An affront to cohesive thought

A random collection of thoughts that occurred to me during this morning's gasping, flailing run:

1) Abby, though an excellent pacesetter and pervert-deterrent, has mastered a universal contempt for the social niceties of public exercise. Example: she will pass up half a mile of scrubby empty lots in order to deposit vile, yellow soft serve on the nearest carefully manicured lawn. If possible, she will choose a house where the occupant is enjoying a cup of coffee on the front porch. She will not be dissuaded from this crime, and if pulled forcefully into the street, she will maintain crouch position and yelp, making me look like both lawn-destroyer AND dog-abuser.

2) Much has been made of this generation's short attention span and horror of good old-fashioned toil, but I'd have to offer up the example of skate punks as a counter-argument. Have you ever watched a skate punk at work? I have. As a bored teenage girlfriend accessory, I watched countless successful ollies and kick flips, but I've seen volumes, GALAXIES of failed attempts. Over and over and over: crouch, balance, kick, spin, clatter-crash, repeat. This generation doesn't have patience? I've seen pump jacks with less persistence.

3) Is it just my cat, or do all cats eat like wood chippers? I'm wondering if there's something wrong with him. He had a rough and rowdy stray cat infancy and came to us with scars, fleas, matted fur-- pretty much everything short of prison tats and a pregnant girlfriend-- so I guess it wouldn't surprise me that his way of tossing his food all over the place, letting half chewed chunks spew from either side of his head is some kind of residual effect of maternal abandonment. That doesn't make much sense, but I don't know shit about cats, so...

4) I need a job. My self-assigned pointless chores are getting old. I'd rather do someone else's.

5) Californians in my area of the state have a penchant for lift kits on their monster SUV's and this has been one of the biggest disappointments outside of the one my mother so aptly identified, loudly, in the local Walmart: "I really thought people would be better looking out here." I guess I'd been expecting a land of hyper-liberal shade-grown coffee drinkers zipping around in rainbow-emitting Smart Cars, tossing their glorious golden hair and talking about Sufism, but such was not the case. Maybe in parts of San Francisco. Out here, they are alarmingly fat (like, the rest of America fat), and knocking back those globe-topped goopy Starbucks creations and roaring past in shiny new Excursions with decorative chrome grills and massive, massive wheels. I want to leap up and grab the bottom edge of their open window and ask if we're going to the same gas stations.

6) We live near a cheese plant! Oh, God if all that is Good and Holy, a whole PLANT devoted to the making of CHEESE is nearby! I can finally live out my 3-2-1 Contact fantasy of touring a plant and nodding my hair-netted head appreciatively. Once, in junior high, I and two other boys were deemed "honors" students in a school too tyrannized by its board to have an honors program. They made it up to us by taking us on a one-time field trip to tour the nearby Tylenol factory. My favorite part was the giant industrial washing machines where the newly pressed pills go to get their colored coating. Then they showed us where the coated pills get dried and then sent across a huge shaker, separating the whole pills for Americans from the broken and wonky pills for Mexico and Panama, but NOT CUBA! Hm. Anyway, I think a good date night for Pants and I would include a romantic tour of the cheese factory.

7) Did you know duct tape kills plantar warts? It's true! I had one and inquired about that freeze-off treatment and when the doctor asked about my pain tolerance and I said never mind, I was asking for a friend, he recommended duct tape! So not only can you use it to create cleavage, supervise your children, and bind your bear bites, you can also suffocate an annoying little spot on the sole of your foot.