I've had a few recent experiences with ABS (anti-lock braking system), and I've reached this conclusion: If my foot had a clitoris, it would have had several orgasms by now.

Part 3: The thorazine years

Chapter 9: Shoelaces

Tuesday began like any other Tuesday would: in the morning. I stopped by Starbucks for coffee. This was a new Starbucks, and I was eager to check it out. They actually opened this one inside of another Starbucks. The girl behind the counter could have been cute, but she had varicose nostrils and a monobrow on her upper lip. She could have just as easily been Teddy Roosevelt with a bad allergic reaction to shellfish. I got a large decaf coffee to wash down my Vivarin and a vegetarian breakfast panini with bacon and scrapple. That and a CFDR-'Bull ("Caffeine-free Diet Red Bull gives you feet!") help me start my day. I bought a newspaper but not for the articles, I got it so I could do that alphabet sudoku they put by the comics. 1-Across: Bothered, in a way. Irritated. Four letters. No problem, I'll just put both Rs into one box and "tated" in another box, then each "I" gets its own box. I am the master of these puzzles. There is something in my brain trying to get my attention. It could be a meningitis flareup for which I could use Preparation M, or it could be something I need to remember. I can't stand shoving those Preparation M suppositories into my ears and nostrils, so I'll try to figure out what I might need to remember. Should I be at work? Do I have a job? Am I supposed to be in court today? If so, am I a lawyer or a defendant? Maybe I'm a judge. There's really no way to know.

I've become a fan of those TV commercials peddling crap to the uneducated. I love the way they use words to make their crap sound better than what it is. John Allen Paulos makes a few references in his books to old-time hucksters selling sleeping potions while saying things like "this is effective due to its dormitive virtue". While the self-referential is nice, I am a fan of the absurd.

First up, we have those commercials from when I was in high school (this means the mid 80's) where things were "made from a space-age polymer".

Wilbur: "Oooh! That sounds advanced! Let's buy one now."
Ethel: "What the fuck is it?"
Wilbur: "I don't know, but it's made from a space-age polymer!"

OK, a polymer is a chain-like molecule made of repeating instances of the same "building block", without a specific number of those blocks necessary for properties of the substance to hold true. Plastic is the most ubiquitous man-made polymer around us. So, we can redefine the selling-point statement as "spage-age plastic". Last time I checked, the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957 (consult a reputable source like Wikipedia if you don't believe me) and officially began the "space age". Now, we can redefine the huckster double-talk as "plastic from 1957".

Wilbur: "I ain't buying your 1957 plastic bullshit!"
Ethel: "Damn skippy!"

Fast forward to now. I frequently see commercials that pose the question "Do you ever wish you had sonic hearing?" No, fuckhead, I'm quite happy with my olfactory hearing. If I had visual hearing, I could hear how ugly you are. Sign me up for tactile hearing when you have that shit perfected.

Lastly, what is up with that ShamWow guy? The "I just finished an 8-ball of coke by myself" skittishness, the Burger King drive-thru headset, and the Popeye thing just freak me out when all in conjunction like that. He also now sells the "Smack-Chop" food chopper. I would like to see him chop a ShamWow into small bits that would look lovely in a salad. They could soak up the excess salad dressing.

I've been watching and reading weather forecasts for years now, and I've come to realize they are very unreliable. To help solve this problem of inaccuracy, I have decided to implement the "weather aftcast". No longer will weather be predicted for future times in a willy-nilly manner, now with my "historical knowledge" technology I will be able to tell people what the weather was like yesterday. My new service will be very fucking accurate, like at least 75% correct. Compare that to the 25% accuracy of those so-called "forecasts". Once that business takes off, I've got plans for "stock market postdictions".