There are apparently days when I am totally unencumbered by normal fears or anxieties and the channels open and the small weirdnesses of the universe are somehow magnetically attracted to my exact location....is there a secret GPS signal encoded with my dna that brings these visitors?
Today, while pumping gas into Vanna White, I had such an encounter. I was fueling up, my mind ticking off all the to-do list items for the remainder of the work day, when a man who had been rooting in the garbage can saw me and approached me with these words: "I'm looking for cans or bottles. They've obamafied the gasoline."
OK, non-sequiturs, made-up word I don't understand. I quickly computed: Was he an admirer of Palin and, by emulation, was now enriching the language not quite on the level of Shakespeare or Palin? Was he a TeaBagger, infected by virulent language and misspelled posters, who was looking for affirmation or an argument? Was this postmodern flirting with a dismally abject attempt at humor? Should I take this five minute gas-em-up interlude to school him on what I thought about current political discourse....no - no need to be holier-than-thou or high and mighty. I lack both qualifications.
On closer inspection, he wore a small chain with a cross dangling about mid-chest. His faded t-shirt advertised perhaps an affiliation with veterans and a local junior college. He may well be one of the many shell-shocked veterans who wander the landscape after multiple tours, seeking any form of light in days filled with specters of dark knights and the realities of memories of darker nights in darker parts of the world I will never see.
