so i was driving home last saturday evening on an interstate [motorway] when i notice a vehicle directly beside me. front windows aligned perfectly, traveling at the exact same speed, listening to the same radio station - directly beside me. [though probably not as i listen to talk radio, but enough about that..] for the first few moments i almost disregard it and assume our speeds just happen to match for the moment and in a second or two either this person or myself will pull ahead or fall back and traffic will resume as i've grown accustomed to it, um, resuming.. poor sentence structure and word choice aside, this abnormal driving alignment doesn't change as quickly as it should and i'm curious as to why. sometimes people are real monkeys and don't want to be passed, as if it is some direct affront to their ability to exist as a person. sometimes people are just dumb. and of course it could have been a goose [a canada goose i'd hope, as they are my favorite waterfowl by far] on vacation just trying to get some v-formation loving to save on petrol. if such were the case, i'd have been much happier.

it is at this point i decide to look over in case it is just a helpful fellow highway driver trying to tell me that my tire is going flat or that the back half of my auto has recently burst into flames, in such case that i am not yet aware. i look over and all i see is the dumb smile of a guy vaguely my age sort of half-leaning out his window saying "what's up" to me. as though we are passing through the halls of primary school and we actually know each other. [which we do not.] i gesture with my head that i do indeed see him and realize what he said. i then turn to continue driving and wondering what in the world this encounter is all about when he zips across three lanes to the nearest exit. so either he missed his intended exit for the sole purpose of that intensely deep and meaningful exchange, or he at least almost did. in either case i was and am beyond explanation.

is it wrong to hope that your dad's sister's family got all the mental problems? in normal cases i'd agree that it is probably not that nice a thing to want, but if they are already mentally troubled, it's not like i'm desiring more to be dropped upon them, only that i hope that since they got it, we did not. is that so bad?

and this was on a can of food. what type of food? you will soon understand, or, if you are like me, you will understand one ingredient but that is all. and as my punctuation suggests, this is directly from the can, with the exception of lack of capitalization, but that didn't look to be too abnormal. [hopefully obviously, quotation marks mine]

"big john's beans 'n fixin's"

a few things strike me about this.

one, though the first and last apostrophe's didn't bother me, as bad as i find the use of the last. the two of them, in conjunction with the middle one, seem a bit much for a four or five word label. the count depending on what - 'n - really is.

two, that middle one. i checked and the dictionary said that - n' - is an informal way of saying and. not the reverse. [how either can work when letters are missing on both ends, i don't know..] so it is probably wrong, and going with the first point, apostrophe overkill.

three, what in the world of lumberjack labeled goods, are fixin's? [or fixings, even?] all i saw in the picture on the label, besides big john back from a hard day of cutting timber, and a bowl in front of him, were the beans in the bowl and whatever that fluid is they can beans in. if that fluid is fixin's, and can be categorized as something separate from the beans, then i do not understand the world at all.

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"pwease?" -s.f.