Yes, I'm still alive
(...everybody else seems to be dying, though)
So anyway...
I just got back from Northern California, where I was taking
care of my sickly parents. The step-dad suffered a stroke and the mom
has osteoporosis and Alzheimer's. (That last part's a secret, since mom
doesn't know she has Alzheimer's. Please don't tell her. It'll only
make her upset. For about 24 hours. Then she'll forget.)
But that's not what I want to talk about this week. What I
want to talk about is this news story that was bursting from page one
in the San Francisco Bay Area. It seems a woman -- a lacrosse coach at
St. Mary's College -- moved to a nice apartment complex in the Pacific
Heights district of San Francisco. God knows where she lived before.
The tough Tenderloin area, perhaps, or maybe Candlestick Point. Either
way, she survived those neighborhoods. But things weren't going to work
out so well for her in Pacific Heights. (This is called foreshadowing,
you know).
According to news reports, a male and female couple, both
attorneys, were housing two beasts known as Canary Mastiffs -- fighting
dogs usually trained for violent competition or crack house duty,
depending on where you live. It seems these dogs got loose from their
owners (or were unleashed by their owners, that remains unclear)
whereupon they attacked the sadly distracted lacrosse coach and ripped
her to shreds.
She dead.
She was only 33, just got a promotion at work, had a
cholesterol level of 90 (for all I know), recently moved to the posh
Pacific Heights area of one of the more rarified, high-priced,
yuppie-safe cities in the world, jogged at least 10 miles a day (for
all I know) and was healthy beyond belief.
She dead.
Me? My cholesterol level doubles my weight, I smoke two packs
of cigarettes a day, I drink to the annoyance of anyone around me, I
sit on my ass in front of a computer or guitar, I've had sex without
condoms all my life and...
... yes, I'm still alive. (See how I worked the title in?)
"You better not say that," some airy-fairy Sonoma Countyite
warned me. "You could be next."
Yeah, that's true. No doubt my time's coming. But I still
outlived that lacrosse chick by 14 years and no one can ever take that
away from me.
'Cause she dead. But I'm alive.
Can you believe it? I can't. One more year, and I outlive Dale
Earnhardt. Okay, maybe that was always going to happen, but how the
hell can I outlive a 33-year-old, health-freak lacrosse coach?
I'll tell you how. When I see a Canary Mastiff coming for me,
I get the fuck out of the way.
What was she thinking? "Oh, look, it's a friendly vicious dog
that outweighs me by five pounds. Nice puppy." I doubt it. You know why
I think she died? I bet you anything that as she was entering her nice
apartment, she was talking on a cell phone. I bet she never saw the
dogs coming.
"Yes, mom, it's a wonderful apartment. And the best part? They
allow pets!"
"GRRRRAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPHHHH...CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP."
She dead.
The story gets weirder. First, the two attorneys who owned the
canine adopted a 38-year-old guy in prison, a fellow Canary Mastiff
lover (more foreshadowing) to be their son. Then they found pictures of
the jailbird and the newly-minted mama having sex. Later, they found
pictures of all three of them having sex with the Canary Mastiffs,
including the males.
Guess that's where the Canary part comes in.
This couple has balls of steel, but then they are attorneys.
The male shyster had the temerity to say before Bay Area news cameras,
"She must have been wearing some kind of cologne or used steroids. She
must have done something to provoke the dog."
Nawwwww. It wasn't the cologne. It wasn't the steroids,
either. It was the low-cut top and those short skirts she was wearing.
That's what attracted the dog. She was asking for it.
And now... she dead.
Look. I'm not saying don't eat healthy. I'm not saying don't
see your doctor regularly. God knows, I'm not trying to get everyone to
live like me. I'm just saying that, ultimately, it isn't going to
matter. We're all going to die, eventually. With the possible exception
of my parents.
Oh, I almost forgot. The Canary Mastiff? The one who attacked
and killed the lacrosse coach? His name was -- believe it or not --
Bane.
He dead, too.
* * *
NEW SEARCH ENGINE: I got rid of Google
and added a new search engine. We'll see. Google was fine and all, but
they never bothered to update my site. This new one is called FreeFind.
It puts an ad on the search results page, but it doesn't bother me.
Hope it doesn't bother you. (If you ever see a pop-up ad on the search
results page, let me know. Now that would bother me.)
* * *
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you've recently
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* * *
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything
else into it, you're on your own.
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