Sweet Irony

As I was driving home from a friend’s house tonight, I passed an interesting billboard.  I’m having trouble remembering its exact wording, but it went something like this:

•  Inclement weather doesn’t cause accidents; distractions do.

It was illustrated with a picture of an attractive young woman talking on her cell phone.  This billboard strikes me as odd for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it seems rather ironic (and counterintuitive) to put up a billboard advertising the reality that distractions cause accidents.  If this is the case, which it is, then the last thing we need is a billboard that takes a driver’s eyes off the road and affixes them to a billboard.  Second, if you are going to cause a distraction for the sake of warning people and thus preventing further distractions that lead to death, don’t do so with an illustration of an attractive woman that is ultimately going to call for more than a brief second of someone’s attention.

Another home run for the department of public safety.

Milwaukee is Cold!

Upon waking up this morning, I looked over at the window next to my bed.  Normally, I can see my garage and my neighbor’s back yard.  This morning, however, I couldn’t see anything except white.  “It must have snowed,” I thought.  Wrong!  The white that I saw was actually a layer of frost on the INSIDE of my window.  Thats right, it is so cold outside that the condensation from the inside of my windows is freezing.  I’m sure this will get old eventually, but for now it is pretty cool.

Please, Stay Out of My Bed

For the first few months that I had my dog, there was very little she could do that I wouldn’t consider “cute.”  I would come home from a long day at school, only to discover that she had chewed up one of my hats.  “Isn’t that cute,” I would say, “she misses me.”  Or, on other days, I would come home to discover that she had chewed on the corner of my couch.  “Isn’t that cute, she likes to destroy things.”  It wasn’t really cute, but for some reason  convincing myself that it was turned out to be easier than training her not to, if that makes any sense at all.

A few months into our relationship, she decided to start sleeping in my bed.  It started out as something she did when I was actually in the bed, but later progressed into something she did all the time.  This, like all the other things she did, was unbelievably “cute.”  About a year ago, this habit of hers began to frustrate me for several reasons.  First, she is an extremely restless sleeper.  Nightmares generally warrant all sorts of bodily movements and squealing from her, things that make it difficult for me to sleep well.  Second, she is covered in hair, most of which seems to be only slightly attached to her body.  Part of my morning routine for a while involved a trip to the bathroom to remove her hair from my mouth…not a pretty sight.  Third, her shedding requires me to cover my bed with a blanket so that it does not ruin my comforter.  This year, things are different.

For Christmas, my mom purchased a really nice dog bed for Dallas.  When I say “really nice,” what I really mean is that I wouldn’t mind sleeping on it myself.  It is huge and looks like it would be the most comfortable thing in the world to sleep on.  So, the day after Christmas, she made the sudden and unsettling transition from my bed to the dog bed.  This was my idea, not hers.

Things have been going pretty well so far, I think.  Granted, I have to keep the door to my room shut so that she can’t get in, and I also have to remind her that her bed is actually there, but all in all she seems not to mind it.  Of course, if I forget to shut the door to my room, I can expect to find her up on my bed the next time I journey upstairs.  For the first couple of weeks, she would look at me as if to say, “look, I got my bed back, nothing has changed.”  Now, however, when I catch her on the bed, she lowers her ears in shame and slinks down onto the floor.

Last night, for reasons still unknown to me, I caved.  I spread the old blanket back onto the bed and invited her back up.  It did not take two seconds for her to accept this tantalizing offer and, within an hour, we had returned to our old dynamics.  I awoke suddenly to the sounds of a dog who seemed to be in trouble.  She was panting, whining, growling and flailing at the end of the bed.  Then, as I rolled over to go back to sleep, I reached into my mouth to pull out a huge tuft of her nasty hair.  This morning, I sighed as I looked at the blanket, knowing that it would need to be washed soon.

I love my dog dearly, but tonight she is going back to the floor.

Violence in the Burbs

I live in a fairly peaceful suburb of Milwaukee.  This morning, I was driving up to get a few groceries when I had an unexpected run-in with someone who was not so peaceful.

I was obeying the posted speed limit (25) and minding my own business when I came to a crossroads.  I had no stop or yield sign to obey at this crossroads, so I proceeded as I usually do.  As I entered the intersection, I caught sight of a gigantic Buick approaching from the right.  I knew that he had a yield sign, but it became painfully obvious that he was not going to stop.  So, I slammed on my breaks to avoid a collision.  He did the same.

We both screeched to a stop and, as I began to inch forward, something completely unexpected happened.  The 60ish man got out of his car and started hollering.  It was 8 in the morning, and he was standing in the middle of the road, shouting obscenities and demanding that I get out of my car.  Yeah right.

I shifted into reverse, enough to give myself some room, and then I sped off down the road.  I looked in my mirror, only to see him get back in his car and start following me.  I took a couple of turns and, thanks to a well-positioned alley, I was able to lose him without much effort.  I then continued on my way to the grocery store.

This story is for all who claim that nothing exciting happens in the suburbs of Milwaukee.