AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > July > 01 > Entry
Buckle up for a wild ride
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What in the heck is going on America?
Gas prices are so bad we’re talking about the good old days when we were paying only three bucks a gallon. Fuel expenses are affecting everything else and now everything is expensive to do or buy or even rent. The mortgage crisis, thanks to the selfish idiots who ALL, in many of our opinions, need to be sitting in a cell, have driven folks out of their homes.
Investments and retirement funds are hurting. You may not be losing money but you’re damn sure not making any. We’ve been through stuff like this before but this time it just seems that this time it’s all hitting us at once. I can’t find my happy place anymore.
I know it’s bad because, and some of you may know this, animals will sometimes sense impeding really bad events. For instance, just before the great Chicago fire, a cow owned by Patrick and Catherine O’Leary kicked over a lantern and said “Oh *@%&^!! I hope the wind doesn’t pick up.”
Well something is going on. My Rottweiler Roxy, born of Satan and who quietly stalks innocent victims for the purposes of our satanic weekend rituals according to idiots who are living close by, has begun acting strangely. I found a crack pipe in the Alpo. The Shih Tsu is using up my co-pays for an analyst and I think the turtles are hitting my Crown Royal after we go to bed.
People are starting to move more towards the edge and yes, crime is reflecting the bad economic times. Shoplifting, normally reserved for teenagers and pill-head housewives, is now seeing Mr. and Mrs. Middle-Class America stuffing pockets and pants with—well not the essentials that you would think a cash-strapped family would go after, like food or baby formula.
No—they’re stealing, instead of buying CD’s, DVD’s, and other small electronic items of entertainment. Not exactly essential of life but due to the hardships, they’re willing to risk jail and a criminal history in the name of entertainment.
Many of these honest-people-doing-dishonest-things do not have the necessary fundamentals of a good shoplifter.
For instance, most new male shoplifters still prefer to stuff any and all items, including chain saws and 19-inch televisions, down their pants like “Hey, it’ll just look like I’m a stud!” No, it looks like you’re fixing to join the Mug-Shot Club. Remember: Stop-Drop-And Take That Stuff Out of Your Pants and Put It Back Where It Belongs. Words of at least semi-wisdom.
We continue to look for alternative fuel sources. It looks like maybe if anything good comes from the bad prices on fuel; it’s the now accelerated efforts to find alternative fuels for our sixty zillion cars, all on the road at the same time on GA 400.
A possible solution to a potential future energy shortage would be to use some of the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves as an investment in renewable energy infrastructure such as wind power, solar power, tidal power, gerbil power, geothermal power, hydropower, thermal depolymerization, methanol, ethanol and biodiesel, or in an oil lamp; try olive oil, WD-40, canola oil, safflower oil, Vinyl Repair, algae oil or sunflower oil which do not suffer from finite energy reserves, but do have a finite energy flow—but heck, you knew that.
Why limit ourselves here? My uncle Alberto from Cuba, Georgia, right next to the Kroger on Highway 20, claims to have developed a usable fuel using old Slim Whitman records. He gets 45 miles to the gallon but the car yodels when he gets to 50 MPH—a small price to pay.
Well, regardless of how bad things get, don’t forget to find you happy place—and I don’t mean in the bottom of a whisky glass—unless you’re with consenting adults at home listening to a Slim Whitman album. Watch the dogs and when they get funky, something’s fixing to happen. Some signs your dog knows something bad is going to happen: • They’re dressing like Leon Redbone • They’re stuck to the ceiling and smoking Marlboros • They’re gone—note said: Gone to Vegas-You’re on your own • They’re voting Marijuana Reform Party in November
Well sooner or later we’ll get past all this madness and again concentrate on the priorities in life like reforming the designated-hitter rule and whether Lindsay Lohan has a girlfriend. Continue to find your happy place and just start going there more often. Keep an eye on the dogs. They’ll let you know when the coast is clear.
Comments
By Saul
July 1, 2008 11:21 AM | Link to this
Animals DO let you know when a catastrophe is about to hit. They find higher ground just before a tsunami. A canary croaks before a mining disaster. Horses neigh before an Indian attack.
Bears get run over by cars trying to steal picnic baskets before relatives ruin outdoor cookouts by finally coming out of the closet and loudly announcing they’re gay, with the children around and everything.
Before bad movies, birds attack children playing on swings and monkey bars, (and the pretty girl, they always attack the pretty girl).
Before stock market crashes, my cat poops in my shoes; my dog chews those same shoes, and I get a call for an job interview where I have to wear those shoes. (I didn’t get the job. the interview lasted 15 seconds. I’m definately going to have to train my pets).
If we had paid attention to the animals, we would have averted many disasters. Before Timmy drowned in the well, Lassie barked and barked until his owner had to return him to the pound. Should have used his collie2english dictionary.
Talk to the animals. Dr. Doolittle would say.
By Cubby
July 1, 2008 4:14 PM | Link to this
Mmmmm, Crown Royal!!!
By Lt. Steve
July 1, 2008 8:58 PM | Link to this
Saul: you are truly wise in that you see how this all comes into play. Until now I refrained from writing about horses because I didn’t know how to spell neigh. What about winny?
By Dixie
July 1, 2008 10:43 PM | Link to this
My household livestock are acting the same as they always have. Either they didn’t get the ” crisis training” or, every aspect of my life is a disaster and that’s why they have the same dispostion day in and day out.
By Cindy
July 2, 2008 11:32 AM | Link to this
Hwy 20 in Cuba, Georgia? Does Early County even have a Kroger???
By Jim
July 2, 2008 12:36 PM | Link to this
Take Hwy 20 west from Cumming, turn right on Friendship Circle (at the Kroger) and look for the Coca-Cola store sign on the left after about a quarter mile. It says, Mrs. Roy Redd, Cuba Georgia.
FYI, it was named Cuba after a card game that locals there played back then.
Even more FYI, as you pass the store, if you stay to the right on Friendship Circle and look to the left as you make the turn, you’ll see an abandoned collapsing building. It used to be a general store, and is the site of one of the area’s earliest unsolved murders. Apparently the store owner was found shot and killed.
By Cindy
July 2, 2008 1:46 PM | Link to this
Ah, I misunderstood…I thought he meant the little community in Early County.
BTW…those were interesting facts you presented. Thank you Jim.
By Stone
July 2, 2008 4:02 PM | Link to this
Cindy, nice to have you back. Where ya’ been? Lt., the O’Leary’s cow was exonerated, I thought, of starting the Chicago fire. Seems the “eyewitness” who really started the fire blamed it on the poor cow, who, when confronted, could only muster a weak moooooo in it’s defense.
By Cindy
July 3, 2008 7:42 AM | Link to this
Hiya Stone! Thanks.
By JoJo
July 3, 2008 4:46 PM | Link to this
I grew up in Cuba, New York. The next town east of Cuba was Friendship. Coincidence?
By Frank
July 3, 2008 8:51 PM | Link to this
Lt. Steve
it is spelled whinny
By Tami
July 5, 2008 10:12 PM | Link to this
Thank you Lt. Steve.
By Poo Byters
July 7, 2008 8:00 AM | Link to this
So what Steve Rose is saying is that male shoplifters should only stuff jockstraps, condoms and penile pierce jewelry down their pants and they’ll never get caught. “Why didn’t you search that guy, Frank?”
Why? He’s just a horndog.
By KJill
July 9, 2008 4:21 PM | Link to this
This article brought me to my happy place today Office Steve! Once again, you’re right on time!! Has your uncle give Slim Whitman his cut for the album fuel, and if all the legalities are settled, where is the nearest Yodel station?
By The Truth about cops
July 10, 2008 2:00 AM | Link to this
That Slim Whitman joke was so bad, so STUPID, I nearly threw up all over your squinty-eyed picture at the top of this blog. Any word on wide-sweeping weight-loss programs for these whopper-slamming traffic pigs?
Maybe blood tests for heavy grease consumption at the start of the “hero” shift?
By Redneck Soup
July 10, 2008 9:39 AM | Link to this
Obama 08: Vision Accomplished.
By Uh Clem
July 10, 2008 12:59 PM | Link to this
Wow, Truth about cops, lots of hostility in your life. Sounds like you had a bad experience with a fat girlfriend in your past, maybe mommy didn’t give you any dessert, maybe you got a ticket for Wrong Way on One Way Street and they didn’t buy your “I Was Only Going ONE WAY!!” defense. Or, maybe, just maybe, you are just another loser. Go back to your Grand Theft Auto game on Xbox in your parent’s basement and tell mom to make you some brownies.
By Gern
July 10, 2008 1:40 PM | Link to this
Hey “Truth” I noticed you 2 a.m. blog entry. Maybe you shouldn’t try writing when you’re coming down off the meth binge. Hey Truth, clean up on table five! Hop to it minimum wage boy.