Get ready to hold your breath!

What I'm about to write about is just another thing in a long procession of things going on in the world today that has me convinced that at some point in my life, probably when I was asleep, I was transported through a gap in the Space~Time Continuum and placed in a world that appeared to be the same, but was completely alien to me.

This is Not the America or the world I grew up in.

Let me explain.

When I was a little kid I'd threaten to hold my breath until I got what I wanted. My dad, ever the stoic he was, would just look at me, smile and tell me:

"Go ahead... You'll only turn blue, pass out from lack of oxygen, and start breathing again. You're NOT getting a (insert toy/book/candy/machine gun I wanted that time)!"

But now it looks like we're all going to have to hold our breath now. To exhale would mean hefty fines for polluting and discharging a "pollutant" into the atmosphere.

Just a few days ago, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA said it would begin regulating several gasses that were considered "Pollutants" that contribute to "Global Climate Change", one of which happens to be Carbon Dioxide.

Now wait just damn minute!

If I remember correctly from my Science classes in school, is that all air-breathing life forms on this planet breathe in oxygen and exhale Carbon Dioxide. Plants on the other hand take in Carbon Dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Hence, we give the plants life, and in return, they give us life.

Pretty spiffy thing, I'd think.

But because the Earth is getting warmer by the minute (oh, wasn't it Houston that got it's earliest recorded snowfall this year? and it was 39F/4C when I got home this morning from work here in sunny south-central Florida...) and if we all would just stop breathing, we'd all save the planet.

And on who's authority are they doing this?

Well, they're the Government.

Congress?

Senate?

Who needs them! We're from the Government and we're here to help!

And don't forget that pesky little document called the Constitution... Oh wait! They already did!

One Federal Agency, in one fell swoop, completely circumvented the entire checks and balances thing the Constitution was written for.

So I want you all reading this to stop breathing right now! We've got to stop this pollutant from killing the planet!

You'll only be blue for about 4 four minutes... Then you'll die...

But you've saved the planet!

Sometimes I really believe these nutcases won't be happy until we're all wearing loincloths made of hemp, eating tofu and living in yurts.

And I pledge to stop farting.

Farts are a pollutant too. Methane is a "pollutant", so I'm going to refrain from any future flatulence.

Really.

Copyright 2009 Thomas J Wolfenden

It's Official...

I'm a Dirty Old Man.

Let me explain.

Since the beginning of the Sugar Harvest, I've been working 60+ hours a week and things tend to get left undone at the old Ranger Tom Homestead, so I've hired a woman to come and clean my house once a week... It's nice to come home to a clean house and most of the time I'm just to damn tired to do it.

No, I have not started nailing my cleaning lady.

Since I work nights and get home from work around 8:15 every morning, I use that one morning every week to go out and do some errands and leave her to the cleaning. Most of the time I'll finish up my trip around town down at the Tiki Bar around 11 when they open. I'll have a few ice-cold adult beverages and get a sandwich, getting home around 12:30 or so to a nice clean house and clean sheets to crawl into. (If you've ever had the chance to get real 1000 thread~count Egyptian Cotton sheets, get them! They're HEAVEN!)

Yesterday was no different. I did some running around town and found myself perched on my favorite stool at the Tiki Bar sipping on a ice cold MGD. I'm alone down here in Purgatory, and it gets kind of lonely this time of year. I haven't spoken to anyone in my family really save for my brother since my divorce five years ago and now I'm unsure how that's going to go since he's started sending me Watchtower propaganda...

Not only that my birthday is coming up... on the 27th I'll be 44 and I'm really starting to feel all the abuse I've done to my body over the years... So with aching knees, Christmas and my 44th right around the corner I was feeling kind of low, even though I have the best job in the world in my humble opinion.

I'm a regular at the Tiki, and know almost all of the bartenders and servers by name, and consider most of them my friends. I'm moping a bit watching ESPN highlights on the muted TV when one of the servers sits down next to me. She does this quite often when the place is empty, like it was yesterday, and we began talking. She is quite the looker, and I have been know to take a look-see (ogle) once in a while but she's a bit younger than me, in her mid-20's. But she's engaged to a really nice guy so I've never put the "moves" on her. Besides, after the last few relationships with women who are Bi-Polar, have Borderline Personality Disorder or a Chronic substance abuse problem, I've put myself into a self-induced celibacy for a while.

But I'm not dead.

I do look, OK?

Anyway, I was lamenting to this very attractive friend of mine how I was feeling old, because my birthday was creeping up on me...

What she said next was harmless, I knew she was trying to cheer me up a little bit...

But she might have well just hauled off and kicked me in the balls with steel-toed boots...

"Oh Tommy! You're not old! My mom is only 41!"

D'oh!

Now I feel really great. I'm ogling girls young enough to be my daughter.

Happy Birthday to me, you dirt old bastard! I might as well be like the guy pictured below.

On second thought....

That's not really all that bad, is it?

Yes it is...

I've just creeped myself out!

Whining lament Copyright 2009 Thomas J Wolfenden
Photos pinched from the Interweb