Random Axe

I ran into a former work colleague a couple of days ago. She retired some years before I did, and we'd lost sight of one another. It was fun to catch up, and it probably happened like your reminiscence sessions go, where you skip ahead and jump back, then race on and stay behind. 

Sometimes the hardest part is remembering where the shared reference ends, so then you have to add details. If you were to transcribe that conversation, I doubt there were more than five complete sentences uttered in the half hour-lots of quick references and brief glimpses and then moving on.

Later, on the same walk, I encountered a man with a Mohawk haircut, but the part that wasn't in the Mohawk was shaved to the naked scalp. He was wearing a three- piece suit that probably cost twice what my car is worth. He wasn't a young guy, either. I'm not real good at guessing ages, or weight for that matter, so that career as a Carney is out.

Actually, he was closer to being my age, and he looked as goofy as the guys with whom I didn't go to Woodstock together all look. You've seen 'em, too. They have long hair, gray, frayed, and wispy, in a ponytail. And nothing sticks it to 'the man' like a Volvo station wagon, Teva sandals, and the green 'we recycle' bumper sticker that seems to be holding the back end of the car together.

Here's somebody I'd like the 'man' to stick it to. The auto-American cretin who compensates for his car's driver's side headlamp being burned out by driving with his high beams on and not dimming them as you and he approach one another. Yeah, I remember what Driver Ed said: don't retaliate and turn yours on-it makes two blinded drivers, but still...

I also don't know what to do about the driver who goes up a one-way street the wrong way, slowly because he certainly doesn't want to cause an accident, for a short distance, to pull into somebody's driveway, rather than go around the block. 

I love when he comes nose to nose with a car coming down the street the correct way, and they glare at each other like Mr Upstream Salmon has any comeback at all. Or that guy's cousin, the driver who backs up a one-way street the wrong way with the car flashers on, so I guess it doesn't count as much.

How many crumbs from the toaster tray do you suppose it takes to assemble an entire new piece of bread, and can you toast that slice when you're done? And for folks with paywalls on websites that have a screen that says, "you must log in to see this page"? Isn't it more accurate to say "you must log in to see the NEXT page" since I can see the log-in page just fine?

These are the kinds of imponderables that keep me awake at two in the morning when I already have a headful of terror supplied from the machine alongside my bed. I'm hoping no one's ever died from imagination (and I don't plan to be the first). 
-bill kenny