Enough questions about dinosaurs!

Chixulub is a common screen name to find me under. It's a meteor impact that may have killed off the dinosaurs. My spelling turns out to be unorthodox, I've been carrying it around since before there was an internet, and since it's a translation from a tongue that hand no written language I don't feel like I should follow someone's extraneous 'c.'

The idea was that I wantedto have that sort of impact. In the words of Oyster in the novel 'Lullaby,' I guess Iwanted to be what killed the dinosarus.

Hubris, yes, I know.

The whole blogging thing came up because everyone but me had a blog. I don't know what use it serves except for me to vent whatever's on my mind. To the nobody in their right mind who'd pay attention.

Tonight I had dinner with my family and inlaws at a chain bar & grill. Then I snuck Lobster cards in random books at Foozle's, Spencer's Gifts, and the overpriced photo booth at the Great Mall.

I would have snuck a couple into the gas station I visited after. But the flunkie working the Shell station let me wait a couple of minutes before telling me I'd pulled into a pre-pay-after-dark slot.

To get the full impression of this, understand I drive a metallic mint-green F-150 with a ridiculous custom hood and grill a previous owner shelled out for. Plus, I have vanity plates that have always raised questions. 'What's "Zymurgy?"'

Zymurgy is the last word in most dictionaries. It's the science of fermentation.

Other distinguishing marks on my truck include an array of bumper stickers designed to raise the blood pressure of liberals, Republicans and other people who think government can do anything good.

Oh, and my front bumper could be used as a casting mold for the rear bumper of a Lincoln I rear-ended when it slammed on the brakes at a green light in rush hour traffic.

Like I'd drive off with gas?

When I worked in gas stations/convenience stores no one even prosecuted drive-offs because a false accusation would be worse than the lose of 12 gallons of gas.

The last chain I worked for would have fired me for making a guy prepay. It's a chain that strikes fear into the hearts of people at big companies like Shell and 7-11 because whenever a QuikTrip goes in, two competitors fold in a year. Guaranteed.

What would you do if you went to a bar & grill for dinner and after being seated and handed menus, the waitress explained that on weeknights you had to prepay for your order? How about if Price Chopper asked for proof of means before you could have a cart?

Yeah, yeah, I know all about the price of gas. Adjusted for inflation, it's not much more expensive than it was 15 years ago, but nevermind that. One of my terrible cashier jobs was at a Texaco at the busiest intersection in Kansas City, KS when Saddam Hussein decided to annex Kuwait. Remember that first Gulf War? The one America won?

Gas basically doubled in price while I slept and I went in to work to take the shit of people who thought I was somehow making a profit off the deal. I made, if memory serves, $4.75 an hour whether people bought gas or not. And no matter what they were asked to pay for it.

Oh, and I was expected to keep drive-offs to a minimum without making people prepay.

And to shave my beard because people might not trust a guy with a beard.

I responded with the only weapon I had at the time, cigarettes. My cardiologist probably owes a debt to Big Tobacco there. I quit years before my heart attack, but back when Saddam was the 'fourth largest army on earth' threatening the supply of oil 'at market prices' (what a joke, given OPECs trust-style pricing), I smoked.

I smoked to pass time. To relieve boredom. To quell cravings, and to pass more time, relieve more boredom.

The Texaco was, according to a sticker on the door, a non-smoking establishment. There might even have been a law in force, but I was an addict and you can't legislate sobriety.

So I smoked. A lot. I made damn sure anyone who made the mistake of buying overpriced gasoline from my station got a dose of second hand smoke. The district manager Texaco had out enforcing the will of the empire could spot long hair and unacceptable beards. He could even make me shave most of my facial hair off, but he couldn't stop me smoking in the store without sitting there through my shift with a squirt gun.

And since I pulled double shifts when the even more worthless closer was supposed to show up, my warm body was grudgingly accepted even if I did chain-smoke through my shift, get rude with customers, and read when I should have been watching for drive-off risks and writing down license plate numbers.

Not that the numbers would have done me any good. Texaco had a no-prosecute policy in place. Plus, one shift my own car's plates were boosted and used in eight drive-offs the KCK police new about in the five hours before I reported them stolen. So I doubt the gasoline thieves who escaped on my watch even had their own plates on their cars.

Maybe that's the brilliant master-plan of a criminal. I should just start stealing gas in my minty-green truck with its vanity plates and bumper stickers, with my long hair and beard, and if the cops come knocking explain that only an idiot would do such a thing without covering his tracks. Obviously someone stole my identity to get a few gallons of unleaded...