Wed., June 23, 1999"There's nothing to charge him with. He wasn't being reckless. He was just distracted."
- Sheriff's Deputy Matt Baker with regard to Bryan Smith, the van driver with an unruly dog passenger who hit author/pedestrian Stephen King in Lovell, Maine last Saturday, breaking his hip and collapsing his lung.
Memo to Deputy Baker: Doesn't Maine have a law requiring a driver to maintain control of his or her vehicle at all times? Are people with dogs in their vehicles exempt? What about people with dog-like children? Blabbermouths? Certifiably ugly dates? Are truck drivers who take out passenger trains excused if they had their radio tuned to a station with a real annoying DJ?
Just wondering.Memo to the mainland Chinese: Ok, ok - enough kidding around. Here's what really happened. The pilot of that NATO jet which bombed your embassy in Belgrade last month was actually distracted by his dog. I know, I know - in retrospect, it seems like a pretty dumb idea, having a dog in a warplane, but the pilot was just following regulations. Many studies indicate that dogs reduce tension and blood pressure, and, as you might remember from your own long history of brutal warfare, anything that reduces tension and blood pressure in battle is worth trying, especially when rape and pillaging are logistically impossible. Please remember, too, that thousands of sorties with spaniels, poodles, setters, and retrievers were safely flown with only minor collateral damage prior to the unfortunate incident with your embassy. Indeed, so dedicated were we to avoiding the infliction of unnecessary pain, we barred both dachshunds and German Shepherds from all our planes lest we unintentionally re-awaken nasty memories of Hitler's Luftwaffe and its own unfortunate bombings and, umm, aerial dogfights. Rest assured that we will do even better in the future as more and more of our pilots successfully make the switch from Fido to his Consumer Reports-approved equivalent in hamsters and guinea pigs.
Memo to Bryan Smith: Couldn't you have come up with a better story than that?! Blaming the dog is quite ungallant as well as distastefully reminiscent of that old schoolboy's excuse for not having homework ready to turn in. Next time you hit Stephen King, tell the cops that the guy just wasn't on the map you were following. I'm sure they'll understand.
Memo to Stephen King: Sorry, bud. I myself know how tempting it can be to turn off your mind, get on the well-traveled road, and just go with the flow of the masses instead of taking the road less traveled or at least keeping my eyes open and going against the flow as I know all creative artists owe it to themselves to do. Better luck next time! *HUGS*
Memo to Self: Hey! One down, only 230,786,501 more pedestrians to go before you, too, have a shot at being the best-selling American author of the decade! Woo-whooo!!!
Back To A Simpler Past Home Where Other Entries From Hell Lurk
(All Material ©1999 by a thoroughly cat-distracted Dan Birtcher)
The Answer To Yesterday's Trivia Question
Scientists now say that children who sleep with nightlights triple their risk of growing up near-sighted. In fact, just 10% of tots who sleep without nightlights become myopic versus 34% of those who sleep with them. Know a kid who sleeps with the regular lights on? His or her risk soars to 55%.
Bottom line: We should all thank our parents for having kept us in the dark as much and for as long as possible.
Today's Trivia Question
Did the discovery of fire and the subsequent use of it by early peoples as a night-long protection from wild animal attack lead to an epidemic of near-sightedness in the next generation? Wasn't this near-sightedness a terrible affliction in a primitive hunter/gatherer society in which eyeglasses (and even monocles) were completely unknown? Isn't this just one more case of flashy technology winning folks over at first, only to reveal its terrible downside years later when there's nothing anyone can do about it?
(Answer will appear tomorrow provided Mr. Gates comes up with one)
