The Poooolice

I was driving home tonight (around 12:30) on Connecticut Ave when a cop in front of me began to slow down and then stopped in the middle of the road. Hummm I thought, am I being pulled over?I drive past at a cool 25mph and get gets in behind me. Here it is I thought, I’m bing pulled over. All of a sudden he falls back for a little bit, then turns his lights on and speeds up right into the back of me. I was at that point where I needed to turn anyway and as I turn, he turns his lights off and follows me all the way back to garage.

Firstly, I drive a Subaru Outback, a universal sign of peace and lesbianism, and in my neighbourhood, this was hardly out of place.

Secondly, I understand the tactic, drive erratically to see how the other drivers will react. Except, driving erratically will cause me to react erratically. I spend a great deal of time in emergency vehicles driving at high rates of speed. Driving unpredictably kills people.

Seriously bad move people.

Umm Who?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/18/slash-holds-concert-to-be_n_362289.html

I was going to say they need food, shelter, and a stable family but a free concert works too.

Obama, Stephanopoulos Interview On ABC’s This Week

Can anyone explain to me what he’s doing in a tractor barn?
More on Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

It’s Times Like These…Reader Response

Reader “timeczar” makes a good point (see comment below).I did some further investigation and found out our reader was right, however,they should have had a sign or some sort of indication that it was for muscular dystrophy. I am willing to admit, I was completely wrong about the cause but without any clear indication, how could one know?
On top of that, if it was the IAFF supporting muscular dystrophy (a noble cause, no doubt), why were they doing it on the job, in full uniform and right next to the ambulance (about a block or two away from the station). Perhaps the rules dictate that they must X number of feet from the station, if that’s the case, surely its worse that they are on the job doing it. Maybe that spot was just more convenient than in front of the station but the point is that they were on duty. As a private company, I wouldn’t allow my employees to be on the clock and supporting union causes, why public should entities support time given over to private unions?

Original Comment:

Are you sure it wasn’t for the Muscular Dystrophy Association?

Every Labor Day weekend, firefighters around the country do a Fill the Boot Campaign for Jerry’s kids.

http://www.iaff.org/mda/index.asp

Not fundraising to support firefighters. Fundarising by a firefighter’s union to support kids with muscular dystrophy.

It’s times like these….

I wish I had a camera. I was walking down Wisconsin today and saw a DC EMT standing on the corner with the firefighter boot out, expecting to get money. Sadly people buy into this farce, that the money is “going to a good cause”. You know, its not. Its going to to some union or a firehouse(I suppose I should say that that money could have been going to a family of a downed firefighter, in which case, I object less but I do not believe it should have been done in such a manor), which, shouldn’t have to depend on the publics good will to get money. Why are firefighter and EMS not expected to be frugal with their spending? Why is it that they buy $350,000 ambulances, when one for $150,000 seems to the exact same job (in DC’s defense, they have really crappy trucks and not Monster Medics but it horrifies me to see how many Volunteer Services have them).
To me it was just humiliating. I could never bring myself to beg for money, especially for work. People from Microsoft don’t stand out on the corner and beg for money, why should EMTs?

Thank God for University!

Because how else would we get an education? Where else could we express views like “there are no absolute truths” and “death is just a perception”? I’m sorry my man(or woman in this case), death is not a perception, death is the difference between having a pulse and not having a pulse. There is little room for second opinions.

Some of your may find yourselves wanting to scream plagiarism on my part but please refrain. These are real quotes from both my fellow students and Ayn Rand. It’s not simply that people read her and pulled lines (bad ones at that), it’s that they didn’t. These ideas came from somewhere, these are educated people (save myself- I am just a lowly paramedic). Where, may I ask, do they come up with this clap-trap bullshit?
I suppose it’s from the same people that ask stupid questions like “what do we do if the bookstore doesn’t they books that we need?”. Well my friend, you go ahead and use that fancy laptop Daddy bought you, get on a website and find the damn book. I mean really, you’re in college. You’re expected to take responsibility.

I suppose I wouldn’t care so much if I wasn’t there. If I didn’t have to throw my lot in with the rest of them. I wanted to cry when one person asked a professor if he organized our field trip assignment. Well, right there on the syllabus it says that there are three, very broad options. Is he really expected to set up an appointment for you to go to the soup kitchen?

I would also like to commission a study on much gets spent each ear on Che Guevara Gear? From what I can tell it appears to be the hottest selling item on campus. Need I even mention the irony of spending $25 on a Guevara shirt or poster? Fight the System!! But spend tons of money doing it. The man and his views led to the deaths of millions of people. Why should we celebrate that? It’s not that I think he should be banned, I just think people need to be educated, properly.

I suppose this just feels like pissing up a flagpole.

Things I Dislike.

Things I Dislike:

1. Picking my roommates pubic hair (and it is Pubic Hair) out of the shower drain, because frankly, it turns into a bath of someone else’s pubic remnants and my filth, for my feet.
2. Picking my roommates pubic off of the bathroom counter top.
3. My roommate’s pubic hair.
4. When my roommate does my dishes conspicuously, as if to say “The kitchen needs to be cleaned so badly, and it’s YOUR dirty dishes”. I just want to say “Listen you catholic pedophile, maybe your dishes are Immaculate (in the divine sense; in actual fact his dishes are leopard print), mine however are not. So why don’t you leave my Colorful Ikea dishes alone and go feel sexually repressed somewhere else.
5. When I come down Sunday mornings to find my Catholic roommate sweating profusely, playing Dance Dance Revolution, alone, sober and in his boxer shorts (I always check behind the couch for the alter boy).
6. Waking up at 3am on Friday morning to the washer bouncing (quite literally) because my roommate has put the 20 pound bathroom mat in there to be cleaned. I can only guess he pissed allover it, in the middle of the night. Come on man, it’s a big fuckin toilet.
7. When I’m taking a shower (having just removed the pubes from the clogged drain) to find that I have part of my catholic roommates cigar stuck (I mean really stuck) to the bottom of my foot, because he’s too fucking lazy to throw it away and just leaves it next to my plants for me to step on when I garden.
8. When my roommate doesn’t know how to change the headlight on his car. I am the most inept person when it comes to mechanics (I’m part Jewish, not bred for manual labor…particularly good with money though) and even I can change the headlight on my car. I mean, you’re 24 years old use some fucking common sense.
9. When my roommate asks to turn change the channel to an HBO show (from law and order, which I was watching) and then gets a phone call leaves for that hour, and then when I come down to watch Law and Order again he asks if he can turn it back on. Bitch, you should have thought of that before you left.
10. When my roommate is home. This may seem like a strange one, but he walks so loudly, I swear to god the first time I heard it I jumped out of my skin. He’s really tall and skinny and has a funny walk that creates so much noise, it drives me crazy. I keep checking him for signs of Parkinson’s or MS.
11. My roommates’ obsession with sports. These are two guys, one of whom graduated from an Ivy League school and the only thing on the coffee table is sports illustrated. I hate sports; I hate them with a passion. I hate baseball, basketball, football and golf (god I hate golf). Baseball is the dumbest fucking sport out there, I hate it so much.
12. Men. That’s right, I hate men. They are savages, absolute savages.
13. Women. Whores. And it’s only partially men’s fault. Perhaps there’s something to ‘original sin’.
14. People who don’t return repeated emails and then act to other people like everything is just fine and we are still talking. No, I don’t want any “regards” from a third party. I want to hear it from you.
15. Close friends and ex-girlfriends who sign emails “sincerely”. What is this, a business relationship (Divorce)? In the case of friends, it is too distant. In the case of ex-girlfriends (and some friends), I think nakedness and a prolonged sexual relationship kind of threw “sincerely” right out the door. ‘Cheers’ works well. If were close enough ‘love’ would not be inappropriate (though ‘luv’ is never OK). ‘Talk to you soon’ works well because it leaves the door open for further dialog, but without the real expectation of any. When I write Sincerely, what I really mean is ‘Sincerely go fuck yourself’.
16. Ex-girlfriends who turn into alcoholic, slutty simpletons. When did this behavior become OK? Where’s your sense of self-respect? This also applies to ex-girlfriends who start drinking heavily and/or start smoking (pot or tobacco) shortly after we break up. Did I repress you for that whole time? Was the break-up so hard that you had to start drinking? Come on, show some decency, and show some self-respect, the last thing you want is for your ex (me. Though this applies to anyone) to think is that he got the better of you.
17. People who get upset when I make fun of their significant other. No one is immune from my criticism, constructive or otherwise. Listen, if you’re not comfortable enough with that person that my comments are able to shake you. Well either you’re with the wrong person or I’m right on the money with my criticism and you should stop denying the truth.

This list is, of course, incomplete (and out dated, I love my current (and clean) roommates). It’s only a list of things that were driving me crazy at that very moment. It changes/increases hour by hour.

Mop

Its amazing, its the 21st century I can’t buy a mop- anywhere. I’ve been to Target, my local grocery store, my local hardware store. I can buy a thousand Swiffers but I cannot find a good ole’ fashion mop.

The Mall

Let me start out by saying, I hate malls. I’m not sure what it is about them, because I love shopping but every time I enter a mall I feel a profound sadness. Perhaps it is for myself and what I am about to go through. Perhaps it is for my ‘fellow man’ that are also in the mall. However, they seem to be having a lot more fun than I am. In any case, on this day, I came for shoes- and I hate shopping for shoes.

I drove two hours (its actually kind of nice knowing that the closest mall is two hours away) to get myself a nice comfy pair of business casual shoes. Perhaps a pair of ‘mocs’ or ‘clogs’.

I was happily making my way to the shoe store when this rather attractive girl called out to me from one of the kiosks. She was at such a distance that it seemed like she had something genuine to ask me. The time? The Weather? A Date? Sex?

To make a long story short, she was trying to sell me hand exfoliant and moisturizer. She did the whole demo with asking my name, washing my hands, asking what I did for a living. I told her as politely- being in a position that I hate malls and now I am stuck in one getting my hands washed- I had “absolutely no intention of purchasing the stuff.” I even tried to avoid the demo once I realized why she called me over. But I got this terribly guilty feeling. Here is this poor, 27 year old (I found out her age, after she asked me mine) foreign girl (maybe South American) just trying to make a living. It’s a shit job selling stuff from a kiosk in the mall and I figured $15 dollars wouldn’t kill me if it would make her happy.

She eventually gets around to telling me, “this stuff is normally $69.99 for exfoliant and $69.99 for the moisturizer but today I have a special deal, $39.99 each”.

What the fuck???

When did hand lotion from mall kiosks begin to cost $150?

I balked, as politely as I could and told her I was poor (about to buy a $150 pair of shoes, but poor) and that “really, I had to be going”. She stepped in front of me. “Please, I promise you’ll love it” she told me. This was now entering somewhere between sad and creepy. Finally I was able to get away by promising (and I really mean, on my knees promising) that I would come back and buy some. I now found myself in the awkward position of having to get back by her (it was a week day and the mall was quite empty) without being accosted. I actually felt real panic. How was I going to get past her? Would I just have to buy the damn cream?

I finally mapped it out that if I got onto the second floor, I would be able to walk past her and get down the stairs near my car- even though this added an addition 10 minutes inside the mall.

My plan went awry when, was just about to the mall doors,who should come in the other direction? But the lotion lady. What Now? Run? Pretend I just got this really amazing phone call?

She recognized me and immediately grabbed me and said “I had to come back and buy the cream, I promised”. I tried to pull away, but she had hold of my jacket. She began pleading, that she needed the money. This had now definitely entered the creepy stage. Was she going to hit me with a jar of hand cream? They were pretty big jars. Was this some sort of joke?

I managed to pull away and started running to my truck; terrified to look behind me for fear that I would get a bucket of exfoliant to the face.

I got to my truck, she hadn’t followed me. And in case you were wondering, Yes, I did ‘run like a girl’, arms and legs flapping everywhere. I may have even let out a little scream, maybe something as pathetic as yelp.

Here I was, having just got back from Newark, NJ dealing with multiple murders, assaults and, in one case, a mini riot and I am running for my life by some poor, 100lb girl selling hand cream in Burlington, MA.

I was never cut out for manly pursuits.

Originally Written Feb/2008