The Worst Day Ever

People are always talking about my robust health. And you know what? I don't tell them otherwise, because I am very healthy. Healthy as a horse in fact, and horses are notoriously hard to damage, through sickness or whatever. I should know -- the unfortunate duty of humanely euthenizing a neighbor's elderly horse fell on me a while back. I'll be damned if I didn't spend a whole week poisoning that horse before it finally croaked -- and I think that was only because I hadn't been feeding it. People talk about the effectiveness of my home-made poisons just as much as they do about my health, so that wasn't the problem -- horses are just tough.

Anyhow, horse-healthy as I am, yesterday I once again came down with some kind of illness. I don't want to get into the details of it, but my carpet will never be the same again. I've been recuperating today; I'm eating lots of soup and eggs, and I got an extension cord for my heated blanket, so I can wear it around the house.
Even though the gods have treated me so poorly today, however, I refused to lose my courtesy. So, when the mailman arrived this afternoon, I was there on the porch, ready to meet him. He gave me my mail (I'm looking into a correspondence course on private detection) and sympathized with my illness. Or so it seemed. As he was about to leave, he said this: "I wouldn't worry about it -- I bet it's just the bug that's been going around."
The nerve! To imply that I, Dandy Chesterton, pillar of the community, maker of fine poisons, horse whisperer, have been, "going around" and picking up "bugs." It was absolutely intolerable, so I punched him right in the mouth.
You'd think, after throwing words like that around, a mailman would be ready for a swing, but I seemed to catch him by surprise, to get the snake by the tail, if you will. So I attempted to take advantage of this upper hand of mine, and I threw my heat blanket over him. He tried to run away (the coward!) but I had netted him effectively, and I had a good grip on the extension cord. Just as I was about to pull him in, though, the plug gave out, and he escaped back to his truck, heated blanket and all.
I would have chased him down, but I'm sick.

So now I'm still ill, I've lost my heated blanket, and the mail-snake will no doubt be pressing groundless charges.
I truly am Fortune's plaything.

A little update

Well, it turns out that my neighbor's kid has a little bit of a problem with other kids spitting on him in school.
Nevertheless, I maintain that kids like me, and I like kids. It was this that allowed me to intuit the whole spitting issue, and how effective it would be.
I'm kind of like the Horse Whisperer, just with kids instead of horses.

I'm Good With Kids!

I was recently asked to baby-sit for my neighbor. (Not the gay one, of course - all his kids are grown up)
Now, this isn't the sort of thing I would normally be asked to do, nor the sort of thing I would normally accept, but I'd been drinking, and he'd been drinking, and it just seemed like a good idea at the time. (A little note here - I was drinking my wine coolers, but he was drinking something that smelled like insect repellent. Ick!)
Anyhow, I found myself with a seven-year-old kid and an afternoon full of errands. My first thought was to leave the tyke at my house with the remote control, some ice cream, and a phone for emergencies, but I had this weird little feeling, like a voice in my head saying, "No, you're good with kids, you can do this." I mean, that's what I was thinking.
So I took junior to the mall with me. It went all right at first - he was completely quiet and well behaved when I was buying my candles, and he didn't make a peep at the Nascar store (even though I know, for a fact, that all kids love nascar). The trouble started when I went to the Mac store (that's a computer place for you luddite troglodites). All I wanted was a new "A" button for my keyboard (the "A" is wearing off this one), but when I asked them to get me one, the "Mac Genius" started calling me a retard. Now, I wasn't happy to leave the store, "A" button-less, having been called a retard by a Genius, but if anyone can declare who's a retard, it has to be a genius. So I accepted that, for the time being. No, what bugged me was when junior started calling me a retard too, like it was suddenly okay for him to say. And he said it constantly.
I tried to explain that he didn't have the right to call me that, that only a genius had that power. But no, it was "Retard this," and "Retard that," and "You're a retard." So I told him that I knew he was no genius, because I'd seen him poop in his pants before, and geniuses don't do that. He didn't care.
This is when that "good with kids" instict kicked in, and I had a stroke of genius of my own. I said "Listen, junior, you have to behave, or people are going to spit on you." This got his attention.
"You're going to spit on me?" he asked (notice the lack of "retard" now)
"No," I said, "But everyone else will. They'll spit on you. They've wanted to spit on you since we got here, but they've had to wait for an excuse. They have one now: you're being bad."
Junior was looking really scared now, and I was feeling pretty proud.
He pointed to a guy on the upper level. Don't ask me why he picked that guy, he was just some guy. "He wants to spit on me?"
"Yes," I said. "Him, and him, and her, and him, and that guy. They will spit on you."
Now it looked like junior was about to start crying, or something.
"What about her?" He pointed to an old lady. I have to admit, it was a good call on his part, because she looked like a really nice old lady. But I just told him that she had already tried to spit on him when I was buying my candles. Then he really did start crying, and I acted like I was trying to protect him from flying spit. I would never really do that, but he seemed to appreciate it, and he stopped crying right away when I told him that people spit on cryers too.

He was quiet the rest of the day. He didn't even want to eat when I made sandwhiches. That is one good kid.
Also, my neighbor asked me if I ever wanted to babysit again, when he got back. I told him I didn't really want to, but I'd leave it up to junior. I expect to be watching the little rugrat pretty often now.

A little town I like to call... Earth!!

In my recent rollings and trollings of the www, the great intersphere, I came across this little insight:

"A PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD

If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing ratios remaining the same, it would look like this:

1) 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western
Hemisphere (North and South), and 8 Africans.
2) 52 would be female, 48 would be male
3) 70 would be non-white, 30 would be white
4) 70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian
5) 89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homosexual
6) 59% of the world's wealth would be in the hand's of only 6 people, all would be U.S. citizens.
7) 80 would live in substandard housing
8) 70 would be unable to read
9) 50 would suffer from malnutrition
10) 1 would have a computer
11) only 1 would have a college education"

One word - wow. It really makes you look at things in a whole new way.
I mean, who would want to live in a village in the first place, right? And this one sounds really weird.
Here's my take, point by point:
1)That seems like an awful lot of Asians. But, then again, there's an awful lot of Asia. Do Russians count as Asian? Also, I noticed a striking lack of Eskimos in this group. They are people too. I wonder if "from the Western Hemisphere" means Indian, or if I get to be from the Western Hemisphere too.
2)Just the way I like it - more ladies to each man!
3)At first I thought this little statistic was upsetting. I mean, it could be strange with all those "non-whites" around. What are we even supposed to talk about? But then I started to find the idea of everyone being "White" or "non-White" very comforting. That way, we all know who we really are.
4)70 non-Christians!! Well, if any of the people in this village are Jehovahs, that number will change pretty soon. I'm thinking of converting just to keep them off my porch. I'm scared to go to work!!
5)There have to more than eleven gay people in this village. I mean, I know for a fact my neighbor is gay, and most of the people he has over have to be gay too, so do the math...
6), 7), 8), and 9) Completely unnecessary! Unhealthy, poor, illiterates who live in junky houses - we have these people in the village already, and they're called "poor white trash." I'm not being racist - that's what they call themselves. And more power to them, as long as they stay away from my computer.
10), 11) Change the "1" in these statements to an "I," and this village starts to make sense.

Anyway, I see this as an opportunity to change what you don't like about this village, our village. I, for one, will be working to make the village a little more accepting of Eskimos.
It's not too late for a New Years Resolution.

T3: Rse of the Mchnes

Have you all heard of this thing, TXT messaging? You do it with phones, and it is amazing!
Like, normally I would never talk on the phone with someone if I was in the bathtub, or, you know, going to the bathroom, because I'd be concerned that they might be able to picture me naked. I often go to the bathroom naked.
Now, though, I can just construct a TXT message from where ever I am! No worries at all!

This brings up some important issues, though. Because if I have this problem, everyone else must too. Does this mean that, in the future, whenever we receive a TXT from someone, we'll just have to assume that they're sitting in the tub, or standing in front of the toilet, completely naked?
What a creepy thought! But that's the future for you. Frankly I'd rather deal with killer robots, but for now... wait for my TXT messages