April 23, 2005

My Life Amongst the Meth Addicts

Today a sixty-something married guy came into the drugstore with a bandaged burn on his hand. So I'm trying to help him find more bandages and tape, and he's being belligerent about the texture and colors of tape and he insists on finding bandages in a non-standard size. And he's being very belittling, as if it's my fault he wants the bandage to be exactly 1/8 inch larger than a standard size. So we finally find something that "will do" and he goes to check out.

Then he starts telling the clerk how he burned his hand. The dumbass poured a barrel full of sawdust onto a trash fire, then was amazed at the fireball that ensued and burned his hand. Oh, sawdust is flammable? Tiny pieces of wood with a massive amount of exposed surface area is a fire hazard? Who knew?

Here's where it gets weird, though. After the clerk was done checking him out and he was supposed to, you know, get the hell out, he stands there for a little bit and starts twitching.

Then he says to me, "Hey, young man, do you do any woodworking?"

"Nope."

"Oh . . . well, you should come to my garage sometime. I've got a blah blah blah" and he goes into a long listing of all the toy cars he has in his garage that are made out of wood. Then he continues, "You should come to my garage sometime and see those. They're really neat." And he's twitching this whole time.

Ack. No, I don't want to come over to the Garage of Death. Apparently, the right way to lure a young man to your garage is to be belligerent and then wile him with promises of toy cars made from real Iowa trees.

Today I also witnessed a meth addict scrounging around in the pockets of one of the jackets hanging up in the entryway of the town cafe. I must have looked angry, because he rushed off empty-handed. Too bad. I was hoping I'd get to tackle a tweaker today. That's how I always celebrate Earth Day.

23/4/5

This definitely requires noding. USAians are missing out on this, but what can you expect from a nation of people who cannot even write down the date!. Today is 2345, an event of cosmic proportions, not to be repeated until June 7, 2005.

Also passover evening.

Pope Benedict XVI neglects to give his greetings in Spanish, among remarks in German, Italian, English, and French.

The majority of the world's Catholics live in Spanish-speaking North, Central, and South America. He speaks the language fluently. That's a rather significant oversight.

The above-linked article's explanations:

"Ratzinger may have been 'shy or insecure' about his Spanish abilities, or Vatican staffers in preparing for the event 'made a grave error' in excluding Spanish"

Quoth the Vatican press office:

"the Spanish-speaking world would understand the Italian"

Right. Of course. And it certainly wouldn't have anything to do with Spain's legalization of marriage between all sexes a few days ago, which he condemned strongly enough to order all Catholic civil servants to quit their jobs rather than even participate in giving official recognition for the equal standing of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals before the law and their rights as human beings.

That didn't come into it at all. Our kind, benevolent, God-graced new pope wouldn't be so petulant as to alienate some of his most devout followers just so he could tweak his nose at a secular government.

That just couldn't be the reason, could it?