I Brake For Bombs

"Hold on tight. You know she's a little bit dangerous." Roxette

Alright...so, I'm not the best driver. And I admit it, okay? But I am trying to improve, and I've never actually touched another car with mine. Well, there may have been that once. Which happened a few times.

But driving is just so boring, and a mind as easily distracted as mine presents a special challenge. And for this, I came kinda close to rear-ending Richard Belzer on the road this morning.

Now, you know you love to write when you're almost sorry you didn't wreck with someone, because of the story it robs you of.

So here is how I imagine it would have gone:

Smack.

Jen and Richard get out of their cars.

Jen: Oh gosh! Are you the Law and Order guy?

Richard: Well, now I'm just the guy you hit with your car.

Jen: Wow! Richard Belzer! Funny story...the casting director I worked for saw you doing standup once in the eighties, and she said it really stunk!

Silence.

Jen: Yeah, she said it was just time-to-go-home-now embarrassing. Isn't that so funny?

Crickets.

Jen: Aw, crap. Is it too late for "I'm a big fan"?

Louder, angrier crickets.

Jen: "That will buff out"?

A Short Scene I Overheard At Work

“There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Buffalo Springfield (For What It’s Worth)

Male Coworker #1: Oh, I was gonna tell you…I did what you told me last night.

Male Coworker #2: Better results?


Male Coworker #1: Yes.

Male Coworker #2: Everything…working better?


Male Coworker #1: Yes.

Male Coworker #2: (with a sly smile) Well, there’s a whole lot more we can do.

There you go. Now it’s in your head too. Except you don’t know what either of these men looks like.

Advantage: You.

Top 20 Things I Learned at My 20th High School Reunion

“Still crazy after all these years.” Paul Simon

20. Oh for the sweet love of all that’s holy – it really has been 20 years since I was in high school.

19. Greg Fields will always be funnier than I am.

18. I can still stay up till 2:00! But only if I want the next day to feel like a smack in the head with a shovel.

17. Old crushes never really die, they just kind of…make fun of you now.

16. I was right back then – I DO still like “Cum On Feel the Noize.”

15. If you tell Ryan Joy to follow you out to your folks’ house in the country, know what he is driving, or at least his cell number. Otherwise you may end up circling the parking lot for fifteen minutes, barely missing each other, Abbot-and-Costello style, several times.

14. Mr. Tegethoff, Kelly Smith and I are the only two still cool enough to spend a late night forking your yard.

13. Nobody from back home gives one little crap about Michael Jackson anymore. You can bring up his death if you wanna be startin’ somethin’, but what you’ll get back is only cricket sounds. And one uncomfortable comment from Julie Burris.

12. Free Methodists can grow up to be devilish little things.

11. If you’re coming home at 1:30 a.m. and the porch light has been on since your parents went to bed at 10, you will freak out three large, loud locusts you didn’t see, when you go to open the door. You’ll have to make a few attempts, each time running back into the yard in your high heels wailing, “I just wanna go to bed, you little bastards!” You’ll wonder if you’ll have to sleep in the camper.

10. Remember that picture of you that took you until well past college to forget about? Yeah…that one friend still has a copy.

9. If an old girlfriend remarks, “You haven’t changed at ALL!”, just take the compliment. Replying, “Well…I’m not jealous of you anymore” is likely to just bring the room down.

8. Yearbooks aren’t the best traveling companions. Just bring a few cinder blocks instead. They’re lighter and okay to lose.

7. Samantha Fox’s “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)” can still bring out the bored biology student in Kit Bowman and me. Who needs a karaoke machine when you’ve got two awesome microscopes and an about-to-graduate sense of invincibility?

6. Kit would no longer even consider pouring any sugar on Joe Elliott.

5. At Lakeside Park, fried chicken and potato chips are a perfectly balanced meal. I need more Lakeside Parks in my current life.

4. Couldn’t Electric Slide then, can’t now. My slide is hopelessly…acoustic?

3. When you pull out a keepsake note to share, passed between a friend and you in government class senior year, read it silently to yourself first. You were just as dumb then as she was.

2. If you’ve done a little film acting, and when asked about it you want to convey that so far they’ve been short, indie films, find better wording than, “They’re not really the kind of movies you’d take the family to see.” Oh…please…just…don’t say that.

1. Call me “citified,” but Kansas is country-er than Roy Clark eating corn pone off a confederate flag.