Freedom Takes Balls

I just read an essay by Roger Angell (stepson of E.B. White) all about driving around the U.S. before the advent of high-speed SUVs and air-conditioning in which he talks about how the sights and sounds that once distracted and entertained the American driver are almost no more.

To Angell I respond: when you were cruising with your mom and E.B. in the family sedan did you ever encounter a large, red, rubber ball-sack dangling from the back of the vehicle in front of you?

I think you’ll agree that the existence of such a spectacular car accessory surely weakens Angell’s thesis. I can vouch that the sight of said rubber balls on a recent road trip prompted disbelief, excitement and fear of the sudden appearance of packs of dogs on the highway.

But the swinging sack did more than just distract and entertain; it inspired some deep philosophical musing. My companions and I decided that a country in which any citizen who wants to can hang his rubber ball-sack out on display is a country whose people are truly free. Perhaps, someone posited, the rubber ball-sack should replace the flag as the highest symbol of American values--we should be shipping these things to Iraq! So it was that in a mini-van on Interstate 80 campaign “Sacks for Iraq: Let Freedom Swing” was born. Donations accepted--please give generously.

What It All Comes Down To

In college, my friend Amy discovered, via Nabokov, a term that gave name to what we both freely admitted was our constant feeling that everything on Earth related, or should, to us. The term was “self-referential disorder”. We were clearly suffering from this affliction (and I, for one, still am). It results in conversations like this:

Someone Else: “I’m starting to grow tomatoes and I can’t get the plants to stand up right.”

Me: “Interesting. You know, my back only hurts when I sit for long periods of time. I don’t have any trouble standing up right for long periods of time.”

Someone Else: “Hmm, weird. Do you think I should stake the tomatoes?”

Me: “Hmm, tomatoes. God, I love ketchup.”

And like this:

Someone Else to Someone Else: “I have been asking every single person that I know and meet how I can make the tomatoes I’m growing stand upright and no one has any good suggestions. Any ideas?”

Me (overhearing) to Myself: “Oh man, she is totally annoyed at me because I didn’t help her with her tomato question. She’s definitely talking about me. She must fucking hate me for talking about my back problems when she was talking about her tomato problems. Does she hate me? She totally hates me. Whatever. My back hurts.”

Thanks to Google and Sitemeter, my suspicions have been confirmed: everything, EVERYTHING, can be related to ME! The following, from the Referrals section in my Sitemeter stats, is a list of words and phrases that have brought strangers to my blog in the last seven days:

• toering suck off
• spanish wine breakdown u.s.
• huge deviant breasts
• "ear cuff"
• balloon boobs
• thanks letter
• Licking the breasts
• free pie picture

Now I am truly convinced that the whole world really does refer back to me, even if it takes plowing all the way to the 29th page of Google results for a person to realize this (that’s how far the searcher for “toering suck off” had to go find this site!). Bad jewelry? Connected to me. Lots and lots of boobs? Connected to me. Free pie? Connected to me.

Just as I always knew.