Just an update.

Hi to all my wonderful audience. You've been great. Thank you and goodnight. Just kidding.

I've decided to go back to school in January. I'm going to be a High School teacher when I grow up. I figure there's an epidemic of stupid people out there, and I'm going to do my part to see that they stay that way. What good is a teacher without sufficient numbers of uneducated sods?

Regina thinks I ought to teach Social Studies.

Now, if anyone knows how to be social, it's the High Schooler. In High School, the average person learns the value of well-placed gossip, how to properly stab a person in the back (then apologize in a sincere manner so the stab-ee trusts said stabber again) and generally how to be a real lousy person to get ahead.

I think I ought to teach English.

I've always been intrigued by dead languages. I'm guessing that the average High Schooler has heard about English - most even think that they speak it, but the truth is that the average High schooler speaks in a code that would outdo the Code Talkers of WW II fame. Next WW, lets just send a kid to confound our enemies. If they can figure out what's happening "all up in the hizzous", then they deserve our country. Or at least a job as translator for the rest of us.

I know- short and irritable, but it's early.

What are we waiting for?


I remember when I got my permit. Dad made me wait something like thirty-eight days before he even let me start the engine on the car. Unlike my brothers and sister, I never started the car before I got my permit. I figured that if I wasn't allowed to drive it, I shouldn't be starting it. That's the law-abiding, nearly Catholic conscience in me talking. Most people look at me like I'm crazy when I reveal this fact to them.
Dad also used this time to lecture me on how to learn to drive. He told me many stories about learning to drive a Semi. First, you must learn to go straight forward. Then around corners forward. After that, you move into backing straight, then backing around corners. This was all very well. Ironically, the first thing Dad ever had me do in a car was back around a corner. I didn't even start the van that day.
Then came that wonderful stage of being excited about driving every time I got behind the wheel. "Oh, I can drive the whole block to the corner store?! Wow, thanks, Dad!" We all remember that, right? The buzz from having your own set of keys. The excitement of your first car. The sheer thrill of getting from place to place without getting a wedgie on a bike. Or breaking into a sweat from walking fast on a hot day.
Later, nobody really remembers it happening, driving became a chore. A means to an end. "Wow!" changed into, "Can't I do it later? I really don't feel like driving right now." (Insert other whining here) And escpecially for those of us who commute to work.
Now, instead of giddy anticipation, we get into our cars and simply wait to arrive. I think this is why there are so many accidents. People aren't in their cars - they are thinking about the garbage that happens every day at work. Or the stress at home, depending on the direction they're driving. They're in their checkbooks, wondering when things are going to improve. They are on their phones, trying desperately to maintain contact with their relatives, friends, business associates. Or changing the radio or CD from that annoying song or commercial that they've heard thirty times already today.
I have seen business women put on mascara and eyeshadow. I've seen men read the newspaper at 70 miles per. I've seen kids shuffling homework pages on the seat beside them. And all of them seem to just wish it would stop. I know I do.
But my favorite part of all this is the look you get from other people who are doing the same thing when something doesn't work right. Say you cut someone off in traffic. WAKE UP CALL! They give you the finger and you think, "What was he doing there, anyway?" If you're on the phone talking, waiting for your destination to arrive, he thinks, "Idiot. Everyone knows you're not supposed to talk and drive at the same time." And if you're both on the phone, both of you probably say to the person on the other end, "That jerk isn't paying attention - he's just on the phone."
The other day I was on the phone as I was leaving work. I looked carefully both ways, and pulled out. This lady had her kid with her and they were


stopped in the middle of the crosswalk. She shot me a dirty look. And I thought, "Why in the world were they just standing in the middle of the street?" It wasn't a crosswalk. It was a street. And she was mad at me because I was in a car and on a cell phone. Wow, I'm evil. Just think what would have happened if I had already started waiting.

So what are we waiting for? I think we're waiting for life to be interesting. And guess what? It's not.