Waitin�, watchin� the clock, it�s four o�clock, it�s got to stop
where I am starting
Buying soap is a pain. It is a pain because it comes in three hundred thousand varieties based on scent, texture, consistency, and chemical make up. You have a great deal of important choices to make but for me the most important aspect is what flavor the soap is. I do no want to smell funny; smelling nice is the point of soap. After a long time, a thousand soaps, and a near nose bleed at Target; I settled on a watermelon variation.
Since finding the right flavor of soap is such a trauma for me, and since every time I do settle on one they discontinue the flavor, I bought the huge bottle of soap to refill a ceramic soap pump.
I had forgotten where I had parked so I went to the wrong end of the parking lot. Now, I love Target. Do not get my wrong! However, the parking lot is not a place you can just walk across; they have planted grass and surrounded that grass with high curbs. I decided to just grab my bags and walk across the lot to my car, going over the medians instead of pushing the cart around the medians.
I left the soap in my cart.
If you call, I will answer
and if you fall, I�ll pick you up
Between here and there I got a phone call from my friend M, from Suburban Island, and talked to her for a long time. It was a good talk and I am glad she called. Teachers do not get to talk to plenty of adults on a regular basis, certainly not sophisticated, intelligent ones It was refreshing to talk to someone with class who can read and write. I am huge fan of hers.
You can express your devotion to Suburban Island by joining the Suburban Island Fan Club �
I had given her my phone number, as well as someone else�s, and she called. As a rule I do not answer the phone when I do not recognize the number, I let the caller leave a message so I can find out who it is. However, my spider sense tingled � in a good way � and I knew it was safe to answer the phone.
No, you may not have my phone number.
No, I will not share what we talked about; I do have a (small) sense of propriety.
I need a hero
Sources informed me that Bob Dole was bashing John Kerry in the media. Bob Dole is a Kansan, a place that is opposed to not getting along. If everyone in Kansas started being hostile toward one another then you would not be able to get a pick up game of soccer going � there are not enough people to quarrel!
Bob Dole was not bashing John Kerry, he was taking him to task (from what I could read about it). President Bush cannot, has not, and would not question Senator Kerry�s record � President Bush has class and decorum. President Bush also served in the Texas Air National Guard � something there is absolutely no shame in, it is better than hiding in Canada or being a Rhodes Scholar who rarely attends class � at the same time it does not put him in the same league as a decorated war hero.
How valiant Senator Kerry was or was not in Vietnam is something that is subjective and only God knows the truth about. Something that is not subjective is the matter of his wounds: they are not serious wounds. We are not talking about Bob Dole, whose right arm is useless to him, Senator John McCain who cannot lift his arms high, Senator McClelland who answers that age old, �what do you call someone who has no arms, no legs, and a pitiful record in the Senate,� or even Senator Bob Kerry who has only one leg.
Senator Kerry brought Vietnam into this election and now he will have to deal with his record in Vietnam AND after. He will have to account to us the medal throwing, the lack of serious wounds, his protesting the war in a completely classless way, and he has to do all of this without bashing the millions of members of the National Guard � which is done by extension when you bash Bush�s service in that organization.
I also think that if anyone knows how NOT to win a Presidential Election, it is Bob Dole. Running with Gerald Ford was nice. It was like taking your sister to the prom. Then his run in 1996 � a chance he really squandered because he had too much class, really, to run against President Clinton. That election could have been ugly and classless, I am disappointed that he did not win but at the same time, he ran a good race but a poor one. I think he knew what he had to do to win but did not want to be President under those circumstances. I do not blame him, but Geriatric Ford? Yikes.
and now for the rest of the story
One of the teachers I teach with saw me in the Target parking lot, saw that I had forgotten my soap, and brought it to me just now. Apparently, they were pulling in as I was pulling my stuff out of my carriage to trek across the parking lot. They reminded me that I was a very strange boy, I cannot deny that.
My hands smell of watermelon and as Aunt Incarcerated Martha says, �It�s a good thing.�
all statistics are pure conjecture and exaggerated for literary effect
�Click my cleavage for Creepatron!�
