reflecting on the weekend

My favorite quote from last week came from an article in the Detroit News about a professor at a small college in Texas who publicly commented on the stupidity of not only his students, but the townspeople in general. According to this professor, his fellow residents are, appallingly ignorant, irrational, anti-intellectual, and, well … just plain stupid. That wasnt my favorite quote though. My favorite quote was this one, taken from a townsperson defending the graduates of Sul Ross State University.

Ive got friends who are graduates of this institution and are very successful, said Garcia, a high school teacher. I have a friend who graduated from here and developed the ham they use in the breakfast sandwiches at Burger King.

Unfortunately, not all the news last week was of such a humorous sort. The most upsetting story that I read had to do with the singer Seal. Apparently, his deeply pockmarked head was found in someones luggage at Bostons Logan International Airport. The fellow nabbed with it claims to have found it while vacationing, but theres a rumor that he also had in his possession a map to James Edward Olmoss home.

Its not clear whether or not his research into tasty breakfast meat was a motivation.

Actually, I made all of that up… Im tired Celebrities with bad skin have no cause to worry. They are, as far as I know, safe. The head that was found was that of a seal, and not of Seal. And Im sure that it had nothing to do with Burger Kings quest for the next generation of pork-based breakfast meat.

Now, on to the local news.

Linette and I worked all weekend. We scrubbed toilets, repotted plants (not in the toilets), studied the guidelines of the Ypsilanti Historic District Commission for replacing windows, raked the yard, picked up the 15+ pounds of dog shit that had been hiding under the cover of snow, and paid our bills… It wasnt a restful weekend.

Linette and I also finally gave in this weekend and registered for baby stuff at a few stores. (My relatives in Kentucky were becoming annoyed at us for not having done so.) We also took the very sad and desperate step of buying a book of baby names. As we consider ourselves to be pretty creative, this embarrassed us immensely. We scurried to the counter with it hidden under another book, like it was a special double-issue of Black Inches magazine.

I like the baby name book if only because it legitimized a few of my earlier suggestions. While Columbo wasnt on the list, I did find Ebenezer, Ichabod and Barnaby. That made me happy.

While at the bookstore, I almost stepped right into a squishy newborn infant. I was turning a corner, when, for some reason, I decided to glance down. It was a good thing I did. There, right beneath my enormous steel-toed boot, was a baby that couldnt have been more than three weeks old. It was strapped into a little plastic carrying case.

I looked around quickly, expecting to see an angry mother lunging at me, but there wasnt anyone there. The closest person was about ten feet away and no one seemed to be paying any attention. I was standing there, straddling the thing, looking down into the babys eyes, and no one seemed to care… I went and got Linette.

I guess we didnt need to go to the all the trouble of having one of our own. We could have just taken this one.

I pointed the baby out to her… No one had come forward to claim it yet.

Linette said something to the effect of, I dont know of a woman who would lay her purse down and walk away from it like this.

The only explanation I could come up with was that it must have been a new parent, not used to toting around a little one. He or she probably came in to grab a book, set the kid down, got distracted, and that was that. As we were standing there looking at the baby, the mother was probably pulling into her driveway, slowly realizing what had happened, afraid to look back into the backseat to verify that the baby wasnt there.

So, we stood there for a while, a few feet away from the baby, watching to see what would happen. Finally, after a few minutes, another man noticed it and pointed it out to the woman that he was shopping with. They scanned the room, and, not finding anyone that seemed even remotely concerned, called over an employee. At that point we left. So, we didnt get to see what happened.

It could have been a huge sting operation. They might have just been waiting for someone to try to snatch the cute, little baby Or, maybe someone left it there, hoping that it would find a good home I should read the paper. Maybe theres something about it.

Speaking of local stuff in the news, the other day I was staring out my window at work and I noticed a satellite newsgathering truck parked behind the gas station across the street. The crew was shooting footage of one of the pumps, and I became curious. I waited until the truck had pulled out and I called the gas station. The woman I spoke with told me that one of their attendants had looked into someones backseat as they were pumping gas the day before and saw what appeared to be a teenaged girl, bound and gagged. (The car, a four-door, red Saturn, pulled out before the license number could be jotted down.)

It creeps me out that something terrible might have been happening so close to me. My hope is that the person didnt really see it, or that, if he did, that it was somehow consensual

The worlds a fucking sick place.

If you dont believe me, heres a site where you can read a guys review of his wifes breast milk with chocolate syrup.

I hate to stop there, but I still need to work on my comic for the Ann Arbor Paper. I promise, Ill have something uplifting and intellectually stimulating tomorrow. No more severed heads, abducted teens, abandoned babies or human secretions, chocolaty or otherwise.

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