Of Steven King, Stan Lee, and Johnny Depp

Entry posted by EleCivil September 18, 2006

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Titles don't work when you make as little sense as this.

As an arachnophobic agoraphobe, my two biggest fears in the world are spiders and humans, but not necessarily in that order. If I had to choose between being locked in a room full of spiders or a room full of people, though, I'd probably take the spiders. After all, not only is it more socially acceptable to kill spiders rather than people, but it's also a lot easier. I suppose it would be possible to kill a person with nothing but my shoe or a rolled-up newspaper, but it would take a lot longer, and the other people in the room would probably stop me before I got even halfway there.

Which brings me to my job. My company has people working all kinds of places in all kinds of states, ranging from lumber yards in Virginia to skyscrapers full of lawyers in Michigan. After trying out a few different kinds of sites (a convent, a warehouse, a parking lot, an apartment building, etc.) I finally settled on a small trucking company. No people - completely deserted - but tons of spiders. I could deal with that - I just always brought along a copy of Steven King's book "The Tommyknockers". Whenever a spider came close, I'd introduce them to the mainstream horror genre with a mighty King Swing . Splattering spiders, I might add, it the best possible use for a copy of "The Tommyknockers" - beats the hell out of reading it.

I just found out that my small, independent trucking company is being bought out by FedEx National. This means a lot more money for the owners, more work and less money for the drivers, and an end to my "Tons of spiders, but at least there's no people" compromise. Now, there's going to be spiders AND people. Which is almost as bad as working next to Spiderman. Sure, he's good at stopping runaway trains, but come on - a spider, AND a man? Screw you, Stan Lee. It's like you were specifically trying to get to me.

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The above was just an experiment to see what would happen if I typed for ten minutes without hitting backspace.

Only two more days until TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY. The greatest holiday in the history of holidays. I've got my pirate suit ready to go.

Just the other day, my friend's little sister came over, because she wanted to play with my cat. She asked me "Why do you have so many skulls in your room?", referring to all the Jolly Roger flags that I've got hanging. I replied, "I'm a pirate." She gave me this awestruck look and said "Really? You were born a pirate?" I nodded. "Aye. I was flying the black flag way before Johnny Depp made it cool." Then, I switched to a gravely pirate accent and added "I also download music without the consent of the recording industry and completely disregard end-user license agreements, m'lass." She didn't get that part, so I gave her a stick of gum. Arrrrr.