Johnson Closure

By the time you read this or at the least when this post self publishes thanks to the black magic that makes computers and the Internet work, by that time I will be somewhere between here and there on the superslab, trying to fit in with other southbound buggies as they head for home, the beach, their parents house or in my case some wedding 500 miles from my home.

I managed to not leave New England these last few years. Massachusetts was about about far as I ventured. This trip to Maryland will be my 3rd visit in the last 4 months. Beginning to feel like a recurring nightmare. Like the road will always be part of my life. I just can't escape its clutches.

Spent my first 28 years on this planet on the road. First as a little tacker tagging along behind my military ole man. Because I had been born to it, I knew no better. Hit the road behind the wheel of the big rigs and pounded a million or so miles out before I smartened up, came to Maine, parked my ass in the woods and settled down. The World did fine without me. Well, maybe not fine, but it certainly didn't miss me.

I was hoping to spend my last decades off the road and parked on my bike or comfortably reclined in my local barco-lounger with a cold beverage instead of cussing and fussing while other road warriors did their best to run me into the ditch. Just not in the cards I guess. Huffing exhaust fumes and dodging blown up truck retreads seems to be my destiny.

But what am I doing here? This was supposed to be the upbeat post that countered the previous angry man posts. I was aiming higher than I could punch I guess.......which reminds me of the best toilet graffiti I ever read.

Some years ago I walked into some public toilet in some unremembered truck stop in the outer reaches of America and scratched into the graffiti proof paint at face level:

"Your hose is too short

Your pump, it's too weak

Stand closer to the seat dude

Or you'll piss on your feet."

Unconsciously I edged closer to the ole American Standard urinal and laughed out loud. All the gnarly trucker dudes lined up next to me silently taking care of their own business looked at me at the same time. In my hurry to leave and take my red face out of there, what should have been a routine johnson closure turned into a very painful johnson snagged three or four links into the zipper. 

Well, you just don't follow up a belly laugh with a scream and leave with your dignity intact.

Not my best moment. But most definitely one of my most painful.

Later........................