Atomictumor

Times are good, times are good.

Last night, after dropping off the kids at the legacy in-laws (thats the best name I can determine for a situation like this - alert Emily Post), me and my Lady went arm in arm to the local Mexican food eatery for a nice, grown up double date thing with Bos and Eaves.

With big ass mexican beer and margaritas.

And damn, lemme tell you. That place (the name of which always eludes me, and I can’t be arsed to look it up, so deal) throws some food at you. We’ve had the fajitas there before, and never finished the plate. So, since the Lady and I were both starving, we decided to split an order of fajitas along with a big ass sampler platter, and DAMN. We didn’t finish the food.

Finished the booze, tho, and then the four of us went back over here to drink more booze and play spades, on account of the Lady and I have a crazy psychic connection when we’re playing spades that almost allows us to crush the pathetic competition, except that we tend to be too ambitious, and end up losing. Still, one of these days, we might actually have those 12 tricks that we both think we do, and then we’ll be all like “IN YOUR FACE, COMPETITION” and the competition will be all like “damn, I just got pwned by AT and Ladyfriend”.

Then we’ll drink heavily and sit back, convinced in our mutual awesomnitude.

Look it up.

So, anyway, we got here, and the spades game never happened, because we got to drinking, and listening to music (Hot Chip and Radiohead, both on vinyl, for those keeping track), and we talked about stuff. While Bos and I were talking about cool, interesting, important things like the flash hard drive on his little Asus EEE (which I’m starting to see the point in. I mean, at first, I saw the 900 MHZ processor and half gig of RAM and thought “loser”, but it’s designed to surf the internet and do word processing, not, like, render all sorts of crazy 3D stuff, or track ballistic missiles or something. Those paying attention know that I have, in the house, at least 3 computers capable of rendering all sorts of crazy 3D stuff and track ballistic missiles, but what do I do with them? Surf the internet and word processing. So, there you go) and the new phone that I’m imminently getting to replace the old and busted Samsung piece of large ass heavy not working crap that I carry around on my belt, the ladies were talking about something boring like babies, or families, or something, and having some sort of moment, or something lame like that.

Who knows.

Anyway, we all had a good time, Eave’s nose didn’t seem bothered by the cat hair, and nobody got mauled by the dogs. Then they left, and the Lady and I cuddled up in our amazingly, incredibly, insanely comfortable new bed and snickered about how they had to go pick up their kids and put them to bed. Heh.

And then this morning, we slept in till 10:30 (!) and fixed tasty omelettes for breaky. And lo, it was good.

(this post really had a lot of parenthetical asides. Not sure whats up with all that. I guess I’ve missed em.)

Judging by the phone call I just recieved from the Tumor headquarters, there’s a rip roaring party going on over there. AT just gave me his famously curative recipe for a screwdriver. It involves counting and some basic arithmetic.. Sadly I lack orange juice, so juicy juice will have to do. Cheers!

My dearest wife’s parting words this evening were, “I won’t be home too late.”

Ah well, I let her out the door. What am I to expect?

I like beer.

“WHAT the hell were you thinking?!?!”

*smack*

That was his hand on the bar. Three of the shady looking Norwegians looked over warily, the scent of the kill deep in their nostrils.

“JESUS man. All of the things I do for you, and you go and put THAT on the internet?”

*smack*

Maybe smack isn’t the best sound. See, he has a really big, meaty hand, and it kinda makes more of a WHOOMP sound when it slams against the bar. My beer overturned, and ran down the length of the bar to the sleeping dockworker at the end. She looked up groggily, muttered something about “the last time”, and went back to sleep.

I took a second to watch the vein in his neck, and reflected on what brought me here.

—

I got the email to meet him in one of the gloomier bars on the east side of town, the kind of place where the stale cigarette smoke and the constant Skynyrd combine to make an ambiance that washes out the watered down beer you drink for hours on end. He, like me, isn’t a telephone person, because it creates “traces”. Weird guy, but damn if he isn’t a political genius. They say he was one of Reagan’s insiders back in the day, when Ollie North rode high, and Alexander Haig was taken seriously.

He went by “Sugar Sack Smith”.

He was pissed.

—

“Look, its your website, do whatever you’re going to do, but I spent 3 hours talking to you about this, and I thought we had an agreement. I thought you told me you were voting Hensley, Evans, and Hayes. You said yourself ‘Those are the obvious choices’. Are you stupid? Are you braindead? Where the HELL did Ellen Smith come from? Were you that determined not to look like you were Stan Mitchell’s little brother? What the hell’s wrong with you???”

“Well,” I said “Stan has nothing to do with it. I mean, yeah, he went Evans, Hensley, Hayes, like we were talking about, but that has no bearing on why I changed my mind…”

“You changed your mind because you’re a dumbass. I swear, if you weren’t a single father, I’d feed you to my piranha. Look, I know what you’re doing. You’re being liberal.”

“What? That has nothing to do with it. I think Ellen would be very capable.”

“Its perfectly natural. You’re still stupid. Thats why you’ve got me. Listen, heres the deal. Hayes, he’s the school dude. He’s the ace in the hole to make sure Oak Ridge remembers how good the school system is, and a hope to get over this board vs. council nonsense.
Hensley, he’s the rational environmentalist. He’s on the ball with making sure the greenbelts stay green, the billboards stay out, and people stay off the grass.
Evans, now, he’s the businessman. You need a businessman on the council, son, no matter how much you disagree with much that the Chamber people say, and how much you want to have a utopean small business collective in town, the fact is, son, its not going to happen. The reality of the situation is that any business development is going to need the council, and its going to need somebody that understands business. Ellen Smiths a smart gal, but, like you, she darn near has a knee jerk reaction against business and development.”

“Hell,” he continued “I have knee jerk reactions all the time. Spiders, Mormons, chainsaws. The thing is, I understand that spiders are important in keeping insects under control, chainsaws are important in maintaining production, and Mormons… well, you get what I mean.”

I tried to ignore the whole Mormon thing.

“OK” I finally stuttered out “I don’t disagree. As much as I’d like to endorse Ellen, because I like the cut of her jib, I just don’t know if she’d be an effective politician. She certainly has a place in the city, but maybe not on the council.”

“Thing is, Sugar Sack, I don’t do corrections. I’m like Imus. If I’m wrong, even if I KNOW I’m wrong, I’m not going to admit it. Like during the whole Oak Leaf thing, when I vilified the school board and Dr. Bailey for a week or two. I just won’t do it. I’m stuborn.”

I looked up at him, and found a very large drag queen in his place, looking in the other direction. I looked around to try to find where he made off to, but he appeared to be long gone.

The bastard stuck me with the tab. I paid it off, and drove home.

I’ve been trying to see how long I can old out talking about this situation, but after it hit Knoxnews and the AP, I figure I can’t hold back much longer.

It seems that Pigpen isn’t the only one who likes to pee in the flowers…

Theres evidently a bunch of dumbasses that like to golf over at the Centennial (should be paying for itself in 10 years!), get tore back, and let loose around the 18th hole, right next to this woman’s house, who evidently bought a house next to a golf course thinking that people wouldn’t be peeing in her backyard or something. Geez.

Man, I make no bones to anybody who knows me of my contempt for golf and the whole damn golf experience. Its a waste of land, it has idiotic fashion trends and terminology, and tends to attract the most shallow, contemptible people.  Yes, its a judgement call, and yes, some of my friends play golf, but I still make fun of them, both behind their back, and to their face.  Yes I do.

Wait, I lost my train of thought.  Crap…

Anyway, golf is dumb.  And peeing in public is too, unless you’re 4.  Then its cute.