I got a speeding ticket this weekend.

Fricking 45 in a 30.

I hadn’t been pulled over since 2000, so this was an unwelcome suprise for me , particularly since I don’t really have an “income” at the moment. I’m stuck in that limbo where I’ve started a job but must now wait three weeks to be paid. Fortunately, I’ve managed to survive the past two weeks by eating carpet fibers and loose leaf paper. Suffice to say, this $130 ticket did little to allay my financial woes.

I was a little rusty in my technique in getting out of the ticket. The officer who pulled me over was a meaty, mustachioed individual who was firm, yet a supple tenderness was evident in his eyes. Were I a woman, I would simply have begun to cry. I have heard that this works well for women (unless you’re an ugly woman, in which case the officer is likely to increase your fine). Initially I tried to hold the officer’s hand as I spoke to him. He was responsive to this for a while as I caressed the firm muscles at the base of his thumb while explaining why I had committed this crime. When he began to pull away and hand the red-striped paper to me, I then attempted another tactic. I told him that if he could solve my riddle, then I would accept the ticket and pay my fine - but if he was unable to answer my riddle he would have to tear the ticket up and buy me a dinner of lobster and muffins.

I then asked him, “What’s black, white, and red all over and can’t fit through a revolving door?”

After a short pause, he wisely posited, “A nun with a javelin through her torso.”

The officer had bested me, and I was man enough to admit it. I took the ticket, and after a brief hug we parted ways. This man had graced his uniform well and he deserved his victory. My bruises from the baton-beating he mournfully administered to me have now begun to heal, and time hurries on. I do believe that I will dearly miss that wonderful man.

When I’m not working or crapping out this nonsense for all of you, I’ve lately enjoyed the company of a very fine biography - Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, by Walter Isaacson.

Franklin’s life was quite an amazing one, filled with wit, wisdom, contradictions, and seafood. He was a cosmopolitan individual with interests in science, philosophy, theology, politics, and homespun advice. Among Ben Franklin’s most notable accomplishments include:

-Using a kite, a wet string, and a key, proving that lightning was electricity and devising that buildings could avoid damage from lightning by using a lightning rod, which he also invented.

-In his annual Poor Richard’s Almanac, he coined such notable phrases as “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”, and, “Fish and guests stink after three days.”

-He defeated Craglon the Dragon King by using the Scepter of Avercron, thus ending a thousand years of human misery.

-He was an instrumental voice of moderation and compromise among America’s Founding Fathers.

-He was the first to advise Abraham Lincoln to grow a beard, and ironically was later a stableboy for Robert E. Lee before his left hand was eaten by wild dogs following the battle of Fredricksburg.

-He founded the University of Pennsylvania, along with several other philosophical clubs that exist to this day.

-He briefly served as an archenemy to the Flash.

-He coined the affectionate phrase, “Snug as a bug in a rug” for his godson William.

-He invented satellite radio, though he himself did not know it and no historian has ever made such a claim.

-His illegitimate son, Kenny Rogers, later became a country singer of some renown.

-In his early days as a printer, he molded the ‘Franklin Gothic’ font that many newspapers use to this day.

-He wrote the theme song to “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”.

-He invented running.

-He coined a phrase often misattributed to the Bible: “God helps them that help themselves.”

-While stranded near the north pole, he singlehandedly harpooned a massive sea lion and subsisted off its raw flesh for nigh on 8 years before being rescued by Charles Lindburgh.

I have this theory…

Around this time of year, in wintery climates such as Minnesota’s, parking lots form massive collections of snow. Drive into any grocery store and you’ll find a long, 8-foot high pile of snow left there by friendly snow plows looking to clear off the lots. These piles are fun to play in, and provide general merriment to all who proceed near them. However, as winter begins to segue into spring, these piles slowly begin to disappear. This doesn’t happen overnight - it occurs over a period of a few weeks until what was once a grand wall of white snow looks like this:

What happens to this snow? Where is it disappearing to? Every year I scour the local television news for an investigative report on these vanishing snow drifts, but instead I’m subjected to banal tales of gang murders or wacky dogs that bark along to music. Lately, I’ve begun to think about this logically enough to answer this mystery on my own, and I think I finally have it.

Homeless people must be eating the snow.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. There’s all this free snow just sitting in the Target parking lot, not being guarded by anybody. Along comes Gus - a gaunt, emaciated street-dweller - and the perfect meal is sitting there, just waiting for him to feast upon it. Gus sits down, anxiously devours the snow and the dead ravens that are known to be found near such piles, and leaves feeling plump and satisfied. Maybe he tells his other hobo brethren about this rotting snow pile and they join with him the next day. Soon enough, the once-glorious pile has been reduced to a pitifully blackened stump of odiferous ice stained with bum vomit. We all know that these beggars love to eat snow more than anything else in the world - indeed, it is precisely that vice which oftentimes relegates them to their lot in life. They don’t have any conscience about feeding upon the public’s snow mounds. As society has rejected them, so they reject our norms of snow feasts and beard maintenance. It is an ongoing cycle of shame and ice-gluttony that brings us to the end of this mystery, much like every other question in our lives.

And so, my friends, if you see Gus and his like pounding this snow like it’s Sunday morning at Old Country Buffet, have mercy on him. Society has made him what he is. Clearly, we need more government assistance programs to help end this wretched cycle of depravity.

Bridgette has had the flu for about a week now.

She is aching, feverish, plugged up, nauseous, coughing, and unable to sleep, swallow, or breathe. I feel so bad for her, but at the same time, her illness has helped me learn something important about myself.

You see, I am immortal.

She and I hung around on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and I didn’t get sick. While we weren’t kissing, we were in close proximity, and today, Friday morning, I still feel fit as a fiddle. Not only do I not have the flu now, but I now realize that I can’t remember the last time I actually had the flu - it’s been at least 6 years. My only hypothesis is that sometime during those years I must have advanced to a realm beyond men and become a demi-god of some sort. I recall eating a very peculiar enchilada in 1999 that might have done it - its taste was bitter and pungent, perhaps enough to help me ascend to eternal life.

Yesterday, I felt behooved to test this theory and make certain that I am greater than all men. I had Bridgette repeatedly cough directly into my mouth and open sores. She did so with vigor, sending her diseased particles flying into my body. I then collected roughly a pint of her flu-ridden mucus into a small milk carton and swallowed it whole. All this, and yet I still am healthy and virile. It can no longer be denied - I am impervious to the flu and all other maladies which plague the lives of mortal men.

I wish to travel back to this taco-stand that I visited in 1999 that sold me Excalibur - the Enchilda of Life. I will purchase another enchilada and give it to Bridgette to heal her of this sickness. I will rub the moist, plump enchilada on her stuffed sinuses and gaze in wonder as its powers sear away all iniquity from her body. I will then hold Excalibur aloft and summon blood-red lightning from the sky to arbitrarily kill a nearby rabbit. I shall then be christened Gorlock, Commander of Pain. Then, and only then, all will be accomplished.

Good morrow.

Sorry I haven’t been posting much in the last week. My mother had surgery last week, and I never quite felt up to the level of weirdness needed to write these damn things. But time passes, and I must again do this to all of you.

On the drive from my parent’s place to my home in the Twin Cities, there is a puzzling sight to behold. It is a crude, hand-painted sign next to a small farmhouse near the tiny town of Oronoco, MN.

The sign reads: “ELK MEAT, ETC.”

Is anybody else a bit disturbed about what exactly that “et cetera” is implying?

I would like to think that the sign might more accurately read, “ELK MEAT & BUBBLEGUM”, but I fear that the sign might be more along the lines of, “ELK MEAT, HOOVES, AND EYES.”

Where are these farm people procuring this elk meat? Is there an untapped market for elk meat that I’m not aware of? Should I stop and visit these elk-people and purchase their wares and bubblegum? Would they be wearing elk pelts and speaking the ancient, forbidden language of the elk? Would they command me to bow down at their blood-soaked elk altar? Would they viciously attack me with sharpened elk antlers when I refuse to do so? Would they feed my entrails to their hideous, insatiable elk legions? Will the elk generals lead an attack and overrun Oronoco, using the blood of the human inhabitants to please their elk god? Will our human military be rendered impotent against the unholy might of the elk?

Probably.

So long, my friends. I am off to set these evil events into motion. Have a kickass summer and stay cool.

Today’s entry was written by my brother. I’ve had a difficult week for some health-related reasons, and Patrick was nice enough to contribute this hilarious little nugget…

MOSS TO WORLD: “I AM THE ANTICHRIST”

Randy Moss is evil and he intends to harm all of us. Any reasonable journalist can agree on this much. But Moss has gone one step further to tell the world that he is much more than just your run-of-the-mill black-hearted, baby-punching, Satan-loving Hitler. Randy Moss is actually the Antichrist, come to destroy the world and end all happiness. At Lambeau Field following a touchdown reception, Moss made a gesture pretending to moon the fun-loving football fanatics, who had been quietly and respectfully seated watching the match. His “fake moon”, if that’s what you want to call it, was a clear challenge to God’s authority on Earth. Randy Moss ought to be hanged and then shot before he destroys our peaceful nation, our fair world, or the otherwise always gentlemanly National Football League. His malicious antics ought to be the center of the national media’s attention for years to come, because he is singularly the greatest threat to our way of life.