My son has a throat and ear infection today. He is taking his first antibiotics ever! Needless to say, I am concerned. Here is a rough sketch of what will commence as soon as I can raise a few million dollars for research and supplies:


1) Evil Germ (he is now unhappy about his life choices)

2) The Germ-an Cannon (ironically, not made in Germany at all) (patent pending)

3) Me, shrunk down to microscopic size and inserted into my son's body (I'm also available for birthday parties)

Now I am poet
Check out Haiku! Gesundheit.
If you like haikus

All times are Central Daylight Time¹

4:30 PM -- Jump off of the top of my brontosaurus crane and slide down his tail into my car

4:31 PM -- Jump up and look around, hoping no one saw me fall down the stairs while pretending to be Fred Flintstone

4:32 PM -- Let someone go ahead of me

4:33 PM -- Someone who saw me let someone go ahead of me takes advantage of my kindness² and goes ahead of me without my permission

4:34 PM -- Vow to never be nice to anyone ever again

4:35 PM -- Let someone go ahead of me

4:36 PM -- Make it out of the parking lot

4:38 PM -- Sit at a traffic light

4:39 PM -- Still sitting at the same goddamn traffic light, why can't they ever design an intersection that allows cars to get where they're going sometime before Thursday, and another thing, when did the traffic...

4:39 PM -- Light changes green. Mentally refer to the other drivers still sitting at the intersection as "suckers"

4:45 PM -- Reach the interstate.

4:50 PM -- Apply brakes.

4:53 PM -- Hey, it's new billboard day!

4:54 PM -- Engage in mental treatise about the state of modern advertising, and wonder why it all sucks

4:55 PM -- Apply brakes

4:56 PM -- Satellite radio doesn't work while stopped under a bridge. Sing the rest of Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" anyway.

5:00 PM -- Wonder why no one has thought to sell drinks in traffic, suspect it's probably because "the man" put a stop to it

5:01 PM -- Wonder what "the man" has got against thirst-quenching, anyway

5:05 PM -- Apply brakes

5:10 PM -- Wonder why there are so many unattractive people on the interstate

5:15 PM -- Briefly panic when I realize my keys aren't in my pocket

5:16 PM -- Slap myself for my stupidity

5:18 PM -- Apply brakes

5:20 PM -- Swear that I'm buying a hovercar as soon as they come out

5:30 PM -- Arrive home to my loving family³


1 Except, of course, when they're not

2 Weakness

3 Which makes it all worth it

I think that if I ever met god (or is that God with a capital G?), he would look like Tom Jones. He'd have a great voice and be a snazzy dresser. He'd also be a hallucination, induced by a lack of oxygen in the brain because I'm choking on a poorly chewed piece of beef jerky.

So I'm at the end of what has been a mostly bad business trip. My work sent me to try to fix a piece of equipment in another office, about an hour and a half away by plane, just far enough to change time zones¹. While it's not technically the first time I've traveled for business (I slacked off at a convention in Orlando in March) it is the first time that I've traveled alone for business. When leaving, the park and fly place took forever to get me to the airport and I was not allowed to get on the flight. I had to switch to another flight. When I arrived, I got an email on my blackberry that the air conditioner was down in the remote office and most everyone had gone home. Also, because of the A/C issue, the piece of equipment I was sent to fix might not even be operable. After a madcap and zany race to find the office², I find it a deserted sauna. Someone was waiting for me, but they literally left within 20 minutes after I arrived. I stripped down to my sweaty undershirt³ and got to work. A few hours later, I had in my hands... a still quite broken piece of equipment⁴. So now I'm sitting at the busiest airport in the world desperately thinking of a way to not have to go back and replace this equipment⁵.


¹ Everyone knows that the Eastern Time Zone is the worst time zone, as all the good tv shows come on too late

² Everything's a big joke to you, isn't it, Mapquest?

³ Ladies, please, no woo-hooing

⁴ Yeah, it was anti-climatic to me, too.

⁵ Is anyone hiring?