Douche on the Street #10

The douches have had a busy week.

You go speeding by in your big bad black SUV down the middle of a downtown street and it makes you feel big and strong and that the world is your plaything. Out of the quiet of the night, a dull metallic thunk rides the night air and resounds from the brick walls. On closer inspection - even before a closer inspection, the smell makes it obvious - the dark stain sprawled across the uneven pavement came from the silver tallboy can with it's temperature sensitive mountains. Beer.

Because it's been at least thirty years since the government and private interest groups have made most of us realize - with tv, radio, newspaper and ribbon campaigns, with talks by victims and convicts in our high schools on the gore and tragedy and stupidity of it all - that drunk driving is so not cool and so totally dangerous and illegal and yet you feel the need to be big and powerful in your deadly black SUV, you are a douchebag of epic porportions. If I'd had my cell and caught your license plate number as you sped down the street, you'd be sitting on the wrong end of a breathalyzer and pissing your pants right now. Douchebag.

Douche on the Street #9

I always thought that your get-ups and face paint and greasy long hair were a bit sketchy. But that was the 70's and I guess that was the thing back then. I never much cared for your music. And now I find that it was about the rock n roll at all. It was about the money for you. God knows you should have enough of it by now but apparently that's not so. At least, not to your liking. You hold a contest for your fans to see which city has the most fans and that city will get a concert by you and yours, whether it be a "stadium or cornfield." Well the votes are in and Oshawa, Ontario, Canada has the most votes. They want you. They want you live. Of all the cities in North America - Detriot, New York, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, L.A., New Orleans - Oshawa - a city with maybe a third the population of the smallest of those cities - wants you the most. By a long shot. And you shot them down. Why? I can't say for certain. There's some mumbo-jumbo in the press about how you want to make sure there is a venue large enough to accomodate the entire region. But let's face it. You figured you wouldn't make enough money from a small town show.

Within a day having the people of Oshawa drop their pants and bend over, you back-pedalled and announced a show. Saving face?

Because you make it seem like you care about your fans when all you care about is the money, you are a douchebag. Because you go back on your word to ensure you don't lose money in bad press, you are still a douche.

Douche on the Street #8

At 3:30 on a Sunday morning, I'm two blocks away when you burst into a full out run. I hear you thumping along the bridge behind me and move to the side to let you pass. "Wait! Hold on!" you shout as though it were an emergency. But I can feel what is coming. I know it. I've heard it before you even open your mouth. I stop and you catch up, bending over to catch your breath, panting. When you feel ready you blurt out "Got an extra smoke?" Now, what I'm sure you meant to ask was "May I buy a smoke from you?" or even "May I have a cigarette?" rather than your bluntly rude question. But I ignore your poor grammar and focus on the fact that with the trouble you are having breathing, you should probably give up smoking and give you the answer you deserve, "No," and walk away. If you were really that desperate, there was a twenty-four hour convenience store another block up that would gladly have facilitated your habit. But because you expect me to supply the entire city with free cigarettes because you're too cheap or lazy to make sure you have an adequate supply of tobacco and because you can't formulate a proper question, you are a douche.

Douche on the Street #7

"Aye!? Aye!? Aye!? Donuts? Aye!? Aye!? Aye!?" He cried from the back seat of his car any time I came close on my trips back and forth to the dumpster. He reminded me of the seagulls from Finding Nemo who chant "Mine?! Mine?!" Even his friends in the front seat were telling him to shut up. Though I ignored him, I felt like retorting, "Are you retarded?" Because you don't have any concept of acceptable public behaviour, you are a douche.

Sick as a Dog

I've never anyone that sick before. And I've seen people on their deathbed. It started with a little swollen eye and with two hours have grown to include her whole face, the skin stretched taught and abnormally pink. Yet her tail continued to wag and she seemed in fine spirits. Then the diarrhea struck. Then the vomiting. It came at such a pace that I couldn't keep up while trying to clean it. An apparent eye infection turned into an allergic reaction and then into some kind of poisoning. After the fifteenth vomit, he energy had been sapped and she laid down, her hind quarters draped across her bone shaped dog bed, the other hand laying limp on the kitchen floor, jowl pressed to the tile. Her breathing became laboured, light and quick, her lips quivering. Bubbles of spittle formed at the corner of her mouth. Her breathing evened but was slow and light. The spittle stop foaming. When I thought she might be ok, I fell asleep beside her on the floor. When I awoke, she was standing there beside me, staring at me, panting slightly in the heat. Tail wagging. Her face was back to normal. She'd drank a bowl of water sometime in the few hours I slept. Her strength and energy had waned but she felt well enough to thank my guardianship with a lick of the ear.

She still can't keep anything down but the worst has passed we believe. One wonders where that old saying comes from.

Random Writing #3

The sky overhead was a muddled blue-grey through the haze of a heat drenched street. A sudden hot breeze stirred the dust in the street until it became airborne just as a peel of thunder cracked the humidity in the distance. A drop here and there and within seconds the ground was a darker shade than it had been. He stood there as the cold drops seemed to burst into steam as they hit his neck and face, the drops shattering and splintering with the force of impact, running down his chin and soaking the shoulders of his shirt. These sudden storms were common in the area though they never occurred when he thought to carry an umbrella. It should have been a break from the sticky heat that wrapped his body like a rubber suit. But the heat merely laid low, compacted itself against the ground, hid under the blades of grass beside the mosquitoes and flies. When the rain stopped, it would come back again, heavier and thicker than before, permeating the world with its wretched wet blanket.

Terror of Mechagodzilla

It seems even the Japanese had a taste for sideburns, oversized aviator sunglasses and fluffy mustaches back in the 70's. Now we really know why people were running in mass panic through the streets of Toyko.

Down the Rabbit Hole

I have plunged from the highest peak. I have tamed the wilde beast. I have grabbed the behemoth by the horns and fought a valiant, bitter battle to the very end, victorious. I braved the thunderous storm and came out the other side no worse for the wear.

It was a journey of enlightenment, testing my steel, courage and wit like no journey found on paper or digitally encoded. I lived it. And now I can say, I am no pussy. But a ride warrior, I am not.