Gas Station vs Me

So what the fuck is up with this?!?

I go to fuel up my car this foggy morning. I happen to stop at a 7-11 which has a gas station. First off, the pumps look weird. They’re low slung. Low to the ground. Second, the nozzle seems short. About 6 inches shorter than I’m used to seeing. I set it and prepare to forget it. I start walking to the squeegee bucket hanging from the side of a nearby pump when I hear the clank clank of metal on concrete. I turn around and see the hose and nozzle assembly on the ground, a small amount of gasoline dribbling out. I whisper a curse and re-set the nozzle. It takes this time.

I resume my trek to the squeegee station. As I’ve seen at other stations in recent months: the bucket’s filled with water…no soap, just water. And, as has been my luck lately, no paper towels. So I clean my windshield sans towel and I’m reminded of a move I’d seen a family friend make while making some household repairs some years back. He needed to blow his nose and had no hanky around so he squeezed a nostril and launched a nose goblin to the ground. You do what you can with what you have.

At this point, I hear the click of the pump indicating it has completed the fueling process. I approach my car. The hose and nozzle assembly chooses this moment to test my reflexes as it jumps from my car’s refueling port and drops to the ground. Of course, I get splattered with gasoline.

Then to top things off, I go to gather my receipt when the automated pump smiles it’s LED smile at me and says, “See attendant for receipt.” So I go inside. I was planning on getting a cuppa coffee anyway.

I first stop at the counter. Two clerks are putting away inventory, each trying to avoid eye contact with me in hopes of having the other one help me. One of them, a dumpy, double-chinned, inbred clerk, finally gives in and approaches me. I ask her for my receipt and tell her my pump number. She looks at me and asks, “Uh…how much was it?” I tell her that I was unsure of the amount. I seem to remember telling her the pump number sometime in the not to distant past. She looks at the console and rattles off a number, in the form of a question, which sounds about right. I look at her and, after a pause, I say “…sure.”

I go to get my coffee, pay for it and the gasoline and make my way onto work. Just my luck. “Alex, I’ll take Pump #2 for $1.95.” Oh, wait, I meant to say was “What is $1.95?” That’s it’s. That’s what I meant to say.

Idiots.

Encounter on the Way Home From Work

Okay, okay, so it’s been a while since I’ve written. What can I say…I’ve been busy.

Well…to the job at hand.

Humans never cease to amaze me. Please notice that I didn’t say surprise. I said amaze. I chuckle when I see something like this anecdote I am about to relay to you.

So I’m driving home from work. I’m in the slow lane and signal to turn right. I have the green light, as does the traffic going in the opposite direction. So there’s this American made piece of shit Bigfoot type truck (I think it was a GM) that’s signaling to turn left and therefore going the same way I plan to. He keeps inching and inching into my path and the moustachioed, sunglass wearing homo gives me a look like I just kicked his puppy. He glides into the lane and I raise an eyebrow. Then, 2 Flips in some Honda or Toyota follow RIIIIGHT behind him, all the while avoiding eye contact with me.

The first one sees me as being in the wrong. The second one apparently believes that her time is more important than mine. Each has their own way of rationalizing their actions. They can sleep at night because even though I had the right-of-way, THEY, through some divine right handed down to them from a burning bush atop a nearby mountain, were fated to make that turn and I was in THEIR way.

Amazing.

July 4th, 1776 and the Declaration of Independence

A total of 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence.

Five of the signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army.
Another had two sons captured.
Nine fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their honor.

What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
Eleven were merchants.
Nine were farmers and large plantation owners.
These were men of means who were well educated.

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton had their properties looted by vandals or soldiers.

Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters during the battle of Yorktown. Nelson quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't just fight the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted...We shouldn't.

So, take a couple of minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid...

Flag Burning

You can tell that the Fourth of July is close by when the online posts start mentioning flag burning. When Hell does finally freeze over, they’ll realize that burning a flag is the ultimate expression of free speech.

There are, of course, certain necessary limits to free speech. You cannot, for example, yell out “FIRE!!” in a crowded theater. Why? Because this could harm your fellow citizens, perhaps fatally. But burning a flag harms no-one. As long as you’re not doing it in a field of dry grass, it’s fine!!

Some will say “I/We/My ancestors fought and died for that flag.” My response is…no, slave labor MADE this flag for WalMart, which is where I bought it. If anything, people died for the freedom it REPRESENTS!! That freedom was a freedom to do as we please, to think as we please, to say as we please, to worship as we please.

I always wonder about flag “retirement.” The local Nob Hill grocery store has a nice little booth up front where you can: drop off/pick up your dry cleaning, buy stamps, get film developed, buy lottery tickets, OH and retire a flag. Retire a flag, you say?!? Yes, retire a flag. And how, pray tell, do they “retire” a flag? By burning it. Boy Scouts, American Legion, they all do it. But because they get dressed up and play some music, it’s okay when they do it. That’s similar to when Howard Stern got reprimanded for saying words like “pussy” and “cunt” but Sally Jessy and Oprah did entire shows on vaginas and said the word “vagina” over and over again. I understand that context is important but it cannot be used to stifle the rights of the individual.

I’m waiting for those opposed to flag burning to come up with a better argument than “it erodes the very foundation of our country.” Until then, God bless America!!

The Fourth of July

I love the Fourth. There’s Presidents Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, heck even trees have a day to themselves!! I think it’s only right that pyromaniacs get a national holiday. :D For the record, I say that purely in jest.

Gilroy is the only city in Santa Clara County that still permits the selling of fireworks. Watsonville just banned them after the recent arson and lightning fires. Hollister still sells them. The hysteria reared its ugly head in Gilroy for the briefest of moments. Alas, the torch-wielding villagers were held at bay by common sense and a 5-1 vote of the city council. We cannot allow knee-jerk reactions to dictate laws and erode our civil liberties even more. There will ALWAYS be those Darwin-challenged idiots who intentionally or unintentionally start fires with "safe and sane" fireworks. But you can't let yourself be scared into spoiling it for the rest of us!! Most of us KNOW not to light off bottle rockets into a neighborhood of wood-shingled homes or to light a roman candle in a field of dry grass. If so, you'd have to outlaw cars because of all the accidents that kill people every year.

I love fireworks. The louder, the brighter, the better. Before I got my ass fired, I had a list of favorites. But, as space was a premium on my jump drive and my boss didn’t give me ALL DAY to download my personal stuff from my laptop, the file was one which I chose to delete rather than save. The two fireworks I do remember, mostly because we get them every year, are: Purple Rain and Lightning Flash. Purple Rain is a small fountain that reaaaaaaally cool. Lightning Flash is a white phosphorus strobe disc about the size of a quarter.

And you can't forget about the appropriate soundtrack. Kate Smith, Ray Charles, John Mellencamp, Toby Keith, Chris de Burgh (the Revolution trilogy from The Getaway). It's just not the same without the music blaring while you light the sky.

God bless America!!

Survivors

Not Survivor the reality show. Not Survivor the 80's rock band.

Survivors.

Survivors was a low-tek Sci Fi show broadcast by the BBC in the mid 70’s. It ran for 3 seasons, or series, as they refer to them. It starred one of my favorite actresses, Carolyn Seymour, at least for a while. The show revolved around 3 characters, Abby Grant, Jenny Richards and Greg Preston. At the end of Series 2, Abby leaves to find her son Peter. Taking her place is Charles Vaughan, who was featured in an episode of Series 1. Greg leaves at the end of Season 2. You didn’t want to get too attached to any one character.

The setting is present day (mid-1970s) England. The only clue to the flash point is seen in the opening credits, where we see a Chinese scientist dropping a flask of liquid. From there, we see planes taking off and landing while the background shows his passport being stamped at various major metropolitan airports throughout the world. We then see people collapsing to the ground wherever he goes. In a very short period of time, 95% of the world’s population is dead.

The show opens with Abby at her home, playing tennis. She gets a call from her son who is away at school. She is set to pick up her husband at the train station later in the day. Jenny is at her flat, contemplating staying home to care for her roommate, who has severe cold/flu symptoms. Jenny has a boyfriend who is a doctor at the local hospital. She is surprised to see it is overflowing with patients. Jenny wants her boyfriend to stop by and take a look at her roommate when he gets off work. He cautions her to leave town immediately. That this is more than just a cold or flu outbreak. The dead will soon outnumber the living and reports are that this has broken out across the globe.

During this time, Abby meets her physician on the road and he tells her that he’d like to stop by in the evening to inoculate her and her husband. The phones and electricity go out. The doctor never shows and Abby begins to have severe cold/flu symptoms. When she awakens, it is some days later. She has survived and is now immune to the disease. She discovers, however, that while she slept, her husband passed away. She flees into the countryside. Eventually, she meets Jenny and after a while, they meet Greg.

The series deals with mankind surviving the death of 95% of its population and it often holds up a mirror to society as a whole. Our survivors deal with: militia, capital punishment, renewable resources, farming, politics and many other issues. They are tasked with rebuilding society. It’s an amazing series and there are rumors that it is being remade.

Water Outage

A few weeks ago, I had a rude awakening. No, not an earthquake. No, not someone stealing my daily newspaper. I woke up late, watched some television, read my newspaper and surfed the web for a bit. Then, my grumbling stomach told me it was time to eat. I decided to start with some coffee.

Since Gilroy water is SOOOO bad, I use a Brita filter container. The water is so bad that pregnant women and small children are told not to drink the tap water. A few years ago, perchlorate was discovered in the water table. However, the water was not that good for you even before this was discovered.

So, I made my coffee and decided to refill my Brita container. My kitchen faucet hacked and coughed like an older grandparent hocking up particles from a lifetime of cigarette smoking. I panicked. I calmed down. I cursed. I thought of one of my favorite SciFi shows, Survivors. More on that later. I checked the faucets in my bathroom. Another smoking grandparent. I checked the faucet outside. Nothing.

Long story short, the water went out about the same time I started hearing the jackhammer in the alley. City workers who left flyers on all the front doors of the affected neighbors. Being in the cottage, I didn’t get a flyer. But the water was back on in no time. Good thing I’d taken care of my morning ablutions (S-S-S). :D

But this made me think more about how our modern life is so like one of the eggs I have in a carton in my refrigerator. Take away water, electricity…hell, take away microwave and/or telephone and/or internet and we go apeshit.

Sad really.