Scott Cramer wrote this.

A thousand years from now some archaeologist digging through countless layers of what today is one of our landfills is going to wonder what the heck that red, white, and blue layer was all about…

So, the headlights on my car suddenly would not go out. When you’d open the driver’s door the car would start beeping insanely at you - and then the lights would stay on for a good half hour before finally turning themselves off. Weird. “The darn thing is possessed” is what I was thinking. I’m looking all over for a short, a bad fuse, or some high-tech car-computer-brain malfunction as to why the lights weren’t working. Normally, I don’t ever have to think about turning them on or turning them off. These new fangled cars work off a sensor that takes care of all that for you. Night-time. Lights on. Daytime. Lights off. Shut off the car - lights off. Everything gets thrown off when these simple things stop working. Have you ever walked up to an automatic door at a store that’s not working? There’s a good chance you walk right into the door instead of opening it yourself. You just expect it to work like it always has.

So, after reading the car manual, checking the Internet, and fussing with different combinations of how I shut off the car and locked the doors to see if maybe doing it in just the right order would make it work again, I visited the car dealership.

The service manager took a look at the car, reached in to the turn signal post on the steering wheel, and turned a knob. “There, he said.”

What?!

“Somebody turned on your headlights manually.”

What?!

“Dumbass.” This part was implied, but I’m sure he was thinking it. All I needed to do was manually turn the lights off again and they would operate on the sensor - just like always.

Ever notice how “hell” is part of hello and “good” is part of goodbye?

For me personally, unless you just don’t like someone, hello’s are good and saying good-bye, well…

Saying good-bye is hell.

This log entry powered by Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints (3 = the equivalent of one cola)

Driving at night with little sleep, I relied on these babies to get me through. I’m home safe and sound. I’m also actually asleep while I type this and mobile only through the sheer volume of caffeine coursing through my system. I’m thinking this must be very akin to how zombies feel; I mean, they’re dead but still mobile. Thought patterns are a little kludgy but are sufficient to type this entry. The screen is sort of swaying in and out and I believe I can see all the little pixels forming and unforming for each letter as the monitor refreshes every billionth of a second.

And my tounge is numb from all the peppermint.

So, goodnight all. And remember, cars don’t kill people, caffeine overdosed numb-tounged peppermint fiends on an hour’s sleep kill people. But their breath smells good…

Every morning when I take my daughter to her daycare there’s a guy with a leaf-blower working the grounds. He’s never actually picking up any leaves… or even piling them anywhere for that matter. He’s always in the same area, just blowing the leaves away from one spot, over to another spot. At night, I wonder if someone else comes out and blows them back to the first spot again before I show up to see him repeating the same ritual.

He seems happy, though, displacing the leaves every day. The kind of guy who would have starting bailing water on the Titanic. Everything comes pouring back at him, but for the moment, he’s in charge. The leaves are moving because of him. He points the blower and rank and file everything moves aside and there’s a clear cut path in front of him.

Every day he clears out his path, never minding the forest around him with all the next day’s obstacles waiting to descend.

Every day he stays his course there’s one less obstacle to clear.

Every day.

One day at a time.