Apparently I possess some mysterious characteristic so strong that
every time I enter a Goodwill store, all babies inside immediately
shit themselves.

It's not that I'm intimidating, or anything. This just happens to be
one of the little things in life I know I can count on happening
consistently. Every time I go into a thrift store, a baby shits. And
everyone smells it and looks at each other and then the bottoms of
their shoes. I guess it's kinda like ringing a bell for angel wing
production in "It's a Wonderful Life." Except that it's less magical
because there's human crap involved.

Ultimately, I don't mind as much because I understand that you have to
take this bad with the good. The good being me ending up with some
size-too-small T-shirt jersey from a local car dealership's softball
team. The kind that always has some apparent inside joke on the back.
The less sense this inside joke name makes to me, the more I want it.

"Wait, turn around," my cousin requested on one occasion. "'Pavarotti's dog?'
What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know! Isn't it great?"

"Not really," he replied. "Now hurry up and pick up that side of the casket."

My message this week is though life is unpredictable most of the time,
I'm glad to know I can depend on a few things. Regardless of how much
they severely annoy me and make me want to throw things. In a girly
way.

Take, for example, the fact that I haven't taken a nap since 1982.
It's not that I haven't wanted to nap in 22 years, it's that I haven't
been able to. If there's one thing I can depend on, it's that I'll be
woken up by my cell phone five minutes into the nap. And it's always
for some stupid reason, like a friend calling to find out the name of
the other guy in Wham!

"Whaaffghtt?" I'll ask with dry a mouth and zipper creases across my
face from falling asleep on my own pants.

And it angers me to think of all those naps I wasted in kindergarten.
I didn't even want to nap in kindergarten. The only reason I ever
considered napping then was so I could get that sticker of a star. Why
would anyone want to nap when there's blocks in the room? Of course,
I'm only assuming it was actually possible to fall asleep on those
sweaty red/blue, quarter-inch thick mats. The mats your face would
always stick to when you got up. The mats you couldn't lie on
unless it was on your favorite colored side (for the record, the blue
side is the superior).

I think the last time I took a nap was when I was a fetus. But even
that was disturbed by that whole "birth" process, which I still resent
to this day.

Another thing I can depend on is my crappy, inconsiderate appetite.

"Hey. Psst. Tim," my appetite often whispers to me. "You're hungry for
some Chick-fil-a. Go get some, Tiger."

Following my psychologist's orders, I answer. Usually with something
like "You betcha, I am!"

So then I drive across town to said establishment and pull up to the
drive-thru, which looks emptier than usual. Oh, but guess what. It's
Sunday. And that particular chain is the only one in the universe not
open on Sunday.

"DAMMIT!" I'll scream, but my voice usually cracks, so it's not as intimidating.

"LOL," my stomach usually responds.

I can pretty much also count on my apartment's soda machine flipping
me the rod every time I attempt to use it.

Less than a week ago, I put a whole dollar bill into the machine. The
machine did nothing. That little "correct change" light didn't even
blink.

"Oh, come on!" I yelled at the machine, again my voice cracking.

So then I put an additional 50 cents into the machine for a Mountain
Dew, but because the Pepsi button was wedged underneath the metal for
some reason, I naturally got a stale honeybun.

The coke machine then gave me a wedgie and made out with my mom.

©2004 Tim Landry