My Own Mortality

003, Well Crapola

It's 1 a.m. and I can't freaking sleep. Two and a half hours in the gym and I was so damn hungry afterwards that I ran to the grocery store and stocked up on food. You ask anyone who's made food runs in college and they'll tell you the first mistake is to go to the grocery store when you're hungry. My poor excuse for a hand basket was so full that I had to push it to the register. No, I never get a shopping cart because I have convinced myself that if I did that, I would start throwing everything I see into it. My intentions are good, but a case of beer and three bags of Hanover pretzels are just too damn tempting if I had the means to tote it to the front. So instead, I grab the rinky little basket and fill it until I can't cram any more into it. They got these nifty scan it yourself things so now I don't have to carry on a conversation with the cashier. And really I don't have to anyway, but the beep beep beep moment is so akward that I feel obligated to make idle comments. Anyway I just finished off a can of tuna on unsalted saltines (?), a quarter bag of walnuts and two tall glasses of juice. No, my ass ain't getting to sleep anytime soon.

So I'll write myself to sleep. I think I was rambling last time about my stories, for why I have no idea. Today I'll ramble about...road rage. Yes, lots of well to do people have it, and despite them, I have it too. Yesterday I almost ran a guy down for passing me on the right. No reason other than to target some driver who looks more aggressive than me. He did the fast accelerate behind you and then quickly pass maneuver, which I despise mainly because to do it to me, you'd have to be going 15 over. So of course I catch up to him and ride his blind spot until he's forced behind some slow grandma. I'm half wishing he won't see me and try that maneuver again, but alas he's a smooth criminal and opts to tailgate grandma's poor old buick as if she's going to suddenly break out the nitrous or something. So here we are cruising along, locked in formation, me sporting my totally oblivious look with the radio up so high the speakers are smoking. I missed my turn two blocks ago, but that's not important. What's important at this juncture in my life is that I annoy the shit out of this guy as long as possible for no rational reason whatsoever. Eventually he turns off at the next light, probably just because it's his turn, but in my mind i'm thinking: "I gotcha you little shit. You couldn't hack it so you had to bail. Cubs win, cubs win. Me 1. Dumbass 0." So my day was complete after that, and after cruising the 10 mile scenic route to work, I had a really productive afternoon.

So the brief thought does cross my mind occasionally that perhaps I'm the dumbass driver and everyone else is just trying to stay the hell away from me, and in the process it just appears that they are two days out of driver's ed. I don't know. And I play this game a lot, and my win rate is somewhere around 75%. There's always a riced up piece of shit that's going to smoke my little pickup, and then there's circumstances beyond my control that force me into a decisively illegal maneuver or letting it all go. Only on a few rare occasions did I opt for the former, and not since I've gotten into grad school. I also wondered how far would I take it if it got ugly and some roided up shotputter decides to settle it in the parking lot. I went as far as to store my tire iron under the front seat. I guess we're all proned to our bouts of denying our own mortality. That's one of many I still indulge. Without drugs or extreme sports, I have to do something that will offset my decisively overrational, compulsive, and emotionally detached mentality. Maybe the world would be much nicer if we all did drugs. Damn hippies. Get a tire iron.

I might have to start adding disclaimers to my blogs if this sarcasm keeps up. Today's disclaimer is: I'm really a nice guy despite what it sounds like here. Really I am. Why just today I hugged a kitten. (Granted it was more like a two handed hold down to keep the little bugger from using me as a claw pole, but it looks the same).

Oh and a side note: I added some links to pages I routinely visit, some more than others. Many omitted due to the sheer volume of pages I visit in any given day, and some I just don't think anyone here would have any interest in (e.g. Ion Trap Tutorial @ http://physwww.mcmaster.ca/~kingb/ion_traps.html).

Posted by Clausius at April 14, 2004 07:47 AM