Life and Limb vs. Other People's Crap

I already pointed this out to Misty. Every time they talk about McCain choosing Palin as his VP candidate they always phrase it "John McCain tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate." I said it then and I'll say it now: they really could have phrased that better.

I was driving around this morning, mostly killing time until Peanut's naptime (I'm not the only one who does that, am I?) and I saw an ad for a yard sale. Now, I'm all about yard sales, but the street this one was listed on as made me pause for a minute. This is the same street that on the handful of times I've driven down it every single person standing outside glares at me in my little white-bread car and seems to say, "Just what do you think you're doing here, Cracker?!"And those are the white people! It's a scary street. I decided to brave it anyway to see what kind of trash this yard sale had (and what stuff they were selling, too). You know you're in trouble when you drive down a street that has only one yard sale but you can't tell which house is actually hosting the event. The only way I was able to determine which house was the house I was looking for was the group of people crowded around the card table on the front lawn were all looking at me with wistful eyes, hoping I'd buy the various crap scattered about their yard (or just fling money at them and scamper away), as opposed to all the other houses with groups of people crowded around card tables on their front lawns, glowering at me, hoping Ms. White Girl P. Minivan would be on her way and quit looking at their crap scattered across their front yards like she's going to buy it. It should surprise no one that as I drove past the yard sale house with my doors locked and windows rolled up, that I did not see anything for sale that was worth risking my children's lives over.

Throughout these past Olympics the only thing I really concentrated on was the Olympic Rings. You know, the five various colored rings that interlock? Those. At one point in my life I had heard that each ring represented one of the participating continents. As most of my more observant readers will likely point out, even after I've already said it here, there are seven continents on this earth and only five Olympic rings. Assuming penguins are no good at table tennis, we can logically cut out Antarctica. That left one continent that was getting shafted. I asked everyone I could remember to ask who they thought was being left out. No one knew. So I finally went to the Online God of Trivial Knowledge, Wikipedia, and briefly discovered that the rings supposedly represent values, namely "passion, faith, victory, work ethic and sportsmanship." What? Well, whatever. But this leads me to wonder who told me that the rings stood for continents. I have finally concluded that it was my ever-imaginative next-oldest brother, Andrew, who I never hesitate to blame for such errors. This is the same brother who, as a child, retold and beautifully reenacted the increasingly dramatic tale of Lincoln's death, which, according to Andrew, involved a glorious shot to the chest shortly after delivering a moving rallying of the troops at Gettysburg. Imagine my disappointment upon learning the "textbook" version of history in elementary school. By the way, this is the same man (my brother, not Lincoln) who is running for office this year. Oh, did I neglect to tell the story again? Well, no time now. Remind me later.

Post script: upon further review of the Wikipedia article (like, two sentences later), which contradicts itself I should add, the Olympic Charter supposedly claims that the five rings do in fact stand for five continents with Antarctica being intentionally excluded. The continent getting shafted? South America. And don't tell me that whole "one ring stands for both North and South America to create a The Americas continent." What a load of bologna (which is very heavy from what I've heard). We all know North America rocks South America and S.A. is clearly riding our coattails in the Olympic Rings Dispute. Get your own damn ring, South America!!