This past Saturday, I decided to head down to the park in order to soak up some of this much-touted Southern California sunshine. I don�t know much about the scientific principles involved in weather patterns, but I do happen to know that Los Angeles enjoys a rather unwieldy amount of sunny days, even in autumn, and I decided I might as well take advantage of this meteorological alchemy. Of course, I managed to thwart my own plans with stunning alacrity when I set my towel down right on top of a huge pile of dogshit.
I never do anything half-assed, either, people. Not only did I drape the towel over a massive pyramid of canine fecal matter so enormous it could probably be seen from space, but I also stepped squarely into an adjunct (albeit smaller) pile of the same stuff simultaneously. Being myself, I also managed to completely not notice either gaffe, and promptly lay right down, neatly squashing the mound of doody beneath me. Immediately noticing the rather foul smell, I looked around and wondered wherever it could be coming from. I was also mystified by the presence and persistent attention of a swarm of flies that wouldn�t leave me alone. Finally, after ten minutes of this, deductive reasoning finally pounced upon me, and I stood up, removed my towel, and revealed manhole cover-sized pancake of fertilizer that had once been the dog crap equivalent of Mount Ziggurat.
I also discovered I�d gotten a dime-sized smudge of it on my left leg, which therefore obviously needed to be amputated. After a blood-curdling scream, I gingerly picked my way home, where I burned my towel (well, threw it out, but you get the gist), and spent twenty minutes in the shower with a bar of antibacterial soap, trying to make myself feel clean again. I have not returned to the park since.
I�m seriously hoping that this is not a portent, or an omen of things yet to come in this new chapter of my life. However, I�ve since started to notice a significant number of things not going quite as originally planned, and it�s given me pause. For example, there�s something wrong with my computer (and has been for some time) and despite numerous attempts to fix it on my own, I seem to have only found a series of shortcuts from one dead-end to another.
I�m fairly sure my PC got a virus at some point in recent history, which has subsequently eroded a number of rather important files, thereby crippling its various functions. I bought an antivirus, but as it turns out, the removal and installation programs seem to be among those chiefly afflicted, and now I have a very expensive and useless box of software taking up space next to my laptop. Since I haven�t been saving any of my work to the hard drive, I�m not worried about losing anything important (save for a lot of hard-earned cash), and my sister suggested that I just wipe out the hard drive, reboot, and start all over.
I would love to do this, but of course I keep getting hold of all the tech support people who are apparently still tromping around the customer service center in their paper trainee hats. Like the guy I spoke to for nearly forty-five minutes this afternoon who kept insisting that I set the computer to boot from the CD-drive and then restart it before inserting the necessary disc. He told me to do this twice, and of course it completely didn�t work. When I finally managed to convince him I was right, and got it going properly, he then guided me into a diagnostics test, which I began, only then to be told it would take �around four hours� and that he would �call me back tomorrow� at about the same time. But I should be available for a two-hour window �or so�, just in case.
Great. Fortunately, it�s not like I have a whole lot going on, but I have chores! And errands! And a lot of stuff that needs to be done on the computer! I don�t have time for four-hour diagnostics and pointless tail chasing! Let me just brainwash the machine, load up my new antivirus, and get going, rather than leaving me here to wallow in a metaphorical pile of dogshit.
Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is to keep your antivirus current, or you�ll end up with a crippled hunk of machinery, and dog hepatitis all over your leg. Don�t let it happen to you!
Someone Got Here By Searching For: I kissed another man I�m Watching: Last night I watched Gilmore Girls for the first time and found that it really wasn�t bad. With My Free Time, I�m: Buying a �thank you� gift for my parents, because those two old fogies really deserve it.