Goggle

I heard that Goggle died. Goggle, that regular from that bar we went to that Summer. That Summer, yeah. I know it sucks. But I always got a weird vibe from him, didn't you? Like he was ready to yell, all the time. I wonder where that comes from.

Remember when we were there and he came in, "Get out here, it's snowing, it's snowing!" and I remember we followed him out, and it wasn't snowing. And he took off running into the bar, slammed the door shut, and locked it. It was weird that he had a key. And then he stole $20 out of my wallet, bought two beers, and drank them before he let us back in. Did he like, have a crush on me? Do you think? I remember a different time he just kept trying to push me off my stool all night. It felt very like little kid playground crush. Like he would grab my leg and push from the inside of my thigh to try get me off the stool. I actually liked it, it was cute. But then why would he get so angry other times?

Yes you do. He was the one who ordered Rum and Diet Coke.

He could never play pool. He like, would watch the game, and analyze it, and talk about it, but he would never play it. We would play it with somebody else and he would watch, and try and tell us what to do. And they would always be really good tips and stuff, like he was really helpful, but then it's like okay you just play it yourself. Like, he clearly wanted to play it but he wouldn't let himself. Which is like, kinda sad. It always felt like he had a weird past with it, like I remember one time he told a story about his family, and I don't remember what happened, but he had sorta the same look in his eyes that when we played he watched us do pool. I feel like he got in a lot of trouble when he was a kid.

He was really good at math. 

Oh? Oh. He was murdered. Struck down with a car, and they said there's no way it was not on purpose by the way they found him. Like. Ugly. 

Poor Goggle.

He feels like he's gonna be struck by lightning, he tells me.

He just knows it's gonna happen. It's raining out and he went walking and he swears he saw seven bolts of the stuff hit the ground. I don't know if he's telling the truth but I'm inclined to believe him. We're sitting in my office - he's only truly safe when he's inside, and where better than his lawyer's house. Am I his lawyer yet? He swears it's like he's being followed, though he knows that's absurd to say out loud. His eyes don't stay locked to mine long enough to realize the color in this lighting. I can't believe the lightbulbs in this room have lasted so long. I don't remember the last time I changed them but probably at least five months.

It's hard to be the lawyer to somebody so paranoid. It's contagious. I think, could he be lying to me?, but I guess that's not for me to figure out. And besides, he's right that it's been raining an awful lot. His hair is wet, not a bad touch.

But he wants to sue the sky. I admit to him, I've never taken on a case like this before. I'm not even sure where to begin. What exactly are the damages he's looking to get? He makes it clear, two million dollars in damages and a restraining order. I realize I should have preferred to ask for the other specifics of his case before pay, my mother would think it very garish of me to jump straight into pay, if I'm using that word correctly I'm not sure. Bawdy, maybe? My grandmother would know were she with us, she knew a lot of words. Would this case even be worth a trip to the law library? There's no precedent for this. I guess that woman who tried to marry Mt. Etna back in the nineties, she would be closest, but they put her in jail.

I tell him I'm not sure of a judge that would even deem the case worthy of taking it on, and the thing about precedent. We'd have to create a big media frenzy first to gain public support, he seems excited at this notion. I ask if he's ever been struck by lightning, or if he has any proof that the sky would intentionally want him struck. I tell him my rate is sixty percent of any prize money awarded. My mother would shoot me dead if she heard I called it prize money. I honestly don't think I'm worth anything above forty-five percent, but I thought maybe I would scare him off with a highball offer. Unfortunately, he accepted my terms.

Driver's Ed

Okay, which one is the gas? 

Thank you. You never know, if it changes between car and car. Okay, so I just go through the cones but will anything jump out at me? Like a cardboard cutout of an old person? Okay. Thank you. What happens if I hit a cone? Do I get points off? I'm sorry, my parents haven't taken me really that much driving yet, they said they're too busy but I think they're scared of me. Me behind the wheel. They help me with my English homework though, but they're both mathematicians. Pretty funny. I don't need help with my math homework. Because, my parents are both mathematicians, so like, I'm obviously good at math.

How many coins do I get to hit? Cones, sorry. Okay, and how many of the 15 have I hit so far? Okay, and so is there a way to pull over and put some cones back up? Okay, well can I pull over and just do that?

Okay.

What is a K-turn? Does that just mean keep going straight? Because K is in the middle of L and R. Well not the middle, but between. Okay so maybe a K-turn is just a left turn but not all the way?

This would be a good game show. Do you know Game Show Network? I watch a lot of GSN when I have nothing better to do. This feels like, "bigmoneybigmoneybigmoneynowhammies". Well not the same but like the same feeling. Terrible. It's like I'm taking a test but if I fail you'll kill me and my parents will be annoyed. They really want me to be able to drive myself home from drama club. Me too, because they're always late to get me, like, it ends at 6 every time except tech week, winter break, thanksgiving, parent-teacher conference night, football nights, and board of ed nights, why is that hard to pencil in?

Okay so we just do this 10 more times and I get my license right? Okay cool.

Zooooooooom

I read on Twitter that Niagra Falls will have completely eroded into Lake Erie in 50,000 years. It showed a chart of how the shape of the falls has changed over the last 200-or-so years. Everything will erode, or fossilize, the surface of the Earth will be hot enough to melt certain rocks, and everything will die. Is dying. It made me feel so small.

Today at work we got talked to for talking too much. Sometimes it feels like they only let us talk for so long so they had something to yell at us about later. They said if we didn't keep our numbers up they wouldn't buy us donuts anymore, and threatened to call our parents. I came home and one of my bed springs is broken. It made me feel so small.

Eventually, there will be another big bang, or at least there might be. A new planet will form somewhere, sometime, somehow, and we will never know what happens there, or if it will look like ours, or how life works and evolves there, or if they have network dramas as good as "This Is Us" or "Yellowstone" there. My wife will be home in an hour and I would love to surprise her by fixing it. Or I guess hide it from her since she doesn't know it's broken yet.

I called my mattress guy (my father-in-law owns a Slumberland), and he told me to Google it.

Eventually the Earth will collapse into the Sun. Are you supposed to call somebody or can you fix a bed spring yourself? How do you fix a spring? How many worlds carrying how many living things have died to bring us to this point? My wife will be home in 20 minutes. Google says to just duct tape it, but how do I get it back into the mattress? My father-in-law told me to text him a photo but isn't responding. 

I also saw on a trivia question that I answered once that there are more trees on our planet than stars in the galaxy. No thank you.