August 02, 2002 - 10:28 am

"Love, n - A temporary insanity curable by marriage."
Ambrose Bierce.

Apparently, yesterday morning a truck driver was heading south on the I-5 from Orange County to San Diego. Although he vehemently denies it, he fell asleep and smacked another truck. One of the trucks was hauling a tanker full of tar, which spilled out and caught on fire.

I with refrain from making comments about truck drivers because the last time I did, I was accused of snobbery. Fie!

Anyway, the result of this was the closure of southbound I-5 for several hours. Normally, this wouldn't have anything to do with me, but, obviously, since I'm spending precious time writing about it, this time it did.

See, Heather, Ted, Morgan, Melanie, and my mom were all supposed to come down last night and go to the zoo with Amanda and me. Due to this mess, they decided to just stay up in Orange County. This worked out well for my mom because she confessed to me yesterday afternoon that she didn't want to come.

It wasn't because she didn't want to see me or Amanda. On the contrary. She has completely had it with my brother-in-law right now and can't even stand to look at him, much less pretend to be happy walking around the zoo with him. Instead, she shuts herself in her room to get away from him and my sister.

This stems from the constant arguments Heather and Ted have been having because Melanie hasn't been vaccinated for Hepatitis yet, and Ted, for the life of him, can't fathom why Heather is adamant about not bringing her baby around Ted's brother's wife and daughter, both of whom have Hepatitis. Why is it such a complete no-brainer to the rest of the world, but his family has no problem with it. I don't understand, and I never will.

The real problem, though, is Ted's utter lack of acknowledgement, much less respect, of Heather's feelings on this, or any for that matter, subject. And yet, he started Wednesday night's argument with "I don't even want to talk about this any more. You win, like you always do."

They blew up at each other. The high point was Ted saying "When we got married, you were submissive. YOU'RE the one who's changed!"

Right. That's a GREAT thing to say in front of my mom. *Sigh*

At any rate, the only good thing that came out of it is that Ted FINALLY agreed to go to marriage counseling. Heather begged him a damn YEAR ago, but he refused, saying that he was "perfectly happy." Here's a hint to all of you other morons out there: if ONE of you has a problem in a marriage, you BOTH have a problem.

Common sense.

Anyway, Amanda and I decided to go to the zoo ourselves. We met at In-N-Out, a mighty fine fast food joint here in the southwest. Sadly, though, I've never been to an In-N-Out that is anything but painfully slow. But their burgers and fries are worth it, and their milkshakes are second to none.

As I pulled into the parking lot to meet Amanda, I discovered that the lot was pretty much full. I went around a corner and halfway down the stretch, a huge truck was trying to turn around. I pulled into a handicapped spot to turn around myself. As I back a few feet out, I saw that a car behind and to my right was backing out, so I pulled back in a little ways so he would have more room.

After he passed, I again backed a little ways out, but had to stop because a car with a young [as many synonyms for arrogant and rude as you can think of] [crude word for female dog] [whom I could derive countless hours of pleasure from while watching her being beaten with sticks] pulled up behind me and stopped, waiting for the huge truck over a hundred feet away to turn around.

I snarled. I do that a lot when I'm driving because people here in Southern California become arrogant rude bastards as soon as they get behind the steering wheel. I could go on for HOURS (and have, much to Amanda's misery) about people passing each other on the shoulder, whipping in and out of traffic without using the turn signal, cutting in at the last minute, deserving a sledge hammer to the forehead or, at the very least, mandatory sterilization so they won't pass on their Asshole genes.

I backed up, getting about a foot from said evil canine girl, casually drumming my fingers on my seat and staring at her, wondering how long it would take for her to get something resembling a clue.

I'm still waiting to this day.

Instead, she finally turned to look over at me while gabbing with her friend, most likely about the fact that I'm the only guy in the county who hasn't slept with her. She gave me a dirty look, and didn't budge. She ONLY had a hundred feet to scoot up, Jesus!

I snarled again.

Finally, after a few minutes, the truck got itself turned around and Ms. I'm Better Than You finally moved up and parked in the spot that the car had backed out of right at the beginning! A spot that was a good SIXTY FEET away from the turning truck.

I'm beginning to think that James Bond-style car-mounted weapons are a good idea, believe you me.

So anyway, we ate dinner, then headed down to the zoo. We had a good time watching a juvenile hippo play with his mom, swimming and splashing around in the water. We ooohed and aaahed over the enclosure with river otters and monkeys. We listened to the soothing South American panflute music of Sariri (they rock, by the way-not that you've probably ever even heard of them).

Finally, we watched a big acrobatics production the zoo puts on as a part of the Wild Summer Nights nighttime zoo thingy. It was pretty cool, and featured limber young women in Spandex twisting themselves up in ways Hugh Hefner can only imagine.

All in all, a Good Time.

Although I hope that a pack of wild dingos hunts down and gnaws the legs off of that girl from In-N-Out...

On an unrelated note--sorry it's such a pain in the butt to check out the pictures I linked to in my last entry. I didn't realize the bastardkin who run Ofoto require you to sign up just to look at someone's shared albums. My bad. I'll move them over to Shutterfly or something sometime when I get some time. In the meantime, feel free to sign up to Ofoto if you want...it's free and I haven't noticed any spam from them.

Sorry.

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