Mr. Ass

The King

This guy is truly creepy. I used to work for him, way back in the day, thirty-something years ago. He’s been around for roughly twice that long, peddling burgers since 1953 when he started as Insta-Burger King in Jacksonville, Florida (the largest city, area-wise, in the continental United States). Back in the day, I worked graveyard shift, seven to one weeknights, which likely did nothing to help my struggling grades during 11th grade. I went to work every day wearing that stupid brown and orange …Read the Rest

Who’s Handicapped

Here’s another thing about driving: what’s the story on the handicapped placard thingamajiggys you see hanging from everyone’s rearview mirrors these days? It seems they give them out at every Circle-K in the state to any blue-haired retiree that walks in the door. Honestly, the old gal can barely see over the hood, let alone drive, and here we are hanging a big hunk of blue and white plastic four inches away from her nose and obstructing half of her field of vision as …Read the Rest

Where’s a Cop When You Need One

Sometimes I drive like an asshole. I follow too closely, impatient with the speed of the old-farts visiting Arizona from Bemidji or Des Moines or even frigging Vancouver. You would think the older we get, the faster we would drive, knowing there’s not much time left. And once in a while I forget to use my blinker, or roll through a stop sign, and I certainly drive too fast for the weather conditions here; I am from Minnesota after all, and am used …Read the Rest

Damn Clowns

Rebo, Coco, Buffo, Doodles, Blinko, Bozo, or Ronald fucking McDonald, I don’t care, I hate them all. They’re just damn creepy. They never used to bother me, even when I was a kid living in a dark scary basement, terrified of the shit my brother used to pull on me – grabbing at my feet from under the bed, hiding in the closet and waiting until I was asleep to pounce on me, donning a skimask and leaping out Jason-like from around the …Read the Rest

The Mexican Breathalyzer

In Durango one night, bat-hating Tim from Indiana and I went out to dinner at a little Italian restaurant on the Avenida. Another friend who had recently escaped Mexico swore by the restaurant, but the food was so bad that Tim and I each had to drink several beers to wash the taste away, and then ordered some tequila just because we were sad and wanted to go home. After this we felt much better, so we left the restaurant and walked down to the big church, hoping to go inside and sober …Read the Rest

Why Birds Suck

They talk, they laugh, they sing, they never shut up. Mine can hover in the air, like a helicopter, and then crap on your head. They can crack walnuts with their beaks, and break fingers, and remote controls, and your cell phone, and anything of value you put within reach. Bird poop doesn’t stink too much, and they won’t pee on you, but they do shit on the floor right in the exact place where you walk. If you are in …Read the Rest

I Hate Easter

The jelly beans, the fake green grass that finds its way into every corner and crevice of the house and clogs the vacuum cleaner with its unmanageable plastic strings, the milk chocolate balls that months later are still rolling out from under the couch, the fearsome six foot Easter Bunny at the shopping mall and the specter of his long white predatory teeth (you can see I was bitten by a rabbit as a child), the annual hiding and subsequent …Read the Rest

All That She Saw

When she was born, the end of the Civil War was only 30 years old. Surely her parents and grandparents were still discussing it, bitching at the dining room table about the loss of Uncle Ned or Cousin Tim, and doing all this complaining while sitting in the dim light of gas lamps, because the light bulb was still a novelty, as was the automobile, the ballpoint pen, and the machine gun. The Wright Brothers flew the first airplane when …Read the Rest

March 17

My daughter was fifteen years old when she bravely stood at my sister’s funeral and offered the following eulogy. This was just less than ten years ago, when we still lived back in Minnesota. My sister’s passing was like the first rock in the avalanche that finally brought us to Arizona. It’s funny where life takes you. I tried to find a picture of Kat, but I’m sad and somewhat ashamed to say I have none, except for the framed 8×10 of her at …Read the Rest

DST

This is retarded. Sorry to be an ass, but Daylight Savings Time? Stupid! Big chunks of Africa and much of Southeast Asia seem to be the some of the few places on our planet that don’t participate (mostly) in this lunacy. Arizona and Hawaii are the only US states that don’t practice DST (can you believe they created an acronym for this too? Don’t even get me started on acronyms) and in Arizona they made an exception for the Navajo …Read the Rest