Okay, let's say you're stuck in rush hour traffic. Cars are lined up nose to ass as far as the eye can see. Traffic is crawling along, too fast to simply coast, but too slow to actually touch the accelerator.

Let's also say that someone in the next lane over wants to get into your lane. Maybe there's a wreck up ahead, maybe their exit is nearby. Whatever. They pull up alongside you, or maybe a little ahead of you, and they hit their turn signal.

(Turn signals, for those of you that don't know, are those doohickeys that stick out of the side of your steering column. You click the doohickey up to signal your intention and desire to turn right, and you click it down when you want to go left.)

So this person has signaled that they want to merge into your lane, ahead of you. I say let them in.

Stop or slow down, make a gap in front of your car, and let them into your lane.

Now, you may be asking, "Dave, you shithead. Why the fuck would I want to let them get into my lane?"

This is a reasonable question, and I understand why you're asking it. Except for the shithead part. That was really uncalled for.

Everybody wants to be a selfish prick when they're behind the wheel of a car. Shit, that's half the fun of having the damn thing. The other half is that you get to sing along to the radio without anyone hearing how horrible you sound.

But I digress.

The thing about letting that person cut in front of you is this: You get to be nice to them, but you still get to be a selfish prick to everyone behind you!

It's win/win!

Let's say, for argument's sake, that you don't let the poor sap in. What do you suppose he'll do?

Remember, he's a selfish prick, just like you.

He's going to drive even further ahead and he's going to try to cut in front of someone that's already way ahead of you.

Maybe that other person has read this entry, so he knows what to do. He slows down and lets the poor sap in.

What happens next is what I like to call a chain-reaction. I didn't make that term up. It's from a movie or something. I think Ted "Theodore" Logan and some hot girl were in it. That Leaving Las Vegas girl I think.

But I digress.

The guy way ahead of you taps his brakes to let the poor sap in. The guy behind him taps his brakes, and so on. By the time you get more than about four cars back from where the actual merge is taking place, those people don't know what the fuck is going on. All they see is a bunch of brakes lighting up ahead of them.

So they slam on their brakes and come to a complete stop. So does the person behind them, and the person behind them and so on and so on until you are forced to come to a stop and sit for a good thirty seconds until the traffic starts moving again.

And, while you're sitting there stopped, that merger and that mergee way up ahead - they've gone on about their merry way. They're probably already home getting laid, while you're still stuck in traffic.

You could have been that mergee!

But nooooooooooooooooooo! You couldn't take one second out of your precious life to help a fellow human being. So instead, you're getting thirty seconds stolen from you. Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

If you'd just let the poor sap in when you'd had the chance, your inconvenience would have been minimal, but you'd still have had the satisfaction of knowing that everyone behind you would suffer.

Like I said, it's win/win.

I hate Mondays soooooooo much.

But this one just got a little tiny bit better. Maybe even a lot better.

I came in this morning and checked my calendar and saw that the entire afternoon was full of stupid meetings.

Imagine, if you will, my glee when I checked my calendar again just now and saw that all of the stupid useless meetings were last Monday, and that I have this afternoon open.

Yay!

You know what the highlight of my day was?

I went to Target and bought some clothes hangers. Twenty-six regular ones and four of the clippy kind for hanging pants.

I also bought The Fog on DVD, just so it wouldn't look like I'd made a special trip to Target just to buy hangers.

Then to rest up from that adventure, I took a nap and had this dream:

I was in Chicago or New York or some other big city for some boring work thing. I decided to sneak out and do some exploring.

For some reason I didn't have any socks on, and my shoes were hurting my feet, so I figured I'd try to buy myself some socks if I saw any stores.

I got into this elevator and tried to push the top button (floor 101) but it wasn't working. Then some Hispanic guy came in and slid his card into the elevator control panel and the 101 button worked for him. I guess he was special or something.

The elevator, when it got to the top, turned into a sort of slow-motion roller coaster or something. It wound around the top of the city for quite a while. All of the walls were glass and I could see that there was all kinds of touristy shit up at the top of whatever city this was. The Hispanic guy kept pointing out all of the good stores and bars that I should check out. I thought it was nice that he was so down to Earth even though he was special enough to carry the magic elevator card.

Once the elevator/ride stopped, I got off and saw this building that looked like it was from the Flintstones cartoon up the hill. The building and its landscaping was molded out of some yellowish plasticy stuff that felt like it had a five o'clock shadow, plus it was pretty greasy feeling.

I climbed the very steep hill to the Flintstones building, but once I got there they were charging admission to go in and I didn't want to spend my sock money so I just sat with some lady and her kids and we watched the goings-on there at the top of the city.

Stolen from forgottenfriend

How evil are you?

Tonight, I was in a strange mood.

Not good, not particularly bad. I guess nostalgic would be a good description. Makes sense, anyway.

I tried a couple of times to call SpikeBoy to see if he was in the mood to do something besides Rich O's tonight, but I couldn't get in touch with him. Oh well, can't say I didn't try.

So what I ended up doing first, to help make up for not going to the cemetery today, was go to The Hitching Post and have myself a Falls City (24) in Dad's honor. Straight from the can like a real man would drink it.

Disgusting.

I talked to the bartender for a bit, told her what I was doing there, but she'd only been working there for a couple of years so she didn't remember Dad. On the way out some dude initiated the brief conversation depicted two entries ago.

Next, big surprise, I went to Rich O's. There, big surprise, I had a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (95).

I started out sitting at the island, talking with ExBartender and CoffeeDude, but then this old fuckhead sat with us and he pissed me off so I went and stood at the bar and talked with FutureDude for a while.

My next beer was an Avery Old Jubilation Ale (50), which I haven't had in a year and which was quite yummy.

After a while DooRagGirl (FutureDude's girlfriend) came in so I went to White Castle and then came home.

The kitty wasn't at White Castle tonight, for those of you who care about that sort of thing.

Just fucking do it.

It would be okay of you did. Really, it would be good.

It's not like I'm stupid. I can tell you're thinking about it.

Just do it.

Please.

I won't hold my breath though.

I feel like I should write something before I go out tonight, but what I was planning to write about didn't happen.

Maybe I'll write about it not happening.

I didn't go to the cemetery today. I'd been kinda sorta planning to, but I ended up not going.

It's not like it's a big tradition of mine or anything. I haven't been since last October, when I went to a wedding across the street from their graves. I stopped by after the ceremony and sat and told them about all of the bullshit that was going on with me. I told them, even though I don't think I really knew what was going on yet.

I've written here several times, and anyone who knows me at all knows this already, but I'm not comfortable in crowds. Give me one person to talk to and I'm golden. Add a third person and I'll start to let myself fade into the background. Add any more people and I may as well not be there at all.

That cemetery is too crowded.

My parents' graves are, of course, right next to each other. Then, about 20 feet away, lie the graves of my maternal grandparents.

There all right there.

So I can't just go visit Mom, because Dad's there too. I can't talk to just one of them. I have to visit them both. Then, I have to go visit my grandmother. And by the time I'm ready to leave what was supposed to have been a cleansing experience has instead left me emotionally exhausted.

The thing is - there are things that I'd like to discuss privately with each of them, but there's no way. Forget the fact that they're all dead and they can't hear me anyway. I mean if one of them could hear me then they all could. I can't tell my dad about the latest hot sex I had because my mom's right there and I can't talk to Mom about how much I miss LaptopGirl because Dad would call me a pansy, and I certainly can't talk about any of that stuff with my grandmother listening in anyway.

It's all pretty silly, and I know it is. Those bodies in the ground, they stopped being the people I loved the moment they died. Whatever was left of them, if there was anything left at all, it didn't go into the ground. So why does this culture of mine place such significance on rest in peace and why do we visit graves and leave notes and flowers?

I guess it gives us someplace to go, when we miss them and we want to be near them. I guess a gravesite is as good a place as any. Until it gets too crowded.

November 12th. Again. The first, and the worst, of many days on November which suck ass. The Day Dad Died.

It's a pretty strange thing to realize, that I'm catching up with my father. Every November 12th I'm 365 days older, yet he stays the same. Eventually I might catch up with him completely, or maybe even surpass him.

Weird.

My sister always reads this every year on the 12th of November. I think she likes that it makes her cry.