You're all morons.

I think a grammar refresher course is necessary for about 70% of this country’s population. When someone puts quotes around totally random fragments of the sentence, I cringe. When someone mixes up “there” and “their,” I cry. And when someone puts an apostrophe before the “s” of a word they wish to be plural, I die a little on the inside.

I'm only sleeping

This summer, I’ve started to take naps in the afternoon. After a day of watching a bunch of kids, I can be quite tuckered.

If someone’s home with me at the time, I tell them I’m going to be napping as to reduce inadvertent sequences of awakening. Usually I say, “Good night,” but now I realize this goodbye is potentially inaccurate.

I take my naps from (roughly) 3:30PM EST to 5:00-6:00PM EST. Therefore, it’s not nighttime when I retire to my quarters.

What am I supposed to say, then? “Goodnight” doesn’t suit the situation, and “good afternoon” is typically associated with a greeting, not a declaration of absence.

You know it’s summer when I fret over silly things like this.

Won't you be mine?

I live in a house on the corner of a two street intersection on the south side of town. My family has never been overly friendly with our neighbor-types, but after a few years in this home, I’ve gotten to know a few of them.

First, there’s Steve. He lives across the smaller of the two streets from me. He’s a drug burnout that the seventies left behind, stuttering and drinking the day away. Day by day, he sits at the old wooden picnic table under his old oak tree next to his family’s 1978 Chevy pickup drinking can after can of some cheap domestic beer. Usually around 3:00 PM, he runs out of his brewskies and walks the two blocks to Walgreens for more of his Old Milwaukee. Whenever I see him, he’s already downed a case or two. This, coupled with his old partying days causes him to slur his speech and results in a certain incoherency between his brain and his mouth. So, whenever you see him coming, you’d best get in the house to avoid uninteresting, nowhere-bound conversation.

Next to him lives Gary, Steve’s brother. Gary is a 50-something year-old bachelor, aside from the fact that he lives with their mother. Gary is a mailman who owns a nice Harley. However, he only rides the cycle on Saturdays for about an hour. All the other time he carts around in his mail truck or Steve’s old, clanky pickup. Gary does most of the yardwork for his family and when he does so, he wears the same 30-year-old white shorts that come to about eight inches above his knee. It’s not a pretty picture.

Next door to my house lives the ancient Mrs. Elsie Grecko. When my mom was a kid, any balls accidentally thrown into her yard were gone. Forever. After her husband died, she took to tilling the land in her yard with a rake. Every day of the year, the old leather-like sack of skin would sag outside, rake in hand, and start beating. And beat the land, she would, until evening falls. She still does this every day, every so often stepping back to eye her work. At times, she can achieve a nice criss-cross effect in the dirt that used to be her yard with her rake marks, but that’s only if she’s pounding the land. Sometimes you can spot her whacking her driveway with the rake, but that’s only if she gets bored with her daily land cultivating campaign.

Caddy corner to the Duchess of the Dirt lives the Alexander family, the nicest folks you’ll ever meet. The patriarch of the family is Jim Sr., an ice cream store proprietor. I can only suppose his business isn’t doing well, because of the perpetual lack of cars in the parking lot, but Jim doesn’t seem to mind. Along with every serving of ice cream, you get some soul food to boot. Free gospel teachings, that is. And even if you didn’t want to listen to Jim, you’d have to. The man speaks (although it’s a bit nasally) with an uncommon loud air about him. About anything. The other night I was trimming the hedges in my back yard and he, out of the blue, says, “If you ever need a good grill, I’ll tell you what, you’d best get it from Wal Mart. Oh, it’s great. $57.90, already assembled. Yeah, best grills in the world. Better, even, than Home Depot! Seriously, you should get one of these grills. Best in the world. $57.90, installed. Best grills in the world up there at Wal Mart. Yeah.”

And across the larger of the two streets is an older couple, and though I don’t quite know their names, I do know what kind of people they are. Dirty rotten scoundrels, they are. The whole lot of ‘em. Since they’re older and unemployed, they have a certain scheme for money. Most every Saturday, they have a garage sale. Not the sort where you have a bunch of crap you need to sell, but the kind where you have the same outrageously-priced stuff that nobody buys week after week. They’re bloodthirsty about what they do, too. They take advantage of your directional signs. They offer to take them down because they use them, and then they leave you high and dry. They suck away the competition whenever you try to clean out your garage and make a bit of a profit. Useless, I say. Out of all of my neighbors, they’re the ones I think I like the least. Harmless drunks, crazy elders, and talkative ice cream salesmen I can take. Cutthroat pack rats? Now that’s another story.

Shopping

I went grocery shopping with my ole chum Ian for my mother this weekend, and as we romped around the local Publix, I realized that there are a few strange words associated with shopping.

Grocery – Since when did we pronounce the “c” as if it were an “sh?” I say (phonetically) “groshree,” but I can only assume it’s meant to be pronounced “groseree.”

Aisle – Who decided to put an “a” at the beginning of this word? I wasn’t called about it. They didn’t invite me to any U.N. vote on the subject. Did they just assume I would ignore the first letter and not pronounce it “a-iyle” because of the possible homonym clash with Gilligan?

Coupon – Some people pronounce it “coopon.” Others, “C-you-pon.” Me? I go with the former. But the inconsistency of dialect that coupons inspire is enough to irk me nonetheless.

Nothing Left to Say

In the past week, I’ve run into more people I know than ever before. Now that my friends all have jobs and can drive themselves places, my chances of meeting up with them has increased immensely. Not that I want to be antisocial, but I don’t like it. Not at all.

What am I supposed to say to the people I see? We have absolutely nothing to talk about. Usually, the conversation looks like this:

“Hi, how’re you doing? Good. Yeah, how’s the life? Uh, oh yeah – I’m great. No, nothing new since school ended. Yeah. Uh, goodbye.”

So, if I know you and we see each other and it seems like I’m avoiding you, I am. And if we’re forced to talk, let’s keep it short for lack of interesting conversation topic.

Roffle

I’m so glad Angus is home from the Motherland.

BucsMan5K (1:34:53 PM): brb i just woke up and i have to do my morning squatthrusts on the porcelan (dont know how to spell) throne

Farewell, Hesh; my Salisbury steak awaits!

My late-night TV watching used to just consist of hours of local programming on Access Pinellas or independent films on IFC. Occasionally I’d flip to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network to tune into Family Guy or Futurama, both shows that I miss nowadays since Fox gave them the boot.

But after watching more and more Adult Swim-exclusive shows, I realize that I love it. My new favorite program is Sealab 2021, a remixed version of the 1972 original. I now have incentive to continue with my daily naps so I can stay up late and watch cartoons.

A shoe-in

I don’t get it. I mean, they’re always around, but no one knows why.

Not a day goes by when I don’t see a single shoe in the middle of the road. It’s not coupled with another, it just lies there alone and isolated, with no particular purpose.

Is it like the cruel kids used to do when they’d tie some poor kid’s shoes together and throw them on the power lines? Is it a secret code the Free Masons use to communicate with one another unbeknownst to us commoners? Or is the occurrence of a free-spirited shoe flying from the back of a Chevy Trail Blazer more common than I think?

God only knows.

gmail

You may have heard about it. And let me assure you that everything they’re saying about it is true.

I got my gmail account about a week ago from the wonderful Katie and, though I don’t intend on using it as my primary email address, caseypeterson (at) gmail (dot) com has assured me that the new wave of nifty internet conveniences is just around the corner.

A gigabyte of space? I’ll never use it. But if, somehow, I become insanely popular while in Indochina and I can’t access my Outlook Express, I can store loads of emails on Google’s servers.

It’s got a super-awesome layout, too.

You can only get an account via invitation and as of now, I haven’t received any. If I do, I’ll post here and the first posters who I know don’t have accounts already will get them.

The Doctor is In

I work at a summer camp at my church counseling elementary-aged schoolchildren. A few days ago, a little girl of no more than 6 told a younger girl that she wanted to kill her and her family. Oh, the hilarity.

In other news, my car broke so we took it to the guy who’s been our mechanic for 3 generations. His name? Charlie Brown. Seriously.