Riding A ButterTub

A Hotdog Stand in an Avalanche

A Hotdog Stand in an Avalanche
Thought up:  5.3.02 – 1:40pm
Written: 5.12.02 – 5:20pm
#9

I’ve had a lot thinking time in my travels around the state of Montana this year, and I’ve come up with a few astute observations of the animalia in the Kingdom of Peculiarity.  I know exactly where to hunt, and, coincidentally, where the best food is for all the state’s animals.  15,000 miles worth of travel in 4 months around this area has confirmed my observational analysis that the best food is on the highway, or at least right near it.  As the highway is the most dangerous place to eat, only the most courageous deer will dine there.

A driver can easily examine this strange behavior of these “dare devils” by simply driving from Anywhere to Someplace in Montana.  Who are these “dare devils”, and why are they so “daring and devilish”?  It is fairly evident that animals, deer for example, grow from the ground at around 6:00 a.m., and wreak havoc on drivers for the better part of the next 20 hours.  Some animals even seem to sleep by the roadside, evidently to eat the grass first thing in the morning.

Granted, they sleep in strange positions, with their necks cranked all the way around, and legs broken, and bleeding profusely from all over.  And they attempt to disguise themselves, I think, by paying ravens and other scavengers to “pretend” to chomp away at them to distract would-be hunters.  If you ask me, they’re just asking for it sleeping there!  Any car could accidentally swerve and hit one of them!  Then who would pay those ravens for all their hard work?  The whole scam is a bit asinine if you ask me!  It must be like having a hotdog stand in an avalanche.  It’s not a great idea as far as safety, but, on the other hand, who doesn’t like a nice hotdog…

It seems that deer like to eat the grass by the roads most of all, they stick close by it at all times.  They wouldn’t want to actually go back in the woods where it’s peaceful and quiet and no 1-ton iron horses are hurling forward on spheres of rubber towards them.  That makes no sense to them I guess.  In order of brainlessness deer are only defeated by the brainless…  …deer.  Yes, they’ve taken up the top 2 places on my list because they seem to really enjoy living life’s adventures.

Perhaps the deer by the road are the real rebels of the deer community.  Maybe, just maybe, the deer that hang out there are like the “extreme sports deer” that live life on the edge, not knowing what the next day will bring.  They are looking death, or an 18-wheeler’s grill, in the face each day.  Or maybe deer are kind of like fish.  Fish work as splendid bait for catching other fish.  Perchance deer enjoy some nice cannibalism every once in a while, as a delicacy or something.   I can just imagine it…

Bartholomew the deer:  “Hey Hector, where should we dine this evening?”

Hector the deer:  “ Oh I know this great little spot down by the big black patch of asphalt in the forest with a dotted yellow line in the middle of it that has some really “exhausty” tasting grass with a lot of gravel mixed in with it.  It has a distinct taste of deer guts and blood.”

Bartholomew:  My, that sounds like a splendid little treat if I do say so myself!  Let’s get going!”

It’s really shocking to believe that these animals aren’t all extinct yet.  There must be about eleventy-billion of them killed each day.  Apparently they haven’t used the 100+ years of deer evolution, since the automobile was invented, to know that they shouldn’t eat near these areas.

But let’s not forget the always-brainy gophers that come in third on the list of brainlessness.  I use the term “always-brainy” because I don’t think gophers have a short-term memory.  They always seem to forget what they have just done and then their brain has to work once again to re-reason, hence, “always-brainy.”  These rascally rodents will bolt across the road not even knowing what’s on the other side for the most part.  I think that they believe once they get to the other side, there’ll be a 5-gallon drum of popcorn seeds waiting for them.  But once they get to that mystical “other side” they realize there isn’t anything over here.  But then, again believe that there must be a 5-gallon drum of popcorn seeds waiting for them on the other side of the road.  (Repeat these last 3 sentences as many times as necessary to realize what it is like to live as a gopher.)

Next on the list of brainiacs of the animal world are cats.  People may say that they are far smarter than dogs because dogs just jump around with their tongues hanging out and chase anything their masters throw, roll over for treats, and roll in their buddy’s turds, but you don’t see many dogs lying with their guts sun-tanning in the road.  Cats just don’t get it, and therefore, receive the #4 stupid rating.

Rounding out the top five on the list are skunks.  Who really knows what skunks eat.  I sure as hell don’t.  Possibly they just eat other skunks, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a skunk eat anything.  And if they eat each other, that would explain their lovely scents.  Think about it – have you ever seen a skunk eat anything?  We usually just see them on TV spraying something with their smelly goodness.  Boy, maybe they just get a bad rap.  In my mind, I suppose I could picture a skunk gnawing on a dead deer, which would explain why they take the #5 spot, but I guess I can also see them eating grass, or a rock, or a hammer even.  Who knows!  Is there a skunkologist around that could help me out?

All of these animals are very high on the list of animals with no brains.  If animals are judged for smartness by their dead presence on Montana highways, then baboons, rhinos, and sharks are the winners.  I almost never see them on the roadside…

Take Pride In Your Work

Take Pride In Your Work?
Thought up:  4.17.02 – 1:43pm
Written: 4.19.02 – 1:27am
#3

In the summer of ’99, I worked 8 hours a day installing sprinklers in Montana.  I worked through rain, sleet, snow (Snow?  In summer?  Yup, after all, it is Montana) and even blistering heat to give people the pleasure of not having to put out one of those nasty green hoses attached to a rusty old yellow sprinkler head that spits out four drops of water in random directions (one of which is always the sidewalk no matter where you set the sprinkler).  Anyway, I did them a favor by digging/picking through granite on mountainsides, and clay in the valleys to give them green beauty.

I took pride in what I did – I made sure each and every sprinkler head (usually the 1804-F series, 4″ pop-up sprinklers by Rain-bird, for those of you keeping track at home) made a complete 360 degree turn in most yards, and just cutting off a few degrees for those tricky devils in the corners.  It made me feel really good when I’d get done with a job and look it over to see that the entire property would be getting healthy and watered because of me.

ne time I started the watering and didn’t notice that the old lady, whom I was building the system for, was coming out to bring me a frosty lemonade for my hard work and dedication to her yard.  Well, before I knew it, water was blanketing her backyard with a beautiful mist, and she was the tallest piece of grass…  She dropped the lemonade and ran into the house afraid that she set off the sprinklers.  I went in and apologized and had myself a fresh glass of lemonade, but that’s beside the point, this story is about taking pride in one’s work.

What I’m getting at is whenever I finish a job, I’d look back and say, “Boy, that sure is a nice looking yard.  I’m glad I did such a nice job for them, I bet they’re happy.”  But not out loud, of course, especially if I’m the only one around, because that would make me look like I’ve gone mad.  In my current job, I drive all over the state by myself and I have a lot of time to think about stuff.  I look at other things and wonder if people are really happy with what they’ve accomplished – the buildings, the fence posts, the road I’m driving on, the car ahead of me.  I think about the craftsmanship that went into each detail of this car – the windshield, the blinkers, the engine itself.  Then I look at the license plate, and I think to myself, “Man, I wonder if that prison guy really cares that he made this car licensed to drive on the road.  Without him, this car would have to be impounded, and the driver would have to go to jail probably.  Or maybe the driver would just get a different license plate.”

got to thinking again about my sprinkler job, and how I took pride in it, but there is a good chance that the jailbird would never get to see his work, let alone spray an old lady with water and get free lemonade.  He should be lucky to get an extra carton of smokes I decided…

So Apparently This Is About Needing Glasses

I’d think there were other things that were wrong with the setup too:

I’ve Seen Some Useless Talents before…

But this one may take the cake… it’s an entertaining talent for sure…

Frolicking 4 Leggers

Frolicking 4 Leggers
Thought up:  5.4.02 – 8:41am
Written: 5.11.02 – 12:13am
#8

Animals sure do love to frolic.  It seems that every animal I’ve ever noticed likes to bound about without a care in the world.  I guess most of them don’t really have any cares in the world though.  Maybe they have to decide to eat this grass or that grass, and sleep on this patch of grass or that one, but that’s about it.  I’ve noticed, however, there are a few that obviously don’t enjoy frolicking around.

1.)    Cows.
2.)    Pigs.
3.)    Alligators.

Have you ever seen a cow frolic?  Even a little bit?  True, you’ve seen the calves romp around here and there – but full-grown cattle?  I think not.  Never has a pig jumped in the air for joy (except in Charlotte’s Web, but that doesn’t count).  And alligators, well, nobody has ever claimed an alligator to be a frolicker.  But alligators couldn’t frolic anyway, they have Tyrannosaurus Rex arms and legs, so they’re disabled animals (frolickly challeged is the politically correct term) I’d say.  So they don’t count.  But I got to thinking why cows and pigs don’t frolic, except when they are younger, and just for a short time.  Granted they do get bigger and fatter, but I’m sure there are plenty of fat people that still like to frolic.  If I were a larger man, I would frolic to the park, and other such places where frolickers are welcome.  But really now, let’s examine this.  Why don’t cows and pigs frolic?

Well, in all my research* on this I’ve come up with a few ideas that I’ve narrowed down.  Cows and pigs must both have their own language first of all.  And, as with any mammal, they have to grow up a little to understand this language.  Human babies can’t talk until like 1 or 2 years.  I imagine it is the same in the cow and pig world.  It’d only seem logical…  Anyway, when cows and pigs are born, they jump around here and there, and play with the other animal babies that are around the farm, and they have a good time.  But they can’t talk to each other, so they really don’t know what’s going on.

Until one day the calves learn their language, and the piglets theirs.  Before you know it, they’re too old for each other, and they just go about their lives, right?  I beg to differ!  I think that when cattle learn to talk to the other cattle, the older cows start saying to the younger ones, “Quit your damn frolicking!  That’s a way to an early death sonny!  No cattle farmer wants a skinny cow that frolics all over the place!  It’s a waste of his money to keep a skinny cow around, so he’s going to kill you if you keep that crap up!  Besides, we’re stuck inside this fence for the most part anyway*, and there is all of this delicious grass everywhere, why waste your time romping and bounding about?  We only have 2-4 years at best that we’re going to be on this farm before Farmer Joe hits us in the head with that damn sledgehammer.  (I don’t know if they call it a sledgehammer, the cattle term for it might be different like “Moo Mooooooo Moo” loosely translated as “Ouchy Head Smasher”.

Furthermore, I guess that none of these words are the ones that the cattle use either, so maybe using the word sledgehammer is ok, because I don’t speak cow, and I’m sure none of you do either…)  So we might as well make the best of it, and eat all his hay and grass and show him who’s the boss, by eating everything he gives us!”
By this time the baby calves realize, “Hey, those older cows must know something, and maybe they do have a point.  Maybe I should quit this frolicking.”
At about 5 or 6 months, you don’t see anymore frolicking, just getting fat, and playing right into Farmer Joe’s hand – that crafty Joe.  The pigs deal with the situation the same way, but I’m sure it’s in pig language, because who has ever heard of a pig speaking cow language?  That’s just preposterous…

* – research not really conducted, but one time I did see a cow.
*- See story Cattle Guard.

New Age Ice Treats

New Age Ice Treats
Thought up:  4.22.02 – 7:23pm
Written: 4.24.02 – 3:17pm
#4
These days, everyone is really into “New Age” diets.  All these health nuts are not eating anything that is remotely tasty, but instead they are eating fancy expensive health foods.  So why not prey on these poor souls that don’t enjoy a hearty ½-pound of cow with 4 strips of dead pig.  Now that’s what I was raised on, and to this day, I still rate at the top of my list.  Now I don’t care if they like to eat what they like to eat.  I have no problem with that, but I just figure, why not take it a step further?

Why not give them something to really rant and rave about?  Modern diets are heavily laden with fruits and vegetables, and I personally don’t care for veggies, and I am sure many people agree.  So why don’t we find a way to cash in on it?  I think it would be a splendid idea to take all the veggies that you don’t eat, and put them in a big box.  Every time you can’t eat a vegetable, save them for however long you want, until the box is full I guess, and I’ll start up a website like Ihateveggiesandwanttodonatethemtoagoodcauseandsoshouldyousoputtheminaboxandsendthemtoandy.com and you can all send me your veggies because I just got this new food blender.  I’d take them suckers and whip them up into a creamy batch of yuck.  I’d then get some old corndog sticks, (don’t tell the vegetarians, the corndog sticks might still have hotdog on them) and put some sugar in the puree so that they stick to the sticks, and freeze the delightful treats.  It doesn’t even matter if you refrigerate your box of bad tasting stuff.  Mold is a spore, not a veggie, but I don’t suppose hippies would notice.

could make a killing on these treats!  People love that crap nowadays.  Well, some people I guess.  I can just see the commercial for it…

Unshaven hippy-type man:  Ah yes, after a nice day of work at the nudist colony, I always like to take a leisurely jog in the park with my dog.  Then I come home to a nice, cold, tasty, BlendoGrode*.  BlendoGrode is a delicious mix of random vegetables and possible mold on a used corndog stick.  Yum…

*BlendoGrode has not been approved by the FDA.  We gave it to some lab rats and their wieners fell off, so you’re on your own.  If symptoms persist for longer than 3 years, consult a doctor but don’t mention BlendoGrode.  Thank you.

Reminiscing Scents

Reminiscing Scents
Thought up:  5.4.02 – 10:15am
Written: 5.10.02 – 3:15am
#7

When I was 17, I had my first girlfriend.  We spent most days together, just even sitting around and watching T.V. sometimes.  Not really having an idea of where we were going, or what we were going to do.  I met her in the summer of ’96 and I knew that she was going to leave in August because her mother was marrying a nice guy from Caldwell, Idaho.   The thing I remembered the most about her was the smell of her hair, I can’t describe it, but I would remember if I smelled it again.  Anyway, every time I’d pass someone that used that scent, I’d say, “Hey, I remember that smell.”

Well, when I graduated high school, I made a few visits to her house during the year because it wasn’t that far from Walla Walla, WA, to Caldwell, ID.  It was only 200 miles, and I had myself an ‘86 Dodge Aries.  It wasn’t a gem to look at, but it got me from point A to point B each time I asked it to.  It was reliable, until my sister drove it into a tree a few years later (totally beside the point, but I still think I got stuck when she got a new car out of it, and I was left with nothing).  But while it was in its prime, I made that trip a good handful of times.

About 15 miles out of Caldwell, Idaho, it really starts to smell like horse and cow feces.  I’d usually get there around 6 pm, right when it was starting to get ripe.  At first I didn’t mind it.  It would permeate around her house, and in her house, through the air conditioner and in the outhouse (ok, there was no outhouse, but I bet if she did have one it would smell).  I got used to it.

So every trip I’d know that I was close when I could smell that sweet aroma.  I got to thinking one day, I don’t really remember her for the shampoo.  I remember her for the smell of cow poop.  Maybe that poop was trying to tell me something – warning me of what was to come.  If only I’d have listened to that poop.  But I didn’t.  Maybe it’s that “love is blind”, but I think mostly I didn’t listen to it because hey, everyone knows that poop usually can’t talk…

Speed Checked by Radar

Speed Checked by Radar
Thought up:  4.23.02 – 1:36am
Written: 4.27.02 – 9:27am
#5

I’m gonna take some time to analyze the sign we see on the roads ALL over every state:  “Speed Checked by Radar.”  As opposed to…?  How else would you track the speed of a car?  What kind of idiot decided to make this sign?  What a splendid way to waste money in state government!  I’ve thought of a couple of other ways to combat this “Speed Checked by Radar” (SCBR) dilemma.  I propose, for the sake of taking down all those signs across the nation, to have speed checked by other means.

Option 1:  There could be like 326 or 471 frozen goat heads randomly placed in the middle of highways and interstates.  These heads will be set on 3-foot tall glass shafts.  The SCBR signs will be replaced by Speed Checked by Flying Goatheads (SCBFG) signs.  When the car runs into this goat head, (these goat heads will be very well camouflaged to dissuade people from missing them on purpose) it gets whacked a certain distance.  And that’s where the state workers come in.  State workers will be placed at 300-foot intervals along every major highway and interstate where the goat heads on glass shafts are erected.  (Don’t worry, they don’t have REAL work to do anyway, might as well have them do something useful.)  So when the goat head gets hit, a state worker will run out and see how far the goat head flew thus calculating the speed the driver must have been driving to hit it that far.  Anyway, put like a good 357+ of them around various locales where these goat signs reside.  When a perpetrator flies by the sign and thinks to himself/herself,
Himself/Herself:  “Gee Self, my speed is being checked by radar.  Should I slow down?  (2 second pause to think about it.)  Hell no!  Radars only live on police cars, and there are no police cars within sight, so that sign is a waste of everyone’s money!  Boy, I’m sure showing those radar-sign-making people a thing or two.”

And before they know it, WHAM, a goat head is splatted onto their car.  And then I bet they’ll be the ones feeling sheepish…  Get it, sheepish – wink, wink, nudge nudge.

Option 2:  This might make animal activists a little angrier, but it would provide a different means of checking speeds on major roadways.  We’re going to need a snail, a turtle, a boa constrictor, a mouse, a duck, a 3-legged cat, a dog that just got spun around like 15 or 16 times, an elephant, and a cheetah (might be hard to get a cheetah, so maybe a track with a toy train on it that can go 80 mph.  I could make a suit that looks like a cheetah, or I guess a person could just ride the train with my cheetah costume I wore for Halloween).
Anyway, we’d line these animals up at random locations along the highway and as a car would shoot by, a race would begin.  The animals would start running when the car passes them, and they’d race for 100 yards.  Wherever this car finishes in the 100-yard race in comparison to the animals would give a relatively close estimate as to the speed of the car.  True, the animals may become tired, but it’s all for the sake of sign preservation.  And besides, who wouldn’t want to be driving along a highway, and look out their window and see a boa constrictor racing against them…

Are We There Yet?

Are We There Yet?

Thought up:  4.29.02 – 11:41am

Written: 4.30.02 – 1:27pm

#6

When I was young my family used to go on vacations.  We didn’t have a lot of money, so our vacations would usually include one or more of the following:

1.)     Sleeping in the car as opposed to a hotel or campground.

2.)     Not really going anywhere, but more just driving around for 2 days, and stopping at rest areas and monuments and such.

3.)     “Vacationing” to gramma’s house.

4.)     Eating the 45 Shasta-smashed-bologna sandwiches packed in a hand me down green cooler in the trunk of our beautiful, spacious, stealthy 1989 LTD Crown Victoria.  (By “stealthy” I mean stealthy like a hippopotamus on fire.)

5.)     Me getting beat up by my parents for beating up my sister because I couldn’t beat up my brother, who had just beaten me up… yea, I got beat up a lot.  It was a lose-lose situation, but I guess I never quite figured that one out.

When you’re a kid, you always want to be able to know where you are, when you’re getting to where you’re going, and when you could just stop and get out of the car.  Well, for years, as every kid does, we’d ask, “Are we there yet?”  And for years, my dad would always use the reply,

“Almost, just a few more miles.”

Isn’t that what he’s supposed to say?  That’s what they always say, but we’d always just come back 5 minutes later,

“Are we there yet?”

Until apparently one day my old man got to thinking about it, he was ready for us to ask the inevitable question.

“Are we there yet?”

He looked back in that rearview mirror, raised up one eyebrow, smiled to show all of his off-white teeth, (kinda like that Grinch, when he finally realizes he could steal Christmas away from all the Whos in Whoville, and he starts to rub his hands in a circle, like when one dries their hands under one of those automatic dryers in McDonalds…) and said, much to our disbelief,
”Yup.  We’re just looking for a parking place.”

Uhhhhh, what does a kid say to that?  Because technically we ARE there, because he said so.  And in our family, for all we knew, the vacation COULD lead to this very location on the highway.  So for at least the next 3 or 4 trips, we had no clue how to respond to that one.  We’d just gaze out the window and look for something that we might stop at, never really knowing where we’d stop.  Boy, kids sure are dumb.  I hope I never become one…

The Cattle Guard

Thought up: 3.24.02 – 6:24pm
Written: 3.24.02 – 11:45 pm

So yesterday I was driving along in between White Sulphur and Harlowton, Montana, and I saw this cow standing OUTSIDE one of the many cattle guards, and I got to thinking, “did she just JUMP over that cattle guard to get to that green grass on the other side?” Cause many times that is the greener stuff. And if she did, why didn’t she teach all those other stupid cows that are still eating all that grass on the regular side that they poop in all day to jump it?

Or maybe she’s the Michael Jordan of cows or some such, and maybe I should call up the owner of this cow and tell him that maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to butcher this cow. She has some real talent, but she probably wouldn’t perform in front of people, just like trick animals never do, like that cartoon I remember when I was little where a man found a singing frog, but the frog would only sing when nobody was watching, and the man spent his life savings on this frog to promote him, and all the frog did in front of people was croak.

Boy, I bet he felt sheepish in front of people, and that’s not what I’d want the cow owner to feel, so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to tell the cow owner about his magnificent cow. Perhaps though the cow owner would appreciate me scaring the cow back over to the other side of the inept cattle guard, but then I got to thinking again, “What if that cow got her leg stuck in the guard THIS time? And the cow’s leg got injured really badly, and the man had to kill the cow anyway. Boy, Mr. Badluck would be getting 2 birds with one stone cause not only would he be getting rid of that Michael Jordan cow, but Badluck would also have it that I’d have to pay the man cause I tried to save his splendid cow.

Quite frankly, I didn’t think it was worth it, but for that 30 seconds, I really thought hard about it. Good thing I talked some sense into myself. Stupid cattle guards…