2005-04-21 - 10:55 a.m.

Back in the olden days of yore, a pal and I had a goofy website. I guess it was bloggish before blogs were blogs. I wrote a column under a different name. At the time, it was funny as shit. I pulled a few open last night and looked at them.

Jesus hopping Christ.

Now, I know I�m no scribe, but this drivel is fucking Shakespeare compared to that. I was looking mostly because I felt 2 things: Lazy and bad.

Lazy : I feel compelled to write, but knew I might not be in the mood today.
Bad: I feel bad because of yesterdays rant on why I don�t go to church. WTF? Why did I think anyone would care to read that nonsense? Shit, I didn�t even want to read it and I wrote it.

So, I figured I�d pull out a funny story and post it here. However, I think a retarded badger wrote it. Now I have to fix the story and make it work for my new audience.

So, without further ado, I present

Background: In September of 2000, we went to Disney with 2 friends (henceforth known as Goober and Queenie). All went mostly well, but it was the first step of our eventual breakup.

Words of wisdom: When vacationing with friends, make sure you all are prepared to be together for that time and you will all get along. Turns out, us not so much with the research

So, we go to WDW and have a good time. It was really empty and we got to see everything twice.

Background Item #2: I went through a phase from roughly 1997-2001 where I had an amazing run of bad luck. Car accidents, lawsuits, broken down cars, bad waiters, bad restaurant tables, odd vacations. I had a little of it all. This trip was coming smack in the middle of the 3rd and largest of the 3 lawsuits and had its share of bad tables. In a nutshell, at the time, being with me was totally a Buyer Beware situation. You never knew what was happening next.

We (and when I say we, I mean I, the Travel Nazi) had decided to stay off-grounds at a hotel on Rt192. 192 is a great example of �If you build it, they will come and we�ll keep on building because you suckers keep coming�. They have jammed 17 million hotels and bad restaurants into the 8-10 mile stretch of road that heads towards and away from WDW. 192 is also, and always will be, under construction. They�re always shifting lanes, adding lanes, reclaiming parking lots, building Waffle Houses etc. We had to drive through a part that had really narrow lanes and no shoulders to get to and from the parks.

One night, we�re headed to the Polynesian Luau (Motto: It�s too expensive, but it�s fun anyway!). I�m driving, JewelrySlut�s got shotgun and our pals are in the back seat. We�re driving along making our typical White Collar, College Edumacated, Northern Yankee comments about Central Florida when suddenly a pickup pulled out of a driveway. It pulled out from the right, blew straight across the right lane, and was suddenly in front of us (in the left lane). I had nowhere to go. To my left was a concrete barrier. To my right, was a ginormous Winnebago that the truck had cut off when it came bouncing out of Stuckey's.

I stood on the breaks thanking Jesus that they were of the anti-lock variety. My only thought at the time was that I really hoped I could stop in time because a: I had declined the insurance on the car, and B: Queenie was with child. With hand on horn, we skidded/rattled to a stop thisclose to the truck�s bumper. Well, Mr. Florida Pickup Driver didn�t like this. All the honking must have hurt his ears or drowned whatever shit-kicking song he was obviously listening to at the time. That was the only reasonable explanation I could some up with for why someone would barrel across two lanes of heavy traffic without even a glance. He jammed on his breaks, let the Winnie pass, and made a big mistake.

He pulled into the right lane.

He started screaming out his open window for us to pull over because he had a ticket for us. For about 1/10 of a second I was scared to death. You see, he had on a uniform and was pointing to the patch on his sleeve. Being a Yankee honkeyass, I had visions of being locked up by Boss Hog or something.

At this point, with him on our right, JewelrySlut and Queenie were going at it pretty good with, JerseyGirl style, asking him on exactly who�s authority he was giving us this ticket. You had to be there for that one, to listen to the two of them yelling out the car windows, which may or may not have even been open at the time (I really don�t think they were). It was hysterical. JewelrySlut�s in full-on potty mouth mode dropping F-Bombs left and right and Queenie (never one to curse very much) is trying to conduct a business meeting.

You see, he had on a paramedic uniform.

What ticket would this have been? Failure to properly bandage a splinter?

This went on for a little while.

At this point, I think all four of us gave him the Jersey Salute. He didn�t like this at all. He swung back to the left and pulled in behind us. At the next light, he swerved out in to the left turn only lane and the fun really began.

As we sat there, he rolled down his other window and started yelling at me. Right here, the smart thing would have been for me to just look forward and ignore him. However, I was a 26 year old asshole at the time (he�s not to be confused with the 30 year old asshole that I am today). 26 year old assholes seldom do the right thing. I lowered my window and the show started. He started screaming about how we�d cut him off. I probably told him that he�d been the asshole who had done the cutting off. He went back into the �I�ve got a ticket for you� rant to which I think I responded with �You�re a fucking paramedic.� He didn�t like this either very much. Goober was behind me and was pretty much crawling into his shell. I think he was really preparing to dive across the seat and cover his wife to protect her from the almost inevitable hail of bullets. I was in The Zone. We were going back and forth screaming and cursing about mostly nothing, but I believe it centered about the ability or lack thereof of a redneck paramedic to give out traffic tickets.

Then, I dropped the bomb. I mean, I dropped da bomb.

Remember when you�re little and you�re passing insults on the playground? One kid always has the winner to which, you can only say �So? Yea? Well� you too.� It�s the insult that wins. Nothing beats it, you admit defeat and go back to throwing rocks at each other

Well, I pulled out the Big Gun. Now I have no idea where it came from. It wasn�t an insult that was in my stable. I�d use it once and a while, but that was it. It just felt right for the moment.

�Listen, Ass-Monkey, shut the fuck up.�

That was it, or at least something very similar.

You could feel the air suck right out of the truck�s cab. He had nothing to say. I mean, who would?

�Did you call me an� � � � (this took only about a second or two, but it felt like hours) ass?�

I don�t believe he�d ever been called an Ass Monkey before. Who has?

The light turned green and I drove off towards Disney. He pulled in behind us and continued to wave wildly at us for another mile or two, but it was over. I�d won.

Goober was also quite stunned. It took him a few minutes but he finally asked: �Did you call him an ass monkey?� I don�t think he�d ever heard of an ass monkey and could not believe that I�d just called an angry Florida paramedic one. �Ass Monkey?� he kept repeating. �Ass Monkey?�

In the following days, it kept coming up again and again. We debated what, exactly, an Ass Monkey is, and what are the occasions during which it can be used. We applauded my little piece of evasive driving. We discussed the gall that the truck�s driver had to pull out across traffic. We marveled that no one was killed either in the non-accident or by gunfire. (Florida paramedics pack semi-automatic weapons). It was a moment frozen in time. Today, going on 5 years later, I can see the whole thing like it just happened. The inside of the rental car, the road, the pickup, the paramedic, the whole thing.

It was funny.

Later Ass Monkeys.

I had planned to post that, but got sidetracked by this email:
What is was asking is, when they send the letters in a box, the entire box should reference what carrier. How would you distinguish the letters? Did they send generic ones? Thanks.

Do people read what they�ve written of just type and hit send? What the fuck does that mean? It�s not even English.

Fuckall.

I have an interview in 6 � hours. That�s what matters.