Ancient Chinese Curses
I’m sure you’ve heard of that ancient Chinese (at least I think it is) curse, “may you live in interesting times.” Yesterday, I got IM-ed from my friend, Ken, who must have gotten hexed really bad by some badass tabbed color Kung Fu mojo. At least his times of late are more interesting than interesting should be.
It started when Ken decided to go home for Christmas. He lives in Corpus, a place he shares no fondness for (but the Texas coast, alas, is a blogger topic for another day.) I don’t know why he hates Corpus so much, there are beaches there, but, suffice it to say, he can’t stand the place. So, he traveled down to the beach to visit the kinfolk when the sn*w storm hit. They got like four inches of the white crap.
Now, I know I don’t understand fully his hatred for all things Corpus, but I can certainly understand why he would not want it to sn*w. I mean, beaches are born for half neekid people sunning, surfing, sanding, tanning, otherwise enjoying themselves doing stuff like throwing beach balls around while singing Beach Boy tunes. If we wanted sn*w, we would have headed to the mountains. Even a dumbass goober like myself knows that much about the weather.
But, the sn*w storm wasn’t enough. No, rather, it was just the beginning of the interesting times for Ken. The other day, I was watching the news and they broke into to tell us that the cops had just busted up a meth lab in North Austin. There, on the pretty news monitor, was Ken’s apartment complex in all it’s glory. I even said to my neighbor, who was over at the time, “hey, I think I know somebody who lives over there.” After Ken got back to Austin, as he was driving in, the cops were at his apartment complex busting up the gold tooth stoners who had been hiding out in their glory hole dangerously close to Ken’s crib, mixing their toxic spew to sell to our helpless school children.
But, like the Ginsu knives that just won’t quit, “that’s not all. For only $19.99 you get…” In the very same news broadcast, the same anchor breaks in again to tell us that there’s been a fire in a North Austin apartment complex, off of Metric Blvd. Ken has since told me that Ted’s on again, off again, sometimes maybe kind of girlfriend’s apartment has burned to the ground. So much for true love. Ha, we all knew it was never meant to be stronger than a book of matches.
Cut to the nighttime when Ken decides it’s time to sleep. He was woken up at 2 or 3 am (it’s hard to tell when you’re running for your life) by his neighbors saying things like, “Fire! Fire!” and “Get out, it’s going to blow!” (Well, ok, maybe not “blow” just breath a little heavy.) The outside of Ken’s place had caught fire because somebody threw a cigarette butt and it smoldered. They ended up breaking a hole in the wall, pouring water, dispensing an extinguisher, calling in the firemen, who arrived and did more of the same, and then calling it a night.
Ok, so maybe it was an interesting night, but it was still a night.
Until next time…
