Stupid People Make My Life Longer

OK, in a grim era of war, recession, natural disasters and catfights on Project Runway, complaining about stupid people making life inconvenient seems petty.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

Dumb people are good at wasting everyone's time.

While crawling along at 5 mph in a long line of vehicles on Interstate 89 heading toward St. Albans last night, I started thinking about how stupid people make me waste huge chunks of my life.

I was cooling my heels on the Interstate because some lanes were closed, forcing us all into one lane northbound. If everybody was on the ball, that wouldn't be much of a problem. You'd get into the appropriate lane ahead of time, and everybody would get through at about 45 mph instead of the usual 65 mph. I can deal with that.

About 90 percent of us on the highway did just that. But it takes a few idiots to screw things up. The selfish and stupid among us roared past us in the lane that would be closed just ahead.  I could almost hear their thought process. "Why should I wait in line. Jersey Shore is coming on TV in ten minutes and I HAVE to be there to watch it. If I don't, I'll just DIE!"

I wish they would die.

So these pinheads cut into the open lane at the last minute, forcing everybody to hit the brakes.

That causes a chain reaction of braking cars behind, and pretty soon you have hundreds of cars moving more slowly than an arthritic grandmother carrying a Volkswagon on her back. All because a few morons think they are more entitled to get somewhere than everybody else.

You would NOT believe how much I was hoping that I'd find the drivers of these cars upside down in a ditch, up against the ledges, their cars in flames.

I was pleased as punch to see, behind me, drivers of two tractor trailers and a bus take matters into their own hands. Near the end of the line, they positioned their vehicles so nobody would pass and cause more of a problem. I owe the tractor trailer drivers and the bus driver a nice sixpack of beer. After they stop driving, of course.

The night before last, I made the mistake of stopping at a convenience store to pick up a few things on the way home from work. There was one parking spot left. But just as I was pulling in, the ditzy woman in the car opened her door, so I had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting her.

Then she stood, in the rain, with the car door open, having a giggly conversation with the person in the car. She couldn't get out of the rain, out of my way to do that?

After an eternity, she moved, and I pulled in and parked. I found myself behind Ditz Girl at the cash register. She bought a 25 cent pack of gum, then pulled out her debit card to pay for it.  It didn't dawn on her that she needed the card until the clerk said "25 cents, please." That launched Ditz Woman into a search of her wallet to find the debit card. The search lasted about as long as the Great Depression.  By the time she found the damn thing, I was greatly depressed.

The clerk told her to slide her card. She looked up at him as if the clerk demanded she immediately solve all questions about interplanetary space. Which made sense, since the inside of Ditz Girl's head was obviously interplanetary space.

Finally, with that accomplished, the clerk told her to enter her PIN number. Another hard question! Why is life so full of hard questions! Like how am I going to chew the gum I just bought here and walk to the car at the same time?"

The clerk told her how to enter the PIN number. But she started to, and midway through, forgot how to do the job again. The clerk flashed me a look as if to say, "You are about to witness a murder." I flashed the clerk a look to say, "Not so fast, buddy, I got dibs on murdering Ditz Girl."

After a period that was as long and frustrating as this summer's Congressional debt ceiling debate, Ditz Girl finally figured out the PIN number puzzle and had her gum. It only took about ten minutes for her to figure out how to put the debit card back in her wallet, but I imagine that was a world record for her.

Finally, I bought my milk, soda, bread and the copious amounts of alcohol I suddenly decided I needed and left the store. But Ditz Girl was not done with me, no sir. As I was pulling out of my parking spot, she backed out of hers,  and stopped the car in front of me, boxing me in while she embarked on another giggly conversation with the passenger in her car.

There I sat, thinking, "Do I drink the beer I just bought, or do I smash all six bottles over her head?"  Just as I decided I would drink the beer, then smash the empty bottles over her head (Why be wasteful?) she finally moved.

Thus ended another long chapter of my life wasted by another person who was too dumb to be alive.

I bet you have dumb person stories too. Let's hear 'em. And be smart. Thanks.

Drowning and Burning

The East Coast continues to drown this morning.

 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania had almost four months worth of rain in a day. More than 10,000 people are being kicked out of Binghamton, N.Y. ahead of what is predicted to be the worst flood in the city's history, beating a record set just five years ago.

Some of the worst flooding on record is happening in several other spots.

Luckily for Vermont, the worst of the latest round of rain missed the flood ravaged state. We just had minor flooding last night.

And we've seen Texas burn. Here's a video from the Texas Parks and Wildlife department showing how fast wildfires move. It's a scary video:

Still Loving Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, would have been 65 years old this week, and the tributes are pouring in.

Freddie Mercury

Even today's  Google Doodle had an animated short depicting Mercury.

I'm glad he's getting all this attention. To me, Mercury, who died in 1991,  had one of the best rock and roll voices ever.

He was a showman, maybe a diva, but his strong voice, with its big range, helped rock me through high school and beyond.  He was the bold id I wanted to be.

My favorite Queen song, "Spread Your Wings," wasn't nearly their biggest hit and doesn't perfectly showcase Mercury's voice.

But it came out during low points while I was in high school. It was on Queen's "News of the World" album, which I played over and over again until it wore out from overuse.

I feared my life would dead end right after high school. It didn't, of course, but teenagers tend to be overwrought, and I was the overwrought-est of them all.  Silly me.

So I listened to this lyric, over and over:

"Sammy was low
Just watching the show
Over and over again
Knew it was time
He'd made up his mind
To leave his dead life behind"


Here's the video for that tune:


I always felt like I was Sammy when I heard that song.
And it turned out, I was.

No, I was never as spectacular as Freddie Mercury, but I'm still having a great trip of a life.  I stopped watching the same show, over and over again. I spread my wings and flew away. Mercury helped me leave my so called dead life behind.

So thanks, Freddie

Storms, Rain, Wet Still in Vermont

As I noted yesterday, Vermont continues to be harassed by bad weather.

So far, this latest round hasn't been another uber-disaster, but just annoyingly threatening and slightly damaging.

A nasty looking thunderstorm bears down on
St. Albans, Vermont on Sunday.

Yesterday, here in St. Albans, we weren't due to get any weather until late afternoon, but at 11 a.m. the sky to the west turned as black as can be. The dark clouds swirled and lowered and rolled, and I was sure we would get a lot of damage.

Luckily, the storm had a bigger bark than bite. There was a lot of lightning, a big downpour, a bit of hail and some impressive but not terribly damaging wind gusts, and it was over in 15 minutes.

From there on, thunderstorms seemed to fire up all around me but never hit with full force. Elsewhere in Vermont the storms knocked down trees, cut power (again!) and caused some flash flooding. The flooding wasn't nearly as bad as last week.

Today, there's a drenching rain here in St. Albans, but it's not torrential. My brook is behaving itself so far. Elsewhere in Vermont, there's areas of downpours.  Some of Burlington's streets flooded. So far, no major new flooding though, so we all have to keep watching unfortunately.

A towering thunderstorm cloud erupts southeast
of St. Albans Sunday evening at sunset.
 The moon is still out, though. 

At least forecasters now tell us Hurricane Katia is going to miss. The remnants of Lee, with it's inches and inches and inches of rain, is another question. Maybe it will hit, maybe it won't. Gawd, I'm still so ready for some boring weather.

Too Many Weather Worries

On this strangly tropical, humid September morning, there's more weather worries here in Vermont.

The forecast calls for severe thunderstorms with scary winds and hail late today, followed by another drenching rainstorm that could cause more flooding tonight, tomorrow and Tuesday.

Flooding near Fairfax, Vermont in April.

This comes a week after Tropical Storm Irene flooded Vermont in the worst disaster since 1927. We've been on the national news, and the whole state is mobilized for aid and cleanup.

It's been a weird, scary year of weather in Vermont.  I've been lucky. I have not suffered much at all from this weather,

I wonder when the other shoe will drop on me. Will the roof blow off in a bad storm this evening? Will the brook finally take out my driveway tomorrow?

I don't mean to complain. People in Vermont have been walloped repeatedly all year. So many people have lost homes, businesses, farms and livlihoods in the bad weather that keeps happening over and over again.

It feels like my turn will have to come soon.

Wreckage after flash flooding in Barre,
Vermont in May.

Luckily, until now, I've been a sad bystander to these weather problems. Sometimes the weather has been just very odd but relatively harmless, like the snow thunderstorm in February and the huge, deep blizzards of February and March.  The only pain I got out of that was a sore back from shoveling snow into eight foot deep piles.

Then the snow melted and it rained like hell. In late April, on the day tornadoes were laying waste to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and a bunch of other southern cities, flash floods swept Vermont during the heaviest April rains on record.

My little brook heaved out of its banks, covering my lawn with rocks, branches, mud and gravel. The embankment holding up my driveway collapsed.

Lots of people had it worse, with lots more property damage.

It kept raining through the month of May, making Lake Champlain's water rise to the highest level on record. Thousands of shoreline properties flooded, eroded, were battered by waves and covered in debris.

Storm clouds loom over Addison
County Vermont in July.

In the third week in May, a flash flood covered my lawn with debris again just after I cleaned from the previous storm. Other areas saw worse flooding, which lead to road washouts and damaged houses.

A week later a much bigger flash flood hit, laying waste to Barre, Vermont and surrounding areas. Central and northern Vermont communities were devastated, and they're still trying to fix the roads from that one.

During the summer, while parts of Vermont were repeatedly raked by severe thunderstorms with gale winds and giant hail, other sections of the state withered in dry weather. Farm fields that were swamps on June 1 turned into dusty, brittle messes by mid August.

Then Irene hit with its worse floods since 1927. And now we're under threat from more dangerous weather today and tomorrow.


They say that global warming is increasingly causing more extreme weather. This constant battle with the elements, I'm told, is the new normal.

I shouldn't complain about my worries, since I'm not in the same position as so many thousands of Americans who've had their lives upended this year by tornadoes, floods, wind, fire, drought and hurricanes.

But I'm getting tired of watching the television weather people have to walk us through the latest danger. Here are the roads that are closed. Here's when we think the big hail will come. The strong winds will peak this afternoon. The biggest flood danger is at rush hour tomorrow. Stay off the lake because there will be far too much lightning.

Tropical Store Irene flooding in Waitsfield,
Vermont last Sunday.

Lately, listening to the forecast every morning is getting more and more like receiving bad news from your doctor.

Which is sad. Because I want to go back to the days when the only anxiety stemming from listening to the morning weather forecast was wondering if I need to bring a sweater,

Cuteness Relief After the Flood

It's been a tough week here in Vermont after all that record, disasterous flooding. Having been in the thick of it much of the week, I was given a day off yesterday.

So, it was me and Jackson,  our cocker spaniel puppy, just hanging out at the house in St. Albans, Vermont.

While I tried to take it relatively easy, Jackson had an exhausting day of hunting down and killing the crickets chirping around the house, chasing down five gallon pails rolling down the hill, and digging holes in the hope of finding buried treasure.

I offer you a few pics of Jackson's exploits, below, just because we could all use a cuteness break.

"What was that!?"

"Who, me?"

"Don't worry, Matt, I'm on guard.
I'll keep those crickets away from you!"

Kansas Jerks to Worsen Vermont Disaster

Just when you thought the Vermont flood disaster wrought by Irene couldn't get any worse, we learned the other day that the Westboro Baptist Church plans to pay us a visit next week.

Flooding in Waitsfied, Vermont on Sunday.

The Kansas-based "church," really a bunch of yahoos, are that small group of people, mostly from the same family, who tour the country spreading hate and stupidity wide and far.

Their favorite activity seems to be to go around disrupting military funerals by saying they're happy the soldier died because God hates gay people.

Yeah, it makes no sense, but they are a bunch of weirdos who like to kick people when they're down.

Anyway, most people think the flood in Vermont that killed four people and devastated parts of the state was a tragic natural disaster. The Westboro Yahoos think the flood was God's punishment. You see, Vermont allows gay marriage, so of course God would send a downpour our way. OK. What is God saying when Vermont has nice weather?

These bozos said they'll be in Montpelier Monday. I hope it stays peaceful and everybody pretty much ignores them.

My worry is somebody in Vermont who was pushed over the edge by the flood will come down there. Maybe they lost their home or their job, and just can't take any more. I obviously don't want anybody, including the Westboro Yahoos, to get hurt, but there's a lot of hunting rifles in this state, and I don't want some crazy guy from some small town to bring his weapon to confront the crazies from Kansas.

So Vermonters, we'll let the Westboro Yahoos do their little song and dance and ignore them. They'll go away on their own.  We're too busy helping out our neighbors through a bad patch.