Observations: Terrifying, Erotic, Expensive… in that order

I love to walk. Walking places is fun and easy. That being said, I'm fairly certain that that there is an entire room in hell full of nothing but treadmills. Can't you see it now? Hundreds upon hundreds of dead eyed people in perpetual motion, the clomp of their feet becoming a numbing dirge reminiscent of drums on Viking slave ships… all producing the exact effect expected from moving WHILE staying still…

I know, I know, exercise. I get it.

The problem is, walking the route I take into work, while not as mindshatterlingly mundane as being on a treadmill, doesn't really make me want to look around and enjoy the sights.

No offense, two people lying in sleeping bags under the underpass who get mad at me in the morning for not giving them the lunch I packed for myself and then get mad at me again in the evening for not saving them some of the lunch I already wouldn't give them because I ate it. It's not that I dislike walking through your… back yard? (Front yard? living room? Cedar closet?) But your decor leaves something to be desired.

My solution, as a result, is to lose myself in my own thoughts as I walk into work and then back out. This works great when I have something specific to think about.

Not so much when I have "Pepper" playing over and over in my head and all I can think about is what it would sound like to slap two jellyfish together.

So here I have compiled a few of my observations. Things that I think about as I pretend to be on the phone so I have an excuse to not engage the two sleeping bag people who want my turkey sandwich:

Observation 1: SPIDERS!!!

I think spiders are terrifying to me for one reason: Camel crickets. For those of you who don't know:

AUGH!!!!! FIRE! GET FIRE!!!!!

Camel crickets can jump up to 1000 feet at speeds exceeding mach 200 and their only thought is "KILL!!"!!!! 

Now, you may point out that they are not, in fact, spiders. However, in my family, they have always been referred to as "Jumping Spiders" (the most terrifying combination of words ever). 

Combine that with the fact that certain spiders, like the Black Widow, cause death and the result is that, whenever I hear "spider" I have a mental image of horrible, poisonous monsters leaping out at me like the facehugger from Alien.

Observation B: Unintentionally sexy names

When the internet first came out, e-mail was complicated (IT'S LIKE LETTERS YOU READ ON THE COMPUTER!!!) I think my first e-mail address was something like "User@comterquase.netjoiner.com.df///6b///" because I was never given an option. That was the world we lived in.

Then, as we got more internet savvy, we all noticed that e-mail addresses could be used as vehicles for expressing our love of certain things. We left the clunky addresses behind and took names like "Princessrainbow227@yahoo.com".

Shockingly, universities don't consider you a "prime candidate" when your listed e-mail address is Princessrainbow227 (DON'T ask me how I know that), so there comes a time when you need to just make your e-mail address be some combination of your first and last name.

Great for some… bad for others.

Has anyone ever noticed that some of these combinations read like weird descriptions of less-well-known erogenous zones?

Take for example, Terry Walace Ingle. An upstanding name, by all accounts. But turn that into: "twingle" and that sounds like something that Cosmo recommends blowing on gently as a way to make things hotter between the sheets.

Ewww.

Observation Blue Triangle: CAR REPAIRS

Cars need to be repaired. Whether its because of normal wear and tear or because you wanted to see if your bumper was actually stronger then that snooty Lexus' bumper, it is a fact of life.

But there is something that I don't quite understand about car repairs. I bought my car new 8 years ago, paid around $16,000 for it, which, in my opinion, is completely reasonable considering I was buying a fucking chariot that runs on magic and takes me anywhere I want to go.

But when I took my car into the shop the other day for its routine maintenance, they told me I needed to replace one of the oil gasket seals. If you're like me and you have no idea what this is, I will tell you what they told me: "it is one of the 4 rubber tubes that keep oil from leaking out of the cylinders."

"Ok… that sounds important, how much?"

"$400… plus labor."

Backtrack. The CAR costs $16,000. Which means that, when the car was built THE FIRST TIME, they had to put 4 of these tiny rubber tubes into the engine. Are you telling me that one TENTH of my car's net cost is invested in FOUR TINY, FUCKING, RUBBER TUBES!?!?!

No wonder the economy crashed, they're practically GIVING these cars away. If all the price is caught up in rubber tubes and ashtrays, they must have to sell thousands of cars just to pay for a single transmission.

But what choice do I have? Just send the bill to my e-mail address: Moondancer9@yahoo.com. I'm gonna go tickle my twingle…