I’m writing three entries tonight. For those of you trying to keep up, there’s this one, one I meant to write a couple days ago, and an old entry I wrote at the time and saved locally to my computer but forgot to post online.

Today started auspiciously, with a beautiful sunrise sending me off on my way back to California, as if God were saying, “This is a new beginning, all will be well, just relax.” Scarce moments after taking in this natural beauty and taking a picture, three birds crapped in rapid succession on my windshield, as if God were saying, “Ha ha! I had you going there for a second! You should have seen the look on your face!”

The rest of the day followed suit. I found out that UPS screwed me and JET never got my application, so my Japan plans are fucked once more. Directly after finding this out, I got trapped in a traffic jam for an hour and a half. Next to a flatbed hauling two giant canisters marked “RADIOACTIVE.” And after all of this, I didn’t even get mutant superpowers.

The day was marked also by a fair share of random hilarity:

  • Towns named “Santa Claus”, “Sleeper”, and “Bourbon”
  • Multiple “Amish Buffet” and “Amish furniture” billboards
  • A man using a walkie talkie and strenuously taking a crap at the same time (seriously, every other message by him was “Hold on… unnghhhh”)
  • An RPG-style town, where I first pass a cemetary, then a funeral procession, then a sign on the gas station saying “Jonathan Kyle Price: 1980 – 2006”, then enter a Burger King where everyone in the place is talking about the funeral… I felt like I needed to go fight a demon for a resurrection potion or something
  • Plenty of “Pornography destroys” admonishments next to adult superstores
  • An “11 rats” license plate on some random truck
  • Several Puppy Mill billboards (Sara will be thrilled)
  • “Knife Country” billboard (nuff said)
  • “Shirt and Shoes appreciated” sign at Shoney’s.
  • An old timey bathroom with a single, reused roll of hand towel, as opposed to paper towels or hand dryers
  • A random gambling casino in the middle of nowhere, Missouri
  • The tackiest clocks ever made, including one with a trumpet-playing clown and a monkey plugging its ears
  • An endless parade of “EXTREME DANGER – WILDFIRES” and “DO NOT DRIVE INTO SMOKE” signs across Oklahoma
  • The reigning king of all wacky road signs — “Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates”

    • Even given the bizarre levity of my day, I can’t help but feel like life is actively going out of its way to defeat me at every turn. All of my best laid plans have been brought to the utmost ruin at this point. JET was the one I had left. I got a lot of past issues resolved while back home, but every idea I’ve ever had for the future is quashed as soon as it pops up.

    Sans a future and sans a past, die of fate as yet uncast, back to the fray, and forth to LA.

    (I just made that up. It’s cheesy and the meter sucks, but I also kind of like it)