Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about not decorating, no bugs, & not lookin' out.

"Halloween Traditions - In my area, suburban Rochester, NY, the kids go out Trick Or Treating about 5:30 pm and are in by about 8:30. Kids over thirteen aren't usually out Trick Or Treating; on occasion you might get a group of teenagers but they are few and far between. Some adults have Halloween Parties but not many and not many people dress up in costumes at their jobs. What does Halloween Night look like in your area?"

What's up everyone? Figured I'd stop by and say hi and see how the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  5-Day mini-challenges have been so far...Wordsmitty ✍️ did a great job handling the prompts last week, so thanks for that, and this week we're being led by "Invalid Item" 's famous dancing waitress, PandaPaws Licensed VetTech . Panda and I go way, way back- to, like, the last year or so, and she's driven by the school I went to 5th and 6th grade before (we're both from Western New York, but she's just a little farther east down I-90 than my hometown). So give it up for my quasi-neighbor!

Anyway, I don't get too crazy about Halloween. It's just not a big deal to me (I can already feel that feeling like I've said this a lot recently, and I think I've written like six blog entries in the last two months). I believe this'll be my third Halloween living in Cortland, and I have no idea what they "look like". The building I live in doesn't get Trick-Or-Treaters, no one really decorates (I live in the "downtown" section, which is mostly storefronts and student housing), and I hardly ever leave the house after dark because I like to do all my errands and shit earlier in the day when I still have energy and ambition...if I have to share and navigate the sidewalks here with anyone else besides some of the lumpy, spastic non-children people who live here, I can only imagine what that's like on October 31st when it's also somewhat populated with demonic kids parading around half sugared up and totally drunk on the knowledge that they'll soon have more candy than they've ever seen in their lives.

And even when I didn't live here, back in Buffalo I really didn't want to make a big deal outta it. If I knew I'd be home, I'd buy a bag of candy and leave my outside light on in case anyone came. And I know it sounds so cliche, but I could do that and maybe get one or two kids at the most...but on the years I'd opt out of supporting pre-diabetic brats completely, the whole damn neighborhood would show up looking for a handout. And it ain't like I lived right on the curb; naw man, the entrance to my apartment at 542 was all the way up the driveway, in the back of the house, and my front windows were the bedrooms, which were dark. Like, what were these kids smellin' that made them think I had the goods that year? The only seasonal crap hangin' on my windows was the plastic wrap we'd put up to keep the cold air from seepin' through the cracks in the older houses' frames so the heating bills would be lower. No pumpkins, no decorations, nothin'. I couldn't be bothered, especially if it was just for my benefit.

Besides, most years I was too busy working anyway, and something like four or five outta every seven Halloweens fall on a day not conducive to throwing a good party (and by "good party" what I'm really saying is that I'm an often irresponsible adult when it comes to parties of all kinds). When you work in a retail establishment that sells seasonal shit like decorations and candy, the actual days these products are meant for can get busy...last-minute shoppers willing to settle on maybe getting their house toiled papered because they waited and ended up with the shitty candy no one else wants to give out, or the single mom that went tanning too many times and forgot about her kid's costume and he/she needs to be Spongebob/Elsa/whatever-else-every-kid-is-being, or the crotchety old lady who can't wait for all the holiday everythings to get marked down to 25% off tomorrow and insists on the lame table centerpiece being discounted 90% because "the holiday's over with anyway and what're you gonna do with it?". God I fucking hate retail and the people it attracts.

So nope, I don't have a good idea of what the night looks like, other than it's pretty much like every other night for me. And I'm not even sad about it. I look at it as less work and less cleanup than what everyone else is doing, and that's less hassle and more chillin'. As long as you're not actually killing anyone and calling it a decoration  , then whatever knocks your socks off, I guess. Just don't bother me with any of it.

"What is your favorite insect? Why is it your favorite?"

Nope. None of 'em. No thank you.

I thought about skipping this prompt entirely, because of my preferences and the fact that the entry I'd envisioned this becoming would be long enough as it is, but I just can't seem to let it go and now I'm gonna spew all sortsa misguided rambling that I have no good intention of doing anything useful with. And please, no one get all science-y and practical on me, like "Insects are important to the ecosphere of the world's food chain systemization of the universe" or some other feel-good, smart sounding, lower-your-glasses-at-me bullshit. I don't have time for you know-it-alls to be right; I have an entry to finish at some point this month.

I hate bugs. All of 'em. Go through any kind of infestation, and you'll know what I'm sayin'. Realizing these little damn near microscopic beings are all up in your bizness and something needs to be done swiftly and dramatically is very similar to the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). First you're like "no, that's not a pile of ants walking off with the contents of my canned goods cabinet". Then you're pissed because "those fuckers really are walking off with my canned goods cabinet!" Then you're all like "well, as long as they stay outta my bed and my Triscuits, and they stay in that one spot by the lollipop stick stuck to the back of the garbage can, it's cool"...until you go to brush your teeth after a long, hard day and collapse into a complete crying jag because there's a whole extended family of them marching two by two, hurrah, from your medicine cabinet to your closet all the way on the other side of the house. But then you realize in that closet is the vacuum cleaner, and at least you can put one of those funky attachments that no one knows what they're used for on the end of the hose so you can suck up as many of those bastards as you can before the hardware store opens and you can buy those ant colony trap things. And it's cheaper to just burn down the vacuum cleaner and buy a new one when all is said and done than it is burning down an entire house.

The only thing I find to be nearly as pestering as an infestation are people who actually fear insects. Like, the people who make a god damn big deal about spiders and shit. And you know at least five people who are all in some sorta weird club together where they sit in a circle, rocking back and forth, explaining in sentence fragments how the spiders are trying to kill them. I'm not talkin' about everyone who turns into Bruce Lee when they're walking through a forest and suddenly thinks they've stepped through a cobweb that might've touched their face...I mean full-blown adults who can't fucking function for a full hour once they think they've seen anything with three or more legs that is at least one-one millionth of their own mass. Really?? "Ohhhhh, but they have eight legs!", like they're suddenly afraid they're gonna lose some kind of important gold medal race to an arachnid. If you people wanna bitch and complain about how entitled people are and how kids these days just can't cope with being told no or whatever, I guess you better start lookin' at all the role models around them who lose their minds when they see a spider and resort to being terrified and crippled by it over acting sensibly. Makes me wanna roll up a newspaper and smack them first, before trying to kill any kind of bug.

But infestations man...they're the worst. You can have an exterminator come in and spray every crack and crevasse in your place twice a week for three years, and still six months later anytime you see something you think movin' outta the corner of your eye, you're ready to don a gas mask and double-fist cans of Raid like you're some kinda ant ninja terrorist vigilante. It's like having flashbacks or somethin'...it just stays with you, man. They may be outta your life, but they've moved into your soul. And no one deserves to live life like that.

"Willful Blindness: The concept of 'willful blindness' comes from the legislature passed in the 19th century -that you’re responsible for the damage to you or to someone else, 'if you could have known and should have known, something [that] instead you strove not to see.' What are your thoughts on this or has willful blindness ever taken you under its power?"

So, without looking this up or anything, you mean like negligence? Ok, now I have to look that up, because I've said it over in my head so many times now that I'm second-guessing its meaning.

Google tells me that it means "failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another". Urban Dictionary doesn't have a definition for "negligence", but it has one for "négligent", which is impractical here

1. A type of sexy nightgown made for men to impress a lady.
2. Négligee is for women, Négligent is for men.
3. Lingerie for men.

for our purposes.

So negligence, based on my loose interpretation of things, is the end result of willful blindness? Or is it the other way around? I think I've thought about this too much now at this point, because while it seems like one leads to the other, I can't quite put them in order now. Must be getting close to my bedtime . All I know is that I'm usually on the negligent side of the equation. So, because I know that, does that make me... .

Law's a funny thing, because, for example, you can be given a speeding ticket if you're not speeding but you're close to speeding and the weather's shitty. Like, getting clocked by radar doing 27 MPH in a 30 zone will get you charged with a little something the cops like to call "Negligent Driving" (which is different than driving in sexy underwear). I got me one of them tickets once, but I was doing 37 in a 35 during a heavy snowfall. And I knew I was doing 37, because I looked down at the speedometer as soon as I saw the cherries behind me, and it was solid between the "35" and "40", and the cop even said he got me at 37. Whatever, no big deal, I'll sit through traffic court, pay the fine, it's all good. Until I got home and actually read the ticket...sumbitch typed up "47" instead of "37", and lemme tell ya, 47 MPH on balding tires is not easy to accomplish, especially during a snowstorm. And I'm not stupid enough to call the police department just to be like "Hi, I got pulled over today, but I think your guy made a mistake...".

No, I did the American thing...I forgot all about it. After court they give you a few weeks to pay the fine...a set amount, I guess to discourage arguing nuances like speed and weather. And, well, my money was better utilized in other manners. So the deadline came and went and nothing happened, until the next time I got pulled over (ironically, again, for driving 37 MPH somewhere I shouldn't have been)...because this time, there was no "Here's your ticket, now have a nice day sir". I was arrested on the spot for driving without a license. The car was searched and impounded, I was ticketed for everything they could legally get away with, and I got a ride to the police station with my hands cuffed behind my back (which is one of the most uncomfortable positions in the world). And bosses aren't too pleased when you call them to say you can't come in to work because you're in jail.

There's so many more angles to this story that I'm leaving out, mainly because I've told it a couple times before, but the point is this: my own willful blindness had some consequences, and one of them just happened to be me sitting home and having a few beers at 6:30pm-ish rather than the 10:30pm it would've been had I actually made it to work proper. Also, all charges were dismissed upon payment of the original fine, so yeah, that'll learn me, Depew Police Department.

** Image ID #2010042 Unavailable **

Day # I am so far behind in the "Resurrection Jukebox"  this year...I think I'm submitting this only because I'm in complete denial that I'm not gonna catch up. Oh, foolish boy that I am sometimes...like I'm really gonna rip off a fat chunk of entries between now and the time the plug gets pulled on the Rez Juke. I can't even write when I swear to myself all day I'm gonna feel like it if I can only just start t.y.p..i..n...g.

Anyway, I'm going with this cover of Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" by The Toadies (you remember them...they had that song about vampires in the nineties, "Possum Kingdom"  . And I only thought about it the other day when Charlie ~ had mentioned Blondie in someone else's entry, and I was like "wait, he likes The Toadies", and some site I follow on Facebook had posted this a few weeks before, so I shot him a quick IM and Charlie was like "yay! " and we both ended our nights a few places better than they were before then.

Oh yeah, and the dead people...both bands have gone through a bunch of lineup changes and stops/restarts, but technically only the original drummer for Blondie (Billy O'Connor, stroke complications in 2015) has passed away. However, legendary singer/songwriter Elliott Smith did play piano on the title track of a later Toadies album, and he died in 2003 from a questionable stabbing. One thing that is certain though...Charlie and I both agreed that The Toadies took a very sexy song did their own different thing to it in their style, and it's still crazy sexy. I probably hear this in my head now 2-3 times a week, and it's often the best time of my week (but I live a sad and sometimes lonely life).

"Once I had a love and it was a gas.
Soon turned out...had a heart of glass."
Lyrics.  

Ugh...I know y'all don't need me to tell you this, but social media is outta control. Yesterday was supposed to sorta be a big deal in the National Football League. My Buffalo Bills played a game in London, England against the equally pathetic Jacksonville Jaguars, and Yahoo streamed it for free all over the world...the first time a regular season game has (legally) been shown that way other than through the league's incredibly overpriced Season Pass or whatever they're calling the act of sucking of too many of your dollars outta your wallet. And since neither team is among the game's elite, it was a terrible example of football. For the second week in a row (due to injury), the Bills started their backup QB...once their starter, once their "franchise savior", and now a guy lucky to have a job after his second quarter meltdown yesterday when he had a bunch of turnovers and poor decisions. Bills fans, starved of successful offensive play for so long, ripped his ass on Twitter  . Hatefully, inappropriately, rudely, all of it. And here's what I don't understand...how dumb are people? It's not like he's in the huddle, going "Oh shit, @billsfanyomama6969 just tweeted that he wants to cut my nuts off for throwing that last pick-6!". Naw man, c'mon. You know he ain't readin' that stuff anyway, and it's very likely he's got someone managing his account so that even if he did want to read your nonsense, all the negative haterade would've been deleted by the time he got out of the shower. So why bother? Why prove to the world you're a bigoted bully? It makes you look stupid.

Like, I kinda get it, because I'm a fan and I get excited on gameday just as much as the next person. I'm on Twitter all game long, making dumb ass jokes and complaining and mocking the other team, but I'm not dropping the N-word, or threatening to destroy someone's house or anything like that. There's a line, and this is the one instance where I'm pretty good about not crossing it.

See? The only person I'm really picking on is me. I still remember the Atari football game. It was terrible...it was like 3-on-3, and you could only pass, and sometimes a fourth guy just appeared outta nowhere for your team. I'm also kinda old, and the Madden franchise by EA Sports (the gold standard for all football video games) is far too complex for my liking.

“I own this bed. I pay taxes for this bed.” Except for that time when you don't  . I don't even know what to say about this...I mean, I've said and done some really messed up shit when I probably should've been passed out, and I've passed out in a few strange places, and maybe a few times even beside a strange person or four, but I don't think I've ever stumbled into someone's house thinking I still lived there and then tried to sleep there. Well, except for the crazy ex-girlfriend's apartment, but we might've still been dating and maybe if she wasn't such a batshit crazyperson, it would've been alright, had it also not been our anniversary.

Know what today was? The day the "Invalid Item"  came out, of course! The September winners of the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  are in there, and there are some interesting new bloggers in there (I know this, because I run the enormous fact-checking department machine once in awhile). Check that out, and then go to the "Blogging Bliss Newsletter Forum"  and tell Wordsmitty ✍️ you're there for the free pizza giveaway. He'll know what you mean .

And finally...look, we're all familiar with a phenomenon called "The Christmas Creep". It's that thing where all the Xmas shit starts showing up in stores earlier and earlier each year. Google it and I'm pretty sure that's what comes up (seriously, do it, because I know that's what it's called but I don't feel like providing an example of it). Like, when the fake trees start showing up in the back aisles of Walmart in June. That's just wrong. You know it, I know it, your neighbor who gets pissed because he thinks he's being persecuted when someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" knows it...but Corporate America and Big Christmas seem to still think there's nothing wrong with this. They also think that we still appreciate them glittering the fuck outta everything jolly and bright, which couldn't be further from the truth. Like today, I was in CVS after lunch checking my blood pressure and getting a bottle of strawberry-flavored sparkling water like I usually do, and the manager was setting up some Christmas displays. One of them was a little table decoration of Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Linus and their busted-ass tree, and because I'm a giant child who can't keep his hands to himself in stores, I touched the button on it that was surrounded by the little sticker that read "Try Me!". It was cute; the tree spun and the Charlie Brown theme song played...and then I realized that this thing was coated in a fine dust of glitter. Fucking glitter. Just a little brushing of my index finger for a split second against this venus flytrap toy of deceit and bling. I'll be washing my hands every half hour until Easter, and I will still see it. And I should know better, having spent way too much time setting holiday aisles in drug stores and cleaning up after similar idiots who couldn't keep their hands to themselves for so long.

Alright you guys, I think I've just about had it with you, this, and today. I'm gonna post this in the necessary places, maybe watch the rest of Monday Night Football, wonder why no one has commented on it before I've gone to bed (duh, it's 3.24 miles long), actually go to bed, and then see that I've gotten a comment but will be sedated just enough to not be able to respond to it, and I'll have probably forgotten about it until tomorrow afternoon. That's what typically happens when I wait all day to start writing an entry, in case you were wondering (and don't be shy, it's ok if you were). Better enjoy this now, because who knows when my next entry will appear (start a pool if you have to, but I'm not betting on me). Peace, seemed like the real thing, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!