Another List March 21, 2010

Five Things You Won't Catch People Other Than Mike Potts Doing

1. Joe Mauer Telling The Truth, "No, of course I'm not worth $23 million a year, just for playing baseball. But the Yankees would have offered me $24 million eventually, and if they had me, face it, they would rule the world forever. The sun would be blacked out of the sky, and baseball fans who don't live in NYC would be crushed by red-eyed automatons wearing pinstripes. It would make 'The Terminator' look like 'Fantasia.'"

2. KU Basketball Fans Gaining Perspective: James Naismith is not going to rise from his grave, just because the Jayhawks were knocked out of the NCAA Men's B-Ball Tournament. It was a shocking defeat in a basketball game, that's all. For heart-rending emotion, it can't even touch the death of Bambi's mother. Next year, if they lose their annual "match-up" with Chanute State, or whatever Kansas Division VI school they have scheduled, then you can give Elizabeth Kubler-Ross a call.

3. Picking Up Their Own Dog's Crap: I thought all civilized people had agreed to do this. Isn't the U.S. a signatory to the Kyoto Pooper Scooper Treaty? Our Scottish Terrier takes three or four dumps a day. The gross (and I do mean gross) weight of said shit is about one one-millionth of a nanogram. I pick it up every time, regardless of rain, wind, mushiness, or dark of night. (I have night-vision, heat-sensitive goggles.) Meanwhile, the guy who owns the boxer leaves about ten pounds of processed Alpo and hog jowls to burn deep holes in the Earth. I don't say anything because I don't have health insurance, and both he and the dog are bigger than I am.

4. Getting Busted For Turning Right on Red, Without Coming to a Full Stop: I'm the only person who has ever gotten a ticket for this. Naturally, I did it right in front of an officer of the North Kansas City Department of Revenue, who told me that he honestly didn't think he'd ever seen that before. I was held for three days in the City Jail, while the City Attorney combed the statute book for the proper fine to be levied. Six thousand, three hundred, twenty-four dollars. Thanks to me, NKC was able to break ground on its new community center. In order to make up for the loss of half my yearly wages, I began a second career giving cautionary speeches to high-school kids, telling them how this archaic transgression had ruined my life, but that there was still time for them to avoid such a financially-strapped fate. Sadly for my credit rating, attendance was not mandatory, and society is more endangered for it.

5. Going To The Counter at Taco Bell, Instead of the Drive-Thru: It does not matter if you are the only one at the counter, and there are twenty cars outside in that long, gray, ozone line, you will wait for your food until every single one of those cars is gone, even if you only ordered one, lettuce-laden, regular taco. They have a time goal of three minutes for every car, and one week for every walk-in customer. Americans love polar bears, but they love tostadas handed to them while they listen to John Mayer on their car stereos even more.

Thanks for humoring me.