Captivity - Cay 27 Run to the light

I got a look at what it will be like when I'm old yesterday, after proving that people can't fly (at least with a mower). I looked like a 90 year old, with mower-related injuries. Since it was a very real injury, I want to use it to my advantage - no mowing for at least 10 years. My psychic abilities tell me this will work almost as well as Joe Biden's mind, or Trump's attempts at subtlety.

I can't help noticing that it was very early this morning.

Statistics, that I just made up, says 1 in 7 in New York residents may have the Flying AIDS.  Because of this, we need to put a fence around California.

Today I identify as  the same thing I identified as yesterday, and likely the same thing I will identify as tomorrow.

It's a bad time to be in PA. Generally.

You want to avoid public transportation. Last week, 10 police stormed a bus to remove a lady not wearing a mask. Last night, a man shot 3 teenagers in self-defense. While the system is giving out masks, perhaps they should switch to bulletproof vests. UPDATE: riders are stealing the masks.

Idiot Governor made masks mandatory and when he was done, said he plans to veto legislation allowing some businesses to run. ACHTUNG DUMBKOPF!  Since Herr Fuhrer mandated masks, let's open the businesses.

Whenever you think Idiot Governor, thank your deity that you're not in California, where the governor is handing out $500 checks to illegal aliens. Statistically there has to be somebody with some sense in the entire state.

Idiot Governor will quietly approve a measure next week that requires all cars to wear masks. 

In Philly, where health workers are needed, they're being furloughed because the Flying AIDS is hurting the hospitals' bottom line.

Masks, as mandated, are still hard to come by. Suggested is making your own. Sometimes you have to use alternate materials:

• car stereo (remove from car first)
• China (turnabout is fair play)
• dining room table
• Aunt Margaret, who you never really got along with
• bra (over 38C for maximum protection)
• If you want maximum social distancing, Judge Judy (come near me and I'll talk to you)
• steal someone else's

I need to make a music CD for the car. For some reason, probably because I don't work at a place with them, I'm completely out. Where does one get blank CDs? Amazon does not consider them essential; my car does. Drug stores have them, at $9.99 for one. Hey - there's Best Buy! They now have curbside service. WTF is curbside service for audio? Do you yell across the lot to any convenient employee "HEY, I WANT SOME BLANK CDs"? He goes inside and comes out with the closest thing they have: a home audio system, with couch and 74" tv. No, No, No, you explain, and show him a CD in your car.  The lightbulb goes off over Darwin's head. He returns with an iPad.  Darwin suggests you use the app. The app wants permissions to your contacts and your underwear size. Finally you give up and go home. You order over the web, which tells you that it's ok to pick up. In the parking lot of the store you were just at. In fact, your cheerful sales associate, Darwin, will be happy to help you. You go home and wait til Amazon starts selling everything else.

People are pissed. People are concerned about privacy and government bullshit. People are protesting - in the streets. It makes me proud that people finally care enough to actually turn off the Wednesday Night Furries and DO SOMETHING. That is all.

Who Let lefty Out Again?

Go piss up a rope - I do get out sometimes.

After bringing death to a bunch of computers, laptops, and android devices, I had to buy Stuff to fix the lot of them. The quickest stop was Best Buy (uh-oh) - this was my first mistake. I researched everything I wanted online first, so I knew what I was getting. This was my second mistake.

Walk into most stores and it goes one of two ways: Can I help you with anything or IF I WAVE MONEY, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME? I prefer the latter, which is what I got. This was my third mistake. I did enjoy floundering about, like Michael Moore in a candy store that doesn't really have lots of different kinds of candy in it, but it's still entrancing.  The Humongo Size TV setup, that comes with a couch and coordinated lamps, was playing Bohemian Rhapsody. The actor playing Freddie had huge, ugly pores.

But seriously, folks, I needed an SD card. And if I could remember which one I needed, I'd be in good shape. There were SDs, SDUHCs, SDFUs, and Spiderman Special SD-Xs. Plus they have grades or some other rating system, which covers how fast they fall when dropped into Niagara Falls. I went for the fastest faller because I'm that kinda guy.

The it was Mouse Time.
I would have done better going to The Mouse House in Florida, Home of Mickey, built by a rabid antisemitic called Roger Waters Walt.
We know I've been around a bit. When mice first hit the stores, they were ridiculously expensive and large. I liked them. Unfortunately you could not find a large mouse if your life depended on it. They're all varying degrees of tiny, like a convention of Small People. Then there are the portable ones, which are even smaller. Children benefit from this, but not adults (or large children with big hands, like me). I found one off-brand wired mouse. Little did I know I was only getting warmed up.

With fear and trepidation, I made it to the final department. I was brave, though; I didn't take the blindfold or the cigarette. I wanted a generic 24" monitor. This was the mistake that would be my previous mistake plus one (I think we're up to four now).  There were certainly a lot of monitors. They were certainly hooked up to a lot of computers. Few were for sale, just the ones that had prices that dwarfed the price we paid for our last few cars. The formula seems to be that a 24" monitor costs $150, but call it a 24" Gaming monitor and you can charge $599 for it.

I had no choice but to flag down a Helpful Sales Consultant.
Unfortunately they were all out of Helpful Sales Consultants. There weren't even any Generally Pissed Off or Grumpy Sales Consultants. I stood there, counting down until it was time to use the phrase, "IF I WAVE MONEY, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME?" It was then that I discovered the secret to good service: be a woman. An attractive one. I noticed that the Helpful Sales Consultants, all male, were 'taking care of' attractive females, who had trouble telling left from right. Fortunately for them, they have two breasts, or all hell would break loose. Due to my inability to be a woman, good or bad looking, my temperature started going up. I thought of all sorts of interesting ways to either attract a Helpful Sales Consultant or put on a show so good, they'd talk about it for years (and I'd be banned from every Best Buy on the east coast).

Funny, there sure were lots of employees on and about the phones. Some were talking to the People Known as Customers, but most were doing what they do best: standing around, getting paid, and laughing with other employees about the sad state of the stock market these days and the poor suckers trying to get their attention.  Five of them were holding hands in a circle, dancing around a cash register, performing some sort of ritual, designed perhaps to attract more customers (that they wouldn't acknowledge). Another two were having oral under a counter. Or they might've been eating dinner... same thing.

FINALLY I located a Helpful Sales Consultant who looked like he knew what he was doing (he was over 17). He was with someone else, but promised to send another Helpful Sales Consultant over for me. Of course he lied, but everybody felt better for those five seconds. While waiting for this alleged help, two more employees came by, with two more attractive women. What I wouldn't do for a vagina at that point (I always say that). FINALLY someone else came over, strictly by accident. Had he heard someone needed help, he'd be over playing with the Barbies. Still.

I told him what I wanted and he looked at me like I was a blithering idiot and what specific specs did the items have? Oh, a monitor? All we have is over on that shelf - take a look and see if it's what you want.  Now I don't want the guy to hold my hand (or anything else) but you think there would be some effort there. 'Over there' turned out to be shelves with 8 monitors, including exactly no 24" monitors. Makes perfect sense, right? Helpful Sales Consultant indicated that was about it. I helpfully asked what about the ten 24" monitors I saw online and pulled one up. He asked why not have it delivered to my house. No problem - can you guarantee I'll get it tomorrow? He looked and pronounced it would be ready to ship in exactly two weeks, which, as you know, is a lot longer than tomorrow. He further let me know if I wanted a monitor tonight, I'd have to get one from the shelf or I'd be S.O.L. (Sarah's Other Licker or Shit Out of luck, depending). Anything he ordered would take 2 weeks.

Oh.

Why did the website tell me to pick the monitor up at my local store?

Because you can pick it up at the store after your order it.

What kind of Joe Biden operation are they running? You can have whatever you want, at whatever price you want, provided you wait a few weeks. If I wanted a monitor, I could have gone to a number of places, but I stupidly went to the one with all the inventory listed on their page. It's like the blindfolded throwing darts in the dark, or Kevin Spacey with a hot chick.

Mind you, I got everything else without ordering it (or being accosted by different Helpful Sales Consultants). I couldn't decide whether I was Superman or Arthur, The Moth.



BUT WAIT... it gets better:

Once home, I unpacked my booty (boy was my wife surprised). After playing Hot Potato with a micro SDQQQ card, I finally got it in the slot and my tablet recognized it. This is what the religious community refers to as a Minor Miracle. Don't tell anybody, but I think I saw Pontius inside the tablet. Since it was a much bigger card than the stock memory, I moved all my hamster pr0n over to it, with plenty of space for more. Let's just say I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Emboldened by Minor Miracles, I put together my 23" (NOT 24") monitor for which I overpaid. It's the first monitor I ever saw with a power block, as opposed to plugging in the regular old power cord. The joy of working with something new overcame me and, within twenty minutes of walking in my own door, I lost the power brick. HOW DO YOU LOSE A POWER SUPPLY in a tiny room with a 5' radius in which to work? How did those 3 humongous bags of Peanut Butter M&Ms disappear? I dunno.

I get a gold star for not crying, especially after watching my dog having trouble getting around. Dejected, I went to bed, planning to ask my lovely wife to help me look the next day. Of course she failed too.  As soon as it disappeared, it came back, like Rosie O'Donnell to the buffet. Of course you know by now that I forgot what the adapter looked like and it was right in front of me the whole time. I'm thinking of getting a brain tuneup but Wife suggests I go with a new, upgraded unit. She says even an average one will be a step up.  If I had any brains, I'd be insulted.

Drilling Ventilation Holes in the Submarine

Pro Tip: if you tell someone you're from Romania, it is helpful to speak Romanian.

• I love animals. That's why I watch treehouse shows on Animal Planet

The Christmas commercial barrage has begun. Or I just caught it.

It occurs to me that the holiday might be here soon, in a month and a half, and I should get something for someone. I have one someone on my list. One. And I usually screw that one up, proving that advanced planning has no advantage.

If, for some reason, you find yourself married to a person with multiple personalities, you could always ask a different one of them what to get. Not that I would ever do a thing like that.

• Anything worth doing can be done from the couch  - leftyfucious

Mrs lefty was upset because Penny kept lunging at her while she was driving. She figured out Penny wasn't lunging - she is a Spaniel Seatbelt. She sits right in her lap and doesn't move. That's a weird habit for any dog larger than a Yorkie. Fortunately she's not so large as to impair driving.

• You got me like ah and ooh, with all the things you do... 
• I'm sorry, this 'song' annoys the crap out of me. 
• Ok, I'm not sorry.

I voted. You probably voted too. It's a way to make your voice heard, but only if a lot of people vote like you. I had 5 races: three were libertarians, leaving 2 races to investigate. Duckduckgo was very helpful in getting all the local voting and candidate information. One of the remaining two was an easy choice: vote against our local representative. I don't normally do this - I vote for, not against - but this person gets under my skin by breathing. Have you ever met or looked up someone whose every view is diametrically opposed to yours? It's not like we have any common ground, except (perhaps) not killing random people. Killing random people might be ok with her, but you may not do it with guns, because she's against guns. She never misses an opportunity to make government bigger and more expensive. Every single issue. The other race featured 2 people who were moderate democrat and republican. After research, I wound up voting straight libertarian and two republicans. Remember: "Common sense gun regulations" means gun confiscation or other erosions of the 2nd Amendment.

The incumbent governor won (boo), as did the representative from hell, who is wrong on every issue.  I didn't expect to win, but this is disappointing. Apparently a lot of people didn't vote like me.  

There was a huge turnout, which I'll put down to people coming out against Trump (this a guess, not a comment). Everybody in line was pleasant, helping newcomers to the correct line. The staff was either pleasant or near death. I got to entertain here and there, which made it fun for me. Less so Penny, who isn't registered to vote here (yet), and wasn't allowed in the building. Neither was my comfort elephant, which will require a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, and under the Americans with Disabilities Act. They're just lucky I didn't bring my comfort fire engine or comfort F-15.

• Penny just figured out how to open the kitchen door; she puts her paw under and pulls. How do pets figure this stuff out? It's only a matter of time til she figures out the bi-fold bathroom door. All of our pets figured them both out.

This is Penny. Penny is a meerkat.

Say - are you an HSBC customer in California?

Oops - your personal and banking information are out in the wild after a breach. 

"The information that may have been accessed includes your full name, mailing address, phone number, email address, date of birth, account numbers, account types, account balances, transaction history, payee account information, and statement history where available. 

 Naturally, HSBC is very sorry (they got caught) and they take security very seriously (because they got caught).

• Minnesota is the #1 state in voter turnout: 74.7%
• Even my rudimentary math skills show over 25% of voters can't be bothered to abandon their Faceyspaces accounts long enough to make their voices heard.

Do you have boxes of real dead bats, attached to cardboard, with cellophane wrapped around them? You may not send them to Canada. Don't ask how I know.

• Shrimp paste?

Overheard but not confirmed: Best Buy employees have to price match Amazon prices from their personal phones because of people editing html to change prices on Amazon. 

Just in case you haven't discovered the World Wide Web yet, this means people are taking Amazon web pages and altering the code (html) to reflect their desired price.

Let me eat my words: We are not a nation of morons. We are a nation of mostly morons.

Sinead O'Connor has converted to Islam and declared that she doesn't want to associate with white people.

1. Whoever is in charge of Public Relations for Islam had better tell her Mohammed wants her to entertain others from the safety of a soundproofed closet, twelve stories underground, at a nuclear-fortified facility. The reason they're so slow on this is that Public Relations is also in charge of picking random places to blow up innocent people in other countries, in the name of God.
2. Sinead, alternately known as Skinhead or My Little Garbage Truck, in addition to converting, got a real knock on the head and has also converted to Social Justice Warrior. This is proved by her statement coming out on Twitter, where you are not allowed to malign Muslims.
3. This woman is a mess. Those of us who pay attention to this sort of thing (and tell jokes at polling places), suspect she's a victim of abuse, perhaps as a child. She hasn't dealt with her trauma. Let's say Sinead is a balloon (a pretty blue one): she starts out flat, then fills with grief and agita until full. If she doesn't process the agita, the balloon can't hold more air, so it blurts out little bits, like we used to do when we were little to make fart sounds. The bizarre behavior is the air leaking out, bit by bit. After she deals with the event that brought this about, the air will go out of her. Then she'll be flat again (which is not so good if you're a musician). It would be a good thing to get this behind her, lest she find herself the lone member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, remote flying drones that drop bombs on people who don't want to associate with white people.

• Another shooting.
• There have been mass shootings for years. Lately it seems they're out of control. So to speak.
• Is the media hyping the shootings?
• Is there an agenda to disarm Americans? If so, who benefits?
• Has MKULTRA come back in a different form? Who's doing the programming?
• Have we simply morphed into a society with a larger tiny percentage of mass murderers?
• Many of the shooters were on prescribed medicines, like antidepressants and antipsychotics.
• I have no firm answers - just asking questions.

The Guardian, a very strange newspaper in the UK, featured this gem, when they learned that People magazine voted Idris Elba the Sexiest Man Alive:

Congrats, Idris Elba: but next year, let's have a less macho sexiest man alive...

Do you really want to live on the same planet as these people?
How about Harvey Fierstein?
Hint: evolution favors the macho, not the metro.


Many sections of the UK have gone completely off the rails; mostly the government and the more prominent voices of SJWs. If someone said Idris was an ass, the police would prosecute for hate speech and the SJWs would prosecute for racism (because he's black). America would prosecute because no one should be called Idris.

• For some unknown reason, I get a few visits from a domain that seems to belong to some very adult websites, possibly also Ashley Madison. Is somebody trying to tell me something? It is my wife?

old crazy lefty is at it again, with another theory...

Many theories have been put forth about UFOs and their pilots. It is said that some flying things are ours and some are not. There is no shortage of proof that things are flying around up there, regardless of whose.  It is also a fact that the Powers The Be (PTB) have spent much time, money, and lives denying there's anything up there. There are three 'official' explanations for Roswell, from our own government. Why the extreme effort to deny?

Given there's an unknown reason, perhaps it's technology no one wants us to have. Perhaps there's something no one wants to tell us. I'm a big boy - I want, and have the right, to be told the truth.

[Here's the out of the box part] Is it possible that ancient astronauts the pilots of the craft that aren't ours are already known and perhaps already established? That would explain a lot. Or maybe they're all ours and it's all a show.

Fuzzy Green Chairs

Know what a Stingray is? The one that isn't a Corvette.
A Stingray is a catch-all, as well as a brand name for IMSI catchers. Wasn't that helpful?
It's a device sold to law enforcement that gets put up as a fake cell tower, to catch and monitor your cell phone. You have no idea it's there; the phone operates normally.

One company found a bunch of them in DC. Nobody knows whose they are. The letter agencies are aware of them, but some claim not to know either. Very smart operation, guys.

So it wasn't enough that law enforcement spied on you, now it's all over the place in DC and no one is sure who is doing the spying. Or what's going to be done with, or about it.

Isn't that lovely?

• Panera Bread, Sears, and Best Buy have been hit by breaches. Check your accounts and act accordingly.

Question of the day: Does the color azure make anyone else manic?

The Faceyspaces Saga. On and on and on

• It's interesting to watch the Shitstorm facing Faceyspaces. Zuckerburg had a small point, telling people they ok'd the spying when they signed up. This is true; we know nobody reads the terms - they just hit OK.  Just the other day, I had to ok a license on my phone... rest assured I read the terms.
• And now, Zuckerburg is getting a lot of blowback over the privacy invasion that is the actual business of Faceyspaces. Yes, people, you are the product. Your data is being sold and not only do you lose your privacy, you're not making a cent on this. In case you didn't know, FB owns Instagram, so they have yet another data collector. While we're at it, Google owns YouTube.
• I want to emphasize that the Faceyspaces app on your phone has access to most of your data. It catalogs every phone call you make, as well as every text message. If you have friends that you might not tell your spouse about, FB knows. If you're texting with a 'special friend' that you might not tell your spouse about, FB knows. This is just the start of the info. At very least, uninstall the phone app and use a browser.
• Just because we're on this topic, Zuckerburg also mentioned that their reverse search function, where you enter an email or phone number to find a contact, was scraped, potentially exposing the data of two billion users (their total userbase).
• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is leaving Faceyspaces. Good move, Steve, but this isn't exactly new.
• What is new (aside from me warning everyone) is that FB has extensive profiles on people who aren't on FB, including a lawyer for the ACLU. This article is not for the faint of heart.
• Hot off the presses: Faceyspaces just suspended another firm for "non profit academic research", which translates to "we've got all your data too".
• Check to see if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica.
• Annnnnnnnd once again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a futurist. Or just a guy who's very concerned about privacy and safety. I TOLD YOU SO.

Twitter is again showing their colors by shadowbanning Ted Cruz's tweets. I'm not a Cruz fan, or a republican fan, or a democrat fan, but they are doing things and need to be called out on them. It's not that private corporations are required to play fair, but they're being very sneaky about it and people need to know. Nowhere does Twitter let people know that they actively discriminate and outright censor everybody to the right of Rob Reiner. I stick up for conservatives in this case because next time, they could decide to start throwing out libertarians. One account was terminated because the owner objected to a court decision. 

What is shadowbanning? Making an account much less visible. It's a discovered then admitted process.  Followers of the account don't see all the tweets.  What kind of 'trusted' platform does this in the dark?

The CEO of Twitter, the infamous @Jack, openly called for a war against republicans recently, on the national stage.  This is a small first step toward disclosure, but Twitter needs to admit its bias and make it put it in their terms. Let the people make their decisions by themselves.

Meanwhile, conservatives (and even 4 or 5 us libertarians) are moving to gab.ai, which absolutely does not discriminate against anyone. Free speech comes with speech you don't like, and this means I have to put up with a small amount of antisemites and what look like nazis. They're ugly, and the scum of the earth, but  deserve free speech as much as anyone else. Like Twitter, you can block or not follow people you don't like.

Speaking of @Jack, an article, quoting anonymous internal sources, alleges that the initial checkmark removals and alt-right bans came directly from Jack.

• Best Buy and Kmart say they're victims of the same third party breach that affected Delta and Sears.

One day we're sitting on the couch, snacking and doing what people do when sitting on the couch (no, not fighting). All of the sudden I hear STOP IT. Huh?  Stop making that noise. What noise? That noise.... you're not doing it right. Huh? You have to take a bunch out at one time and eat them. You can't reach in and get them one at a time. That noise drives me crazy.  

Oh.

Notice my contribution to the discussion largely consisted of Huh?

So I'm minding my own business, as I do, when the wife goes by, on the way to a different floor. Minutes later, I hear the dog shrieking to come in. Wife let him out. The longer he waits, the higher the pitch and frequency of the shrieking. The neighbors probably think he's being abused. My question to you: is my wife being passive aggressive by making me go get the dog?

Because if it is, I need to eat some snacks.

• I just heard about free range eggs. Do they allow the eggs to roam? What does that look like? Do the neighborhood teens wonder if they got more for their drug money?

Overheard: 

I'm out of bullets.

How did that happen?

I shot them all.

• A sex robot inventor said his creations helped save his marriage. He would turn to the robot when his wife wasn't in the mood. This is almost like my concept of Vice Wife; the woman who would take over when the Wife was not able to perform the duties of her office.
• Ever clever, my wife said perhaps she should get a Vice Husband. I'm a fair guy - go ahead. The only duties of office I fail at are mowing and trash.
• I predict the inventor's next disagreement will involve who cleans the doll when he's done.

I don't have much to say about the Cosby trial, other than noticing he's in great shape at comedy gigs and bumbles and stumbles like an aged Hillary Clinton on the way into the courthouse. He was rushed the other day by a topless woman, protesting his actions. The woman was identified as an actor who appeared on his show a few times, whose character was named Roofie Johnson.

• A West Virginia woman was arrested for beheading her boyfriend before telling cops, “You have to take me back and let me get my heads,” as they drove her away from the bloody scene, authorities said. Her lawyer is complaining about the judge asking for a test of mental competence, stating that it tarred his client's good reputation and her impending run for public office.

A man who ate a Carolina Reaper, the hottest pepper known to man, experienced dry heaving, neck pain, and bad headaches, referred to as thunderclap headaches. Who could have imagined that a man eating the hottest pepper on the planet would experience any negative effects?

The next time someone expects sympathy for their migraine, poo poo the idea and tell them to come back when they have a real headache.

• Baltimore, a hell hole even bigger than Philly, is attempting to drive tourism in new and untested ways. A man was jogging nude through rush hour traffic. Note to Baltimore: you might want to try it with a woman. 

Even YouTube isn't immune to hackers. Someone got into YT and deleted all sorts of videos, including Shakira's Vero YT account.  In the spirit of international brotherhood, I have volunteered to sacrifice my time to comfort her on this tragic loss.

• Pro Tip: before you come in the house and yell "Nipple check on aisle three", make sure no one but the owner of said nipples can hear you.

Why is it always California?

A bill has been introduced in California, which would require state-sanctioned fact checkers to approve online content. It's a shame we can't mandate fact checkers for lawmakers.

• Proving that satire is dead, the mayor of London has enacted knife control.
• The UK spends a lot of time laughing at the US, but now it's our turn. The police can stop anyone they suspect of carrying a knife and search them.
• First the ubiquitous spy public cameras, then the ban on speech that hurts feelings, and now Stop And Search for knives. It sounds more like a police state than the great country it was.

After getting cut off in traffic, Texas' own Ryan McFaul did the only thing a reasonable man could do: pulled out his BB gun and shot at a church's windows. The BBs went through the outer pane of the dual pane glass and no one was hurt. McFaul is out on $5,000 bond, with the condition that he holds the gun backwards the next time he shoots.

• Security Theater: Next time you're getting groped by the TSA at the airport, you better have your snacks ready for inspection. In yet another bid to look relevant, the TSA is going to start screening snacks. By the end of the year, look for intense shoelace scrutiny. Inside sources also point to underwear checks.

Canada is Pissed

I take a decent amount of crap online because of my pro Second Amendment views. Also my pro First Amendment views. This is largely on Twitter, as one would guess. It's just a matter of time until tweeters are not allowed to mention the Second Amendment. The most shocking, shrieking rebuke came from a Canadian. This particular Canuckian is a nice lady and we've been online acquaintances for a while. After the Florida shooting, I attempted to explain the Second Amendment and she yelled, as best one can yell in text, that I have the blood of children on my hands. Canadians generally live up to the stereotype of being nice people. Even the border guards are unfailingly polite.

In an email exchange with another Canuckian who is so level, you almost need to check for a pulse, she mentioned she doesn't like our president or our guns. I asked for some specifics and could feel the volume going up and the seething start. I guess I found the pulse.

I (used to) love hearing American jokes and what other countries thought of us. The main object of their laughter was that Americans only know one language. In a complete verification of the joke, Americans will not see the problem with that. 

Now all I hear is hatred for Trump and gun ownership. I really don't want to be lectured about my country and its Constitution by people not living under it (and roughly 50% of the people who do). They seem to think we're all armed to the teeth and the act of walking down the street puts one's life at risk. Please. They advocate gun control, in the form of not having them at all. They think this will stop the mass shootings. Oops - it seems the criminals are performing the majority of crimes, so gun confiscation will do nothing but harm law-abiding people. Here's another mini fact: all school shootings have occurred in gun-free zones.

I'm not sure outside folks are getting our culture or our Constitution. Ironically, they seem quite ok with the First Amendment.

Agoraphobic Mall Trips

Not frequently, but every now and then, a family member pisses me off. When my brother bought his first house, an older lady, whose thinking functions were fading, sold it to him. The house hadn't been redecorated in a while, resulting in what I referred to as 'The Trip Room'. The room came complete with silver mylar wallpaper, which was enough by itself, but also this unimaginable fuzzy green chair. I asked him to preserve just this one room, as some weird sort of tribute, perhaps to the seventies. He, or someone he happened to be married to, rejected the idea with great speed and efficiency.

Now, I hear the kitchen is being remodeled. The kitchen features some quiet but bizarre wallpaper, with tiny pineapples on it. It became a running joke, then I heard it was coming down. Again I asked one small favor... if you're not going to leave the wallpaper, at least leave a few square inches of it on a hidden space somewhere. Again I received an immediate answer in the negative.

My relatively new motto is "I ask for very little. And that's exactly what I get."  But I asked, because if you don't ask, you don't receive. And I'm feeling some kinda way about this. It's not like I asked for $50,000 or to live with them. Or for one of them to mow my lawn. Just a chair or a tiny piece of wallpaper. But nooooooooo.

If he had asked me to keep one small thing because it amused him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Unless he asked me to clean... that's not going to happen.

• Life is funny. When I was a little boy, Mom would throw her munchkins in the car and take them to the mall. The other day I piled my parents in the car and took them to a mall and dinner.  It's the least I could do.

I'm still working diligently on my agoraphobic certificate. 

As you may remember, agoraphobes stay in their house and are afraid to leave. I can't get the full official certificate, as I still have to work. There are no exceptions. It also happens that whenever I do make it out of the house, I wish I had stayed home. So right now I shall retain my amateur status. Or maybe part-time agoraphobia.. I'll have to ask a professional.

That aside, as is bound to happen once every month or so, I left the house, not on a work mission. Remember mission, as this is another one of those Literary Devices I throw around now and again. I'm not a writer, but I know two or three terms, so I'm throwing them around.

We decided to take my reasonably near-sane parents out to a mall and dinner. They're always delighted to see us, possibly just because it means leaving the house, but I suspect they actually like us or something.

We went to a mall, so the ladies could look at Stuff. My wife has a favorite department store. My wife has many favorite stores, physical and virtual. This particular store is such a favorite that we frequently don't get out into the mall proper, because she's spent so much time there. We were determined, however.

After only two or three bags, weighing thirty pounds each, were purchased, I was unanimously elected to take them to the car or drag them through the mall. This is like choosing between chin-ups and running in the cold for (NOOOO) exercise. The car was pretty far away, so I dragged.

Why was the car far away? Every time we go to this mall, we park right up front. That day everyone and their extended family was at this store, perhaps because it was sunny outside. Yes, they couldn't wait to leave their houses because it was nice outside, so they could go to the enclosed mall. Logic is not our strong suit.

Just as it was last time, the area was heavy with Brow Options. There was a store called Brow Bar. I'm not entirely sure what went on there, but no one was being serviced. It didn't appear they were selling brows and I didn't notice a Brow License anywhere, so we were stymied.

Mom and Wife went into Victoria's Secret. Most people don't bother to find out, but I know Victoria's Secret: it's how they get women to spend so much on so little. Even little girls have little (fully covering) clothes. Now teenagers feel the need to look pretty under their clothes. We're a weird planet.

The menfolk discovered seats in the mall area and took full advantage of them. Twenty minutes later, Dad starts to get a little itchy, as the womenfolk hadn't returned.  I didn't understand the commotion; they would find us when (if) they were done shopping. This could eventually be to my detriment because the more I'm not with her, the more time she has to shop, and by shop, I mean spend. Dad got more and more itchy and probably failed to understand my calm. He called both of them on their phones, neither of which could hear them ringing. This is unlike my wife's phone at home, in which buried people, dead for a hundred years, can hear clearly. So Dad paced while I checked for the one piece of email I get every day or so.

We eventually found them. They had snuck behind us, across the mall to a different store. A store that has the same clothes, shoes, and jewelry in ten sections, displayed by color. Women understand this. Men, as usual, don't have a clue or a chance. It's not like my wife is there a lot, but they greet her by name.

The mall used to be a small affair; two anchor stores with some other stores sandwiched between. At some point they decided to add more stores. Unlike other malls that run east to west or north to south, this one added a cluster of stores outside this exit and six restaurants out back, not connected to the mall. It looked like some sort of tree branch, after the nuclear holocaust. As a manly man and a damn-near considerate person, I offered to retrieve the car so no one (else) had to do more walking. I showed everyone the exit I'd meet them at and asked them to stand there.

Because of the hodgepodge layout, one simply does not drive around the mall, like some sort of Indianapolis speedway at two hundred miles per hour; one drives around a ninety degree side, then out and around a bank that mysteriously popped up out of the ground, obscuring mall traffic. Then past the first mall entrance (or the last mall entrance, depending on where you entered) and around what looked like some sort of truck receiving area, but what in fact was a place for some unnamed Italian outfit to store bodies before they go out for processing.  Attached to the crematorium was a huge parking garage. This is a mall, mind you. The parking garage obscured it. At this point the phone rang. The phone does not ring at home, nor while I'm out doing something; it only rings when I don't want to hear it or I'm doing something that precludes me from answering it. At this point I was in the middle of a U-turn, fortunately with no one else coming. I went to get the phone from its holder and, as always, was completely blocked by the seatbelt. I hate seatbelts. Their only use is to hold your dead body in the seat after the accident. They get in the way of the phone, the radio, the wallet, and any of my wife's parts I wish to touch while we're both in the car.

Wife informs me they're waiting by Jeans House, John's Snotty Upscale Market, Half Foods, and Chicosan's Boutique. These are all stores I never heard of nor visited in the mall, so this wasn't helping me. This was also not where I told them to meet me. I asked a simple question: why didn't you meet me where I asked? We couldn't. You couldn't exit at the mall exit? No, we couldn't get out the doors. I decided to let that pass because if I took any time at all to think about it, it would produce massive headaches and possibly homicidal behavior. She said it was a bit down and brown outside. Oh, the brown section! Down by the thing. Yes, those were directions alright... just not directions for anyone who wasn't standing next to her at that moment. I promised I'd look and guaranteed I'd see her by dinner tomorrow.

Eventually I found the Brown Section, with yet another clump of stores not attached to the mall, requiring circling the outside of the drive and yet another U-turn, fortunately sans ringing phone. Some fellow got out of his car right before I drove up the lane and proceeded to walk, verrrrrry slowly, in the general direction of the store clumpage. I do not drive an electric car, so it makes six cylinders of noise. Noise this fellow apparently did not recognize as a car, so he continued moseying on down the lane, as I prepared to turn onto the main road. He outsmarted me by also turning, ever so slightly as to slow down my turn too. Talk about homicidal urges... this behavior should be punishable by a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars, plus wearing a sign outside the store for a year that says "I'm a slow walking car blocker".

It was all I had left not to zoom past the lot of them and take myself home, where Marshall was impatiently waiting, but in some countries it is considered rude to leave your elderly parents standing outside a mall for a few days (not your wife, though). No matter, I thought, at least we were off to our favorite barbecue place for our favorite barbecue. They even have a vanilla ice cream machine with tiny little cones for dessert and you get to pull the lever yourself. It's the little things....

We drove there, parked the car, got out, walked two steps, and discovered our favorite barbecue place had closed permanently. Not a sound from four people. We stared, mute. BUT OUR FAVORITE BARBECUE PLACE!!! It's not there. It's closed. We cannot purchase barbecue here anymore. No loaded potatoes, fried oprah, pulled this and that.. and no ice cream.  If we were but a few years younger, we would have stood there, crying, and proceeding to have an absolute FIT in the parking lot. No one was around, but I wouldn't let that stop me if I were going to throw a Serious Tantrum. I threw a Medium Tantrum when my wife dropped a candle and smashed five pounds of glass in her store. That day she was having a very serious problem with gravity. Sometimes it works much more heavily on her than the rest of us. So many things dropped and lept out of the cart that I took to calling her My Little Disaster Area. Romantic, no?

So there we stood, on the verge of Serious Tantrum, when my wife came up with  what she thought was the perfect solution: going next door and shopping at the strangely upscale second hand store, where one can purchase pocketbooks no man has heard of at obscenely low prices. What is truly obscene is what the pieces of imitation ugly leather cost when they were new. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an exceedingly ugly thing to carry around their shoulders. And I'm not talking fuzzy green ugly, I'm talking brown and brown with strange symbols ugly. It's like some huge joke on the part of the pocketbook industry: hey, let's design some absolutely hideous THING, charge $800 for it, then give a few away to a Kardashian. No matter how ugly or expensive, they will fly off the shelves. And sure enough, the internal plumbing crowd of the world stepped right up and snapped them up wherever they could find them. Some of these bags have individual serial numbers. I have guitars that don't have individual serial numbers. They were less expensive than these pocketbooks too.

Needless to say, at least two of us, probably the ones with external plumbing, were less than thrilled. As there was no Manly Section of the store, we assumed Manly Position, which is standing, arms crossed, heavily frowning, eyes front and staring out into a universe that included sitting and eating barbecue. Finally the ladies released us from torment and we struggled out to the car. It's amazing what not getting out much followed by carrying sixty pounds of purchased goodies around a mall will do to you. The back part of my feet hurt. I've never had a pain there in all my life. There is obviously some serious blame to be laid on this topic.

In a rather ironic moment, I drove down the street to our second favorite barbecue place, Mission BBQ (see, I got mission in there, like an almost professional writer). Mission is a chain that has just entered the area, founded upon respect for all armed forces and police. Vets eat free or reduced price. The food is good and the people are so nice, they had to import them from the South, or wherever else people are nice. Certainly not my area. The sad part of all this, aside from our favorite place closing, is that my friends from Texas laugh hysterically when I tell them we had bbq from a chain restaurant. Apparently every corner down there has a different bbq place, each better than the other one. Note to self: bad form to salivate on keyboard. Well, it's all we've got up north, so we have to call it good. Piss off, you hat-wearin', hornswagglin', sweet tea drinkin', hurricane tornado havin' rodeo state. And gitcher dang old horses offa the main streets before they leap on a twelve cylinder convertible Caddilac with steer horns on the front and a horn that plays Dixie.

You can't pay for vitriolic area-specific insults like that, but I put them before you, out of the goodness of my heart, because I like attention and because we're up to ten readers now. If we all work together, I know we can hit fifteen by Christmas (2020).