I was laying in bed watching the moon move across the sky (hooray insomnia!) when there was a loud BANG SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
I sat up and said, “there must have been an accident”
David rolled over and replied, “what….mumble”
“That loud bang and the screeching tires”
“I didn’t hear anything”
We got up and headed to the living room to see what was what. Oh yeah, there had been an accident all right. A ford bronco had hit the hell out of a parked minivan. I made fun, colorful diagrams for you. I can’t make fun colorful diagrams very well, so bear with me.

This is my happy, neighborhood. My house is the one in the center on the bottom row of houses, the blue box is the minivan, resting quietly.

Here comes the Ford Bronco!

BOOM! he hits the minivan straight on from behind. (unrelatedly, I’m watching a male sparrow flirt with 4 female sparrows)

SCREEEEEEEE! They end up way over there! He didn’t hit the brakes until after the collision, no braking before impact. Luckily he was wearing a seatbelt, or he would have ended up in the back of the minivan and also have ended up dead.

Many people had run out and they discovered right away that the doors were jammed shut, no way to open them and get him out. The firemen got there first. I love firemen. Hot. It was all flashing lights and running around and the firemen were trying to get the door open. Muscles weren’t working so they tried some sort of big pry bar and that didn’t work.
And out came the axe!
They took turns axing the hell out of the door! AXE AXE AXE! then try the pry bar then AXE AXE AXE!
Then the ambulance showed up and they wanted to help, but it seemed that the firemen did not want to share their axe. If I had an axe I would not want to share it either. The cops showed up and then it was also yelling and flashlights and exponential chaos. Seriously, the cops were way more chaotic. Also, the sparrows are ready to get it on.
Finally they pried the door open and the driver actually stepped out. He was very shaky and they got him on the ambulance rolly cart and strapped him down and popped him into ambulance. Obviously, he must not have been too terribly injured because the ambulance just hung around and hung around and then started to go but stopped by the cop car and they talked for a good while, probably comparing salad dressing recipes.
The cops hung around after everyone left, so we went to bed again. 30 minutes later the tow trucks showed up to haul it all away. It’s a noisy proposition to get two busted up cars out of the way. I did really want to make a colorful picture of a fireman with an axe, but I really have no talent.
Being that I’m trying not to be judgemental and I am trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I am not going to just say the driver was way drunk. I’m going to assume that maybe he’d worked 16 hours today and was dead exhausted and fell asleep or he had one of those diabetic woozly things.

I’m working on being a calmer person. This is my constant goal, I am always working on it to varying degrees of success depending on the month. Right now, I’m working on not judging people, on understanding that more often than not, there is quite a bit more to the situation than I can see.
Of course, being an NPR junkie, they rewarded me (push the button/get the peanut) in my quest by playing a commentary by Andrei Codrescu, also published here.
This was it, this is exactly what I am trying to achieve. Mostly it works fine, I rarely get angry at parents with crying kids on airplanes, but I think that the people who do get angry at the parent are gigantic dicks. So it works like halfway, I don’t judge the parents, but I do judge the crabby people (I just can’t stop believing they are dicks). I don’t judge people for their weight, lord knows I understand just how hard it is to lose weight, but I think the people who are all smug about their ‘healthy’ lifestyles are…dicks. Again, I need to work on this. As an atheist, I try to be understanding of all religions and people’s levels of faith, but I think hardnosed atheists who like to think they’re all smart for their lack of belief are a great big bunch of dicks (including Richard Dawkins, I’m sorry, I know, but still, he’s such a dick about it).
So, my goal now is not to be understanding of the underdog, I think i’m doing okay there. I need to be less judgemental of the major dicks. That’s my struggle, do not judge the person who says “god, if they would just discipline their kid it wouldn’t be screaming” or “why don’t you try a little self control on the cheetohs” or “having people believe there is a pink unicorn in my garage doesn’t make the pink unicorn real” (SHUT UP). I will be more calm about these people, I will understand that every point of view is valuable, even if I do not agree.
However, that chick at Hot Plate that was begging her mom for a car (“but i’m almost 19″…”it will be an incentive to keep my grades up”…”it would make it really convenient for me to go to Walgreens when I need something”) is just not getting a pass from me, sorry. If you’re ‘almost 19’ then have some fucking responsibility and get a job. Actually, that’s kind of what her mom was telling her anyway.

My sister had a minor alien removed from her toe today so I decided to pop off work early and take tomorrow off to chill with her (harass her in her weakened state). We were watching tv and chilling when I started to get very upset. I haven’t really watched tv for about 4 years now, I don’t have cable and I don’t have any sort of tv signal. TV just takes up too much time. Anyway, we’re watching tv and the ads are just really upsetting.
Now, I imagine that ads haven’t changed much since I stopped watching tv so I think it’s a mattered of losing that thick cultural scab I must have had. I just could not believe how many products were being pushed to replace perfectly good and functional products. A regular mop and bucket has served our kitchen floors fine for generations (well, not my kitchen floor, I don’t really mop, but that’s another story) but now you MUST purchase a special floor cleaning system with disposable pads and special cartridges filled with cleaning solution that I imagine are also disposable. So now you have to replace the mop head every time you mop and you have to keep buying special cartridges of stuff.
Then there were the individually wrapped prunes. INDIVIDUALLY. WRAPPED. PRUNES. They were doing one of those fakey bits where they were offering up these prunes and people were commenting on how amazingly nice it was that the prunes weren’t stuck together. Of all the problems the human species has faced, I am so glad they decided to solve the problem of prunes sticking together! I can sleep better knowing that moist, delicious prunes are staying seperated AND we’ve finally (FINALLY) found a use for the plastics industry, because god knows they were having some trouble convincing us we needed to use plastic for something.
And of course I need a new car, special moon soap, 4 to 6 different anti-aging creams and softer toilet paper. It’s amazing how different things look when you walk away and then come back.

Last night, after much running and looking and eating of egg salad sandwiches we saw Autistic License at the Illusion Theatre. The was great, very honest, very sad and very funny. I’d recommend it, but it’s done. Sorry.
Anyway, that’s not why I’m here to talk to you today. I’m here to talk to you about a different, more pressing issue.
Last night as we were walking from the theatre to the car we happened by the new and oddly named B.A.N.K. restaurant. I probably would not have given it another thought but they had a tent sign out front. On this sign they were advertising “Handcrafted Cocktails”. What does that mean exactly? Could somebody define “handcrafted” as it might apply to cocktails? and as such, how is this different than other places that make and serve cocktails?
Of course the word “handcrafted” brings to mind a long trained and deeply serious artisan, one who uses a cocktail shaker “handcrafted” by the reclusive cocktail monks of south jersey. A man so well trained in the art of cocktail making that he might tell you the difference between a cosmo and an old fashioned or something like that.
Somehow, I suspect that in this usage, “handcrafted” might be a very efficient way to say “we have a 3 page menu of shitty, overpriced ‘martinis’ with vaguely dirty names chock full of cheap flavored schnapps.” Yes, I can see the bar filling up with a crowd of suburban women out on the town for a bachelorette party! They got kicked out of the 90’s for being too obnoxious during the drag show and went to B.A.N.K. to get wasted on “Royal Mounties”*, “hula hoops”** and “linebackers”***.
* vodka, cranberry, maple syrup
** vodka, cointreau, slice of pineapple
*** vodka, lemonade, rohypnol