I could really write tickets. I told him again to go sit down. A minute ago he thought it was funny to front me off with all these people around. Now suddenly it wasn't so funny.

I wrote him for No Standing Anytime--$50.00. Then I noticed how far he was parked from the curb. I went over and put my 13-inch boot between his tire and the curb. I looked at him and told him that he was more than a foot off the curb too. That was another ticket for another $35.00.

I called him back over and handed him his two tickets and told him again to move his car. This time, he said "Yes sir..." and moved it without any trouble.

And that's how an Attitude Adjustment works.

Three years later as I bought another coffee at that same shop, I still thought it was funny.

Drive time rant...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of driving into DC during the morning rush--something I seldom do. A few thoughts came to me.

1. Who is that person who apparently set their alarm and got up early just so they could go out and drive very slowly in the rush-hour traffic surge on the two-lane highway everyone else from my area has to use? If you're reading this, please note that they call it "rush hour" for a reason. You're supposed to rush like the rest of us and not putt along at 5-10 mph under the limit, holding everyone else back. I saw you up there ahead of me, just aimlessly cruising along with no one ahead of you for half a mile and 32,000 cars bottlenecked behind you. You're either a total moron or a sadist but in either event you should be restricted to riding the bus from now on.

2. When traffic is backed up waiting to get onto a ramp, and the line stretches back half a mile, I realize that there will occasionally be some arrogant jackass who thinks that he's too important to wait in line like the rest of us. Those people will bypass the line and drive up in the next lane until they get right to the exit and then cut in. My criticism isn't directed at them nearly as much as it is at the spineless milquetoast who just shrugs and lets them in! Hey Neville Chamberlain...grab a seat on the bus with the other idiot above!



3. Am I the only one who drives past the Mormon temple in Silver Spings and just starts thinking "we're off to see the wizard..." as soon as those garish golden spires come into view?



4. What's up with Maryland drivers and their apparent need to just drive along in the left lane of any multi-lane roadway that they're on? The left lane is a passing lane and while drivers from 49 other states seem to be aware of this, around here the left lanes are always obstructed by some fool coasting along at the same speed as the traffic in all the right lanes and 98% of the time that car will have Maryland tags and it's driver will also refuse to move right when you pull up behind them and flick your headlights.
Since there aren't enough buses in the world for all of you Maryland dipsticks, I'll explain it to you one more time. The LEFT lane is for PASSING and you're suppose to YEILD it to FASTER vehicles that are trying to pass YOU!
Another Maryland driver on the way out to mess up rush hour.