Having crossed its span over 18 million times in my life and being an amateur paranormal investigator, I can say with virtual certainty that the Julia B. Buxton Bridge is haunted by one or more evil spirits. There is no better explanation for the inordinately high number of breakdowns and accidents that I have witnessed on that bridge over my 30 years of driving. How else can you explain the depressing feeling that grips you as you cross the mighty Connecticut?
I suppose that part of the gloom could be due to the sad prospect of leaving Agawam behind as you travel to your significantly less charming destination. How then do you explain the anger and violence that threatens to explode from your chest as you cross westbound, back to our beloved hometown? For those of you lucky enough to work in Agawam, the daily crawl over the South End Bridge is an expedition fraught with peril. Many is the time that I have had the feeling that someone, or some thing, is pushing me to swerve from the line of cars patiently waiting in the right lane to escape the bridge’s clutches and slam into the car cruising down the left lane. Something wants me to force the car of that VIP (that is bypassing the entire backup in order to dive onto the off-ramp at the last second) into the guard rail and hopefully over it to land upside-down on the other side. I’m able to resist only by realizing that the VIP who deserves to get home before all of the rest of us might be a fellow Agawam citizen. Godspeed, whoever you are. Maybe you should call ahead for a police escort. We could all stop our cars, get out and kneel with our foreheads on the pavement as you pass us if that would help.
I also think we need to get Jennifer Love Hewitt to come to Agawam and speak to whatever entity is responsible for causing cars to run out of gas or break down smack dab in the exact middle of the bridge. Maybe she could convince the spirit or spirits to wait until the rotary to cripple the car. It’s at least a weekly occurrence that some poor soul is stuck waiting for a tow while two lanes of angry motorists alternate glaring angrily at each other and at the victim of some ghost’s cruel joke.
The traffic situation at the evening rush hour is getting worse. Just getting onto the bridge is grueling whatever direction you’re coming from. Even after you successfully escape from the bridge, you are in danger of being struck waiting to enter the rotary. My cars have been hit twice and my wife’s once while waiting for cars to pass. Apparently, the driver (assumedly not an evil spirit) behind us has decided to go ahead and enter the rotary while looking out their right ear. The evil spirits haunt that off-ramp too.
Perhaps it’s time that we move up that timetable for redesigning and reconstruction of the Route 57/Route 5/South End Bridge and South End rotary. Right now it’s on the same schedule as the project to finish the other end of Route 57. If the current letter writing campaign to get these projects in motion isn’t getting any traction, maybe the Governor and the Massachusetts Highway Department would be swayed if they knew about the dangerous poltergeists and other supernatural phenomenon that we are experiencing way out west. Granted, an exorcism may be cheaper, but the projects are already “planned”. Let’s just get going on them. I want to see them completed before I cross that bridge one last time.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Really?
Justin Timberlake has had three number 1 hits in this country. Really. It's true. I looked it up.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Gasoleen
From time to time I have to replenish the tank in my car with gasoline. I like to pump my own gas. I like to scan the newpaper and magazine headlines as I walk into the mart. I always toy with the idea of buying some jerky since I've never experienced the savory goodness of dried "meat". I enjoy chatting with the attending employee standing in front of the wall of cigarettes. We talk about why Nascar and the cigarette manufacturers are in so tight or why people go to a gas station to charge milk on their credit card. It’s usually a pleasant conversation ending with a “Have a good day” or a “Take it easy, man” depending on the apparent sex of the attendant. If the weather is nice, it’s even fun to pump the gas as the aromatic fumes trigger happy memories of cars I used to drive when I was free to roam the highways and by-ways of this great country of ours. Good times.
Then, as the counter spins inexorably closer to my designated dollar limit, I start to feel the tension building. Where will it stop, before it begins its creep to the .00? Keep going, you digital demon. Higher, higher, …
$19.67. Now you’re going to click one god-damned cent at a time to $20. You couldn’t stop a $19.77 or $19.87?!!? What is the god-damned reason for this torture anyway? If you can stop at $19.67 you can stop at fucking $19.97!!!! Thanks for ruining my day, you bastards.
Then, as the counter spins inexorably closer to my designated dollar limit, I start to feel the tension building. Where will it stop, before it begins its creep to the .00? Keep going, you digital demon. Higher, higher, …
$19.67. Now you’re going to click one god-damned cent at a time to $20. You couldn’t stop a $19.77 or $19.87?!!? What is the god-damned reason for this torture anyway? If you can stop at $19.67 you can stop at fucking $19.97!!!! Thanks for ruining my day, you bastards.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Thanks Nomar
I can't deal anymore with all of these players that have to adjust their batting gloves between pitches. The next time I go to a baseball game and see this phenomenom, I'm going to run out and repeatedly staple his glove to both his wrist and the meat of his thumb. Get in the box, you OC freak.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
So, there are these bees
So, there are these bees that live behind a shutter on the front of my house. I've had a couple of run-ins with bees this summer and I'm getting to be an expert in bee control. One of the nests was in a hole in the ground next to my patio. I sprayed it with a can of bee killer and then stuck a hose down the hole and drowned them. The next nest I found was in my basketball hoop/pole/setup. I used the same combination of hose and spray and I added a street hockey stick to my arsenal for the random stupefied bee that I could reach. I don't consider myself a bee hunter, but I got some skills.
After I finished off the bees on the basketball hoop, I noticed that some flew off toward the house and one landed on the shutter so I watched it for awhile. I love nature shit generally and I had some time to kill that afternoon. I always thought that if you didn't bother them, they wouldn't bother you. It’s sort of their live and let live policy. I was counting on that. I assumed that they hadn't heard about me from any surviving hole-dwellers from the drowned nest. That hole was all the way in the backyard, and I highly doubt that bees have a complicated wiggle dance to communicate this message to strange bees from another colony, "Watch out for the human with the long hose!"
So, I moved the ladder from the hoop and put it next to the house so I could get a closer look at the shutter. It's not a functioning shutter, it just looks like one. It's actually screwed to the siding. So, anyway, I can't move the damn thing and look behind it. I climbed the ladder and used the hockey stick to poke around a little behind the shutter facsimile. Naturally, a few bees came out to see who was rocking their world. I took two awkward steps down the ladder and jumped off the rest of the way. I hurt my toe badly, but it didn't stop me from bravely flailing my arms around my head and running around in a circle. I sprinted into the garage so I could rub my toe and plot my next move.
I had assumed that the bees were too stupid to put two and two together thereby allowing me the time to escape without being stung. The reality was that they made a Borg-like decision to not sacrifice any individual units on a boob in flip-flops wielding a hockey stick. I grabbed a tennis ball and ran out of the garage. I figured that I'd bomb from a distance to torture the bees some more. I threw the ball about eight times at the shutter, hitting it once. It didn't have the effect I was looking for.
At this point, I've gone into automatic ludicrous child-man mode. It's like a cruise control. Every action that follows the switch is foolish, futile, and ill-conceived and it won't end until someone gets hurt or something gets broken. The bees were ignoring me. I knew they weren't in there making honey behind the shutter and I was kind of pissed that I couldn't get my peek into the bee society that was taking over my property. So I grabbed the hose. I sprayed the shutter from top to bottom with a concentrated spray that I hoped would maim, drown or otherwise dismember some of the enemy. It was pointed out to me later that the window was open. Some of the bees took flight.
I'm still not sure whether the bees that flew toward me were real or imagined, but I turned the hose on what I thought was an individual bee making a run at me. You know, a stream of water from a hose is not like a light saber, so water can go places that you don't intend if you twist and thrash. It was pointed out to me later that the window of the van was open. Now I'm in a blind rage and it's time to get the can.
The can is actually labeled as being effective against hornets and wasps. It seemed to work fine on the bees in the hole and in the basketball hoop pole so I figured that whatever poison was in the can would work on any insect. It probably would work on birds, small rodents and lagomorphs too. But, at this point, I'm ready to use a surface-to-air missile on the sentient beehive-mind that is directing its campaign against me from behind the shutter shield. I went back into the garage to get the poison and backed out slowly so as not to attract attention. I climbed a couple of steps up the ladder and prepared to direct a lethal stream of toxins into the gap behind the shutter.
Just then one of my kids comes out of the garage and says, "Dad, Mom wants you to lift something for her." I often wonder why she doesn't ask one of my boys to do this kind of simple task. My oldest son is fifteen and he doesn’t have constant lower back pain. He doesn’t work at all. All he does is watch TV, read, and eat. He can lift a damn Kitchen Aid. But, I said nothing because a mighty bee warrior had taken that opportunity to land on my youngest son's shoulder. My wife would have a fit if she lost her baby to an apian assassin.
I backed down the ladder, holding the can at the ready. I told him not to move a muscle. We circled each other in a Beat It kind of way. I stared at the bee and that hell-spawned drone stared right back at me. It was a Mexican stand-off. I think. It could have been a Killer Bee from Mexico. I wasn't going to take chances. I had heard that there were more illegal Killer Bee aliens around lately thanks to our moronic president's lax border security policies. I told my son to stand still and I backed into the garage. I could see the fear in his eyes as he thought I was abandoning him to a gruesome fate.
I rushed around, stripping off my shirt, and grabbed some duct tape. I duct-taped the can to my back and came out again with my hands up. I was in no mood. I was also not in my right mind. I slowly approached my son, tip-toeing and talking in a gentle tone of voice, not wanting to give the bee any reason to plug my son. I might even have tried humming, I'm not sure. I told him to be ready for anything and to close his eyes. I reached back, grabbing for the can and three things happened. First, I intended to say something appropriate like “Yippy-ki-yay, queen bee fucka!” Instead, out came the incoherent scream of a tortured soul in Hell when some of my back skin came off with the duct tape. Second, my son dived for cover. Third, I pressed down on the button and sprayed a stream of industrial strength chemical pesticide directly into my ear canal. All of that took place in a split second.
It should have been filmed in slow motion. I have no idea what happened to the bee. My eyes were still closed and I was still doing my mental internal health check to see if I was still alive when my son shook my shoulder. With my empty ear, I heard him ask me if I was alright. I signaled that we were safe now by whimpering a little and kissing the boo boo on my palm that was skinned when I fell. I decided that it was time to leave the bees alone.
I learned a lot from my adventure. I was pretty sure that I would never have to worry about Kahn putting one of those worms in my ear like he did to Chekov. I also learned a new respect for hunters. Well, hunters of animals that can kill you, that is. I still think that people that shoot birds out of the sky with shotguns or chase foxes with starving, blood-crazed hounds need a new hobby. Finally, I think that bees are vicious, vindictive, vermin and they can go pollinate themselves.
After I finished off the bees on the basketball hoop, I noticed that some flew off toward the house and one landed on the shutter so I watched it for awhile. I love nature shit generally and I had some time to kill that afternoon. I always thought that if you didn't bother them, they wouldn't bother you. It’s sort of their live and let live policy. I was counting on that. I assumed that they hadn't heard about me from any surviving hole-dwellers from the drowned nest. That hole was all the way in the backyard, and I highly doubt that bees have a complicated wiggle dance to communicate this message to strange bees from another colony, "Watch out for the human with the long hose!"
So, I moved the ladder from the hoop and put it next to the house so I could get a closer look at the shutter. It's not a functioning shutter, it just looks like one. It's actually screwed to the siding. So, anyway, I can't move the damn thing and look behind it. I climbed the ladder and used the hockey stick to poke around a little behind the shutter facsimile. Naturally, a few bees came out to see who was rocking their world. I took two awkward steps down the ladder and jumped off the rest of the way. I hurt my toe badly, but it didn't stop me from bravely flailing my arms around my head and running around in a circle. I sprinted into the garage so I could rub my toe and plot my next move.
I had assumed that the bees were too stupid to put two and two together thereby allowing me the time to escape without being stung. The reality was that they made a Borg-like decision to not sacrifice any individual units on a boob in flip-flops wielding a hockey stick. I grabbed a tennis ball and ran out of the garage. I figured that I'd bomb from a distance to torture the bees some more. I threw the ball about eight times at the shutter, hitting it once. It didn't have the effect I was looking for.
At this point, I've gone into automatic ludicrous child-man mode. It's like a cruise control. Every action that follows the switch is foolish, futile, and ill-conceived and it won't end until someone gets hurt or something gets broken. The bees were ignoring me. I knew they weren't in there making honey behind the shutter and I was kind of pissed that I couldn't get my peek into the bee society that was taking over my property. So I grabbed the hose. I sprayed the shutter from top to bottom with a concentrated spray that I hoped would maim, drown or otherwise dismember some of the enemy. It was pointed out to me later that the window was open. Some of the bees took flight.
I'm still not sure whether the bees that flew toward me were real or imagined, but I turned the hose on what I thought was an individual bee making a run at me. You know, a stream of water from a hose is not like a light saber, so water can go places that you don't intend if you twist and thrash. It was pointed out to me later that the window of the van was open. Now I'm in a blind rage and it's time to get the can.
The can is actually labeled as being effective against hornets and wasps. It seemed to work fine on the bees in the hole and in the basketball hoop pole so I figured that whatever poison was in the can would work on any insect. It probably would work on birds, small rodents and lagomorphs too. But, at this point, I'm ready to use a surface-to-air missile on the sentient beehive-mind that is directing its campaign against me from behind the shutter shield. I went back into the garage to get the poison and backed out slowly so as not to attract attention. I climbed a couple of steps up the ladder and prepared to direct a lethal stream of toxins into the gap behind the shutter.
Just then one of my kids comes out of the garage and says, "Dad, Mom wants you to lift something for her." I often wonder why she doesn't ask one of my boys to do this kind of simple task. My oldest son is fifteen and he doesn’t have constant lower back pain. He doesn’t work at all. All he does is watch TV, read, and eat. He can lift a damn Kitchen Aid. But, I said nothing because a mighty bee warrior had taken that opportunity to land on my youngest son's shoulder. My wife would have a fit if she lost her baby to an apian assassin.
I backed down the ladder, holding the can at the ready. I told him not to move a muscle. We circled each other in a Beat It kind of way. I stared at the bee and that hell-spawned drone stared right back at me. It was a Mexican stand-off. I think. It could have been a Killer Bee from Mexico. I wasn't going to take chances. I had heard that there were more illegal Killer Bee aliens around lately thanks to our moronic president's lax border security policies. I told my son to stand still and I backed into the garage. I could see the fear in his eyes as he thought I was abandoning him to a gruesome fate.
I rushed around, stripping off my shirt, and grabbed some duct tape. I duct-taped the can to my back and came out again with my hands up. I was in no mood. I was also not in my right mind. I slowly approached my son, tip-toeing and talking in a gentle tone of voice, not wanting to give the bee any reason to plug my son. I might even have tried humming, I'm not sure. I told him to be ready for anything and to close his eyes. I reached back, grabbing for the can and three things happened. First, I intended to say something appropriate like “Yippy-ki-yay, queen bee fucka!” Instead, out came the incoherent scream of a tortured soul in Hell when some of my back skin came off with the duct tape. Second, my son dived for cover. Third, I pressed down on the button and sprayed a stream of industrial strength chemical pesticide directly into my ear canal. All of that took place in a split second.
It should have been filmed in slow motion. I have no idea what happened to the bee. My eyes were still closed and I was still doing my mental internal health check to see if I was still alive when my son shook my shoulder. With my empty ear, I heard him ask me if I was alright. I signaled that we were safe now by whimpering a little and kissing the boo boo on my palm that was skinned when I fell. I decided that it was time to leave the bees alone.
I learned a lot from my adventure. I was pretty sure that I would never have to worry about Kahn putting one of those worms in my ear like he did to Chekov. I also learned a new respect for hunters. Well, hunters of animals that can kill you, that is. I still think that people that shoot birds out of the sky with shotguns or chase foxes with starving, blood-crazed hounds need a new hobby. Finally, I think that bees are vicious, vindictive, vermin and they can go pollinate themselves.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
