Thursday, August 22, 2013

Friday, August 16, 2013

I Feel Pretty... Good. Pretty Good.

Two nights ago, I played a kickball game in my AAF-KC league. It's a bunch of ad agencies and such who play kickball together in a league. Anyhoo, I've been rather down about my performance this year, but Wednesday night, I made up for it. I kicked a homerun and had 5 RBIs on the night. We won 8-3 and advanced to the semi-finals. I'm still riding my high, and my body is creaking along, reminding me that I'm not 23 anymore. That was 10 years ago. I'm getting old, and it feels great.

Also, I freakin' booted that sucker.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Gettin' His Swerve On.

Today, on the way back from lunch, a guy on a moped pulled a U-turn into oncoming traffic. He was swerving and nearly ran off the road as I approached his slow bike.


The man then swerved into the left lane, and as I passed, I glanced at him to find his face and hands covered in blood. He resembled a scraggly John Oates with some grunge band hair.


We reached a stoplight, and I soon got excited as I felt an opportunity to take pics. For a split-second, the man was standing there on the moped, but quickly leaned over and fell in front of my car. 



I looked over, and his legs and feet were covered in blood too. I yelled to him "Are you okay?" "Nooooooo-ow! Ow!," he replied. "Do you want me to call and ambulance?" "No, don't worry about it. Ow. Oh noooo..." I called 9-1-1. An off-duty police officer pulled up and started assessing the 'sitch. Then another off-duty officer, and an on-duty officer, a fire truck, and an ambulance until my car was completely surrounded by emergency vehicles.



A cop walked over and said "I could probably pull my car back and let you back out... Independence, man..." I looked over, and he was shaking his head, so I shot him a chummy grin as I knew exactly what he meant. "I have to carry around a camera to take photos of this kind of thing, or no one will believe me," I said. "Did you get any good ones?" asked the cop as he was kinda giggling at the mess in front of us. 
Thanks Independence.




Tuesday, August 13, 2013

These Boots are Made for Jogging.

What are some of the things needed for a good jog? 
Short shorts, a thin shirt with ventilation holes, a hat with vents cut into the top and logging boots? Perhaps Nike needs to take notes because this guy wearing this exact outfit every morning. 


Friday, August 9, 2013

Taking the American Dream Off Some Sweet Jumps.

Who saw a grown man with shoulder-length hair wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, American flag shirt and riding a child's bike down the highway? Me. Jealous? Thanks, Independence.



Thursday, August 8, 2013

On the Brinks of Insanity

I just saw an armored car driver pulling some bags of cash out of his truck. As this was happening, a guy walked by and said "Can I have some money?" with his hands making a bowl like an Oliver Twist character. The driver looked him up and down and hesitantly said "Um, not today..." Just then, Oliver's pose morphed into an overhand air swat to prove that he was only joking.

I immediately mind-punched the guy.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Beautiful Hair Guy and the Child Crash

Every day I drive to work, then drive home for lunch, back to work and then home at the end of the day. That's four passes down a fairly straight stretch of road per day, every day of my life. I know all of the details of this trip; when people get new cars, mow their lawns or even paint their houses.

There is sometimes a lot of foot traffic down this stretch, including a middle-eastern man who I started waving at 3 years ago, and ever since then, we've been "waving pals." It always brings a mutual smile to our faces to see each other and wave. I don't know the guy, but this story is not about that man. It's about a new walker, with a new made-up true story. He wears fairly beat-up clothes: slip-on shoes, a tie dye shirt and some cargo pants. He always carries a grocery bag over his shoulder and walks with a palsy-beat. One of his arms is tucked and looks as if he's carrying an imaginary football. However, none of these things measure up to the amount of what caught my eye the first time I saw him lugging groceries down the sidewalk. This man has the most beautiful hair I've ever seen on anyone in my life. 

As I drove up on this man the first time, I thought he was a woman. The flaxen ripply flow went down to the middle of his back, believe it or not. It was like Kenny G or Weird Al's hair, if they would've grown theirs out for another year. It was like vintage Michael Bolton's hair, but way more majestic.


Nearly every day, I saw "Beautiful Hair Guy," and every time, I'd stare in awe. The questions rushed to my brain: How far does he walk every day? Why doesn't he stock-up on groceries? What shampoo does he use? His clothes were fairly bland, but his hair shone like God's horse's mane. A true gift. I went to work and asked co-workers if they'd taken notice of this man and his beautiful hair, but they just laughed as I drew a quick sketch.



One day, as I was driving home from work, I was approaching an intersection, and a man turned in front of me - we collided. Quietly freaking out, I wrestled out of my airbag to see that my car was smoking. I threw open my door, jumped out, and immediately ran away from my hissing, totaled car. I had my hands on my knees bent over trying to stop my panic attack, when I looked up and saw the BHG hobbling over to me as fast as he could. He said "Are you okay?" I paused, gave a quick giggle and said "I am now." Seeing that everyone was fine, he carried on out of the road and down the sidewalk. I couldn't believe it. Was this man my guardian angel in Birkenstocks? Perhaps.

Several days after the incident, I went to the police station to get a copy of my police report. As I read the accounts, I stopped, re-read, opened my mouth and with a fixed gaze, started laughing hysterically. The other driver told the police that he was distracted by a child on the median. 



A child?! He obviously wasn't looking at the person's face! He was looking at the BHG's hair! He turned in front of me because he was in awe of the man's beautiful hair!


Do other people see my guardian angel as a child? I'm not sure. I snapped a picture of him once and this is all I got. A blurry vision of the BHG, but I'm okay with that.