You know....

I should be enamored with the little gray kitty currently perched on my forearm -- especially since I give her almost no attention when our squeaky-wheel dog is in the room -- but, uh, I kind want to toss her off. Except I'm sitting next to the hubby, whom I've frequently berated for throwing the cats across the room, so I'm sort of stuck.

The question is, is it getting old?

The answer is, never.

I have so much more to say, but tonight let me just send out props to all the fair- and foul-weather Celtics fans (Justin and Ada get special props) who really truly get what this means. Johnny and Red are celebrating somewhere together tonight.

The news you can't use but can definitely enjoy

One of my favorite aspects of being down in the Florida Keys is reading the daily paper, The Key West Citizen. The paper consists of two main sections, News and Sports, and is crystalline in its mission: You want real news? Go read The Miami Herald. Witness the front page headline the day after Obama secured the Democratic nomination:

"Man Hacked in Machete Attack"

I'm also pretty partial to the Crime Report, not so much for the writing (though this morning's headline, "The Bicycle Thief Knows Who He Is and Accepts It," should win a Pulitzer) as for the crimes themselves. A recent ditty:

"A woman awoke Sunday to find her car's windshield and rear window shattered and a note under the windshield wipers admonishing her boyfriend, reports say. 'Your boyfriend touched my girl's ass [and] now you have to replace your glass,' the note said.

Even some of the straightest news stories end up being pretty amusing, like this one from today's front page: "Fire destroyed the rental home of a well-known Marathon musician late Wednesday after a tiki torch exploded... Robert Hudson, known locally as "Rocketman," was playing a gig at Porky's Bayside restaurant...."

But far and away the best feature is the "Citizen's Voice" column. All locals are invited to call the paper's hotline to leave a voicemail proclaiming what's on their minds, and every day the paper prints the choicest 15 or 20 messages. Never mind the quaintness of the concept, or the fact that enough people call every day to keep the section humming: The column succeeds on its cryptic insanity alone. Some recent entries:

"Car dealerships, pay attention: No more balloons! Besides, do you really believe balloons help sell cars?"

"Democrats remind us of sheep who voted not to deal with the wolves. It's lazy to be 'against' the war, so don't cry when they come for you."

"I found it fascinating that the trooper stated that the pedestrian killed on Tuesday night was holding a beer can. After being thrown 75 feet?? Come on, now."

"By not using your own mind, that is to say, by not thinking for yourself, you have already paid the ultimate price. Use it or lose it."

"Fire must be contained and controlled at all times or it works against you. Contain and control -- from a book of matches to a nuclear reactor."

To hell with Iraq. The United States needs new cranes."


There's also some sort of ongoing fight raging between several callers squabbling over whether or not Fox News should be made available on Comcast. A caller yesterday placed himself firmly in the "No" camp, prompting today's reply:

"To the person who wants Fox news taken off Comcast, I'm calling Comcast to have you taken off your Comcast service, because I don't want to think like you."

Never underestimate the power of the "Oh yeah? So's your face!" retort.


Incidentally, if you were curious about the machete hacking victim, he's alive and talking, although he did lose his nose in the attack. Police have arrested and charged Jimmy "The Kidd" Dumas in the attack and have already dismissed his claim that he macheted the victim in self-defense. The Kidd is also now under suspicion for soliciting money to fund a liver transplant he never actually needed. Though he may have. No one really knows!

The Florida vote

Back in November, a two-week jaunt to Key West gave rise to a very important, very pressing question:

"Of course I like you -- my dick is hard, isn't it?" or "My other ride has tits" -- which is the more offensive T-shirt?

First, some context. Key West is the land of a 1,000 trashy T-shirt stores. Slogans like "It's not the size of the fishing rod, it's how you wiggle the worm" and "I'm not balding -- this is a solar panel for my sex machine" regularly populate local retail display windows and the guts of middle-aged male tourists. In other words, it takes a lot more than a maybe-racist Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt to offend down there.

But I've spent a lot of time in Key West over the last eight years, and there has been an undeniable rise in the offensiveness quotient of T-shirt slogans. "I'm not 50 -- I'm 18 with 32 years of experience" has been supplanted by such lovelies as "I'm a doctor -- lie down with your legs spread and do what I tell you."

I think what really got the hubby and I, though, is that both of the first two aforementioned slogans were spotted on actual men on the streets of Key West, both of whom, unbelievably, had actual, real-life, non-inflatable ladies on their arms. (Granted, one of the ladies was blatantly trashed and staggering about with a margarita mug sporting flashing Christmas lights, but so it goes.)

Once both shirts were spotted, the gauntlet was thrown, and the hubby and I got down to it. I argued that the latter slogan was far more offensive, as it equated a woman with a piece of two-wheel machinery; at least with the hard-dick assurance, the lady in question was maybe being flattered? The hubby, meantime, pushed for the former, pointing out that the man in question could be assuring the woman of her likability right before sex, which would more likely make the statement itself a manipulative lie. (This debate, incidentally, raged on during much of our three-year wedding anniversary dinner. Classy couple, classy dinner conversation.)

Then, the hubby threw in one more wrench by inserting a third contender he'd spotted in a few T-shirt shops: "Hump and Dump," with an image of a man throwing out a woman in the garbage. We both agreed that this one trumped all and then ordered some dessert.

But now we're back in Key West, being regaled with the usual offensive oddities, and coming back fron a yoga class the other day I spotted what I now consider to be the end-all:

"Ass: The New Vagina."

So I throw it to you, dear readers. Which is the most offensive T-shirt slogan?

a) "My other ride has tits."
b) "Of course I like you -- my dick is hard, isn't it?"
c) "Hump and Dump" (with illustration)
d) "Ass: The New Vagina."

Results will be posted later this week. And incidentally, in the interest of complete fairness, I am amenable to the idea of assigning a half-vote to each and calling it a day.

I'm back

Allo.

The last few months have been overscheduled and at times more than a little trying, for reasons I can't divulge. But nothing reinvigorates the soul like a Corona at 5 pm after a day at the beach, the situation I find myself in now. Also, I have a lot more free time over the next month. So yep, I'm back. More postings to come shortly.