Magic Carpet Ride

The ingenuity of the human being is a wonder to behold. A few months ago, United States customs officials, in strange case of life imitating art à la Cheech and Chong, found a truck that was literally made out of cocaine! How does one do this? How does one even think of this? I guess if you really need to get that shipment of illegal drugs across the border, necessity really does become the mother of invention.

Now in a recent case, a woman trying to fly from Chile to Spain, was stopped when her baggage was found to be suspect. No, the drugs were not wrapped up in her clothing or cleverly hidden in her toothpaste tube or in her talcum powder bottle. Her suitcases were made out of drugs. Apparently the cocaine was mixed with resin and glass fibre and placed in a mould to create the hard pieces of her luggage. When the 'receivers' get the pieces, they use an unspecified 'chemical process' to separate the drugs from the unwanted material. Now I admittedly don't know much about drugs other than what I have read, but would you not want this stuff to be a pure as you can get it? Do you really want it to be combined with toxic materials and pressed into one shape, only later to be separated, by this 'chemical process' into the form you are buying? I mean, personally, I don't like anything I ingest to be 'chemically separated'. Although, I guess if you are taking cocaine, you're probably not all that concerned with the process of how it got to you.

Anyhow, the woman was caught and now faces the warm fuzzy embrace of the Chilean legal system. It does make me wonder though, what she said to her friends before she left. "See ya guys, I off on a trip… uh, I mean, I'm taking a trip. No wait! I mean I'm going on a trip, uh…"

Summer Is Here

It is one of the world's great existential questions – When does summer really begin? Is it, as the calendar tells us, the 21^st of June, or is it when the first blade of grass on the lawn gets cut? Hard to say really. After cutting the lawn twice already this year, I tend to agree with the latter position. Not only is the grass growing and the leaves on the trees are either budding or already out, the most hated species of weed had begun to rear its ugly head again – the dandelion.

Let me be the first to admit that the well manicured lawn is, probably, the most unnatural thing in the world. At no time while you are wandering aimlessly through the woods, either by choice or when you get lost, will you stumble across an expanse of green grass, cut to uniform height and free of weeds or trees. Just doesn't happen. Why then, do we insist on cutting the grass and keeping the weeds at bay? I think it is a conspiracy perpetrated on the public by the rake manufacturers and the lawn mower companies. They have us all brainwashed into thinking that we need to have that green carpet in front of our houses.

I will also admit that I have, to some extent, bought into the whole lawn care thing. I rake the leaves in the fall and in the spring I rake off the dead grass. I cut the grass every five days or so depending on the need. I also do battle with the dandelion. I will not use chemicals or toxins on the lawn. I know there are some people who will say that when used correctly, these products are harmless. Call me crazy but anything that ends in – icide (infanticide, regicide, suicide, pesticide) can't be good for you. When you see the lawn poison guys applying this stuff, dressed in rubber gloves and boots and wearing respirators, you have to wonder. When I see one of these guys applying it to a lawn while wearing flip flops, shorts and a tank top, I might, possibly, after having determined if the guy has a death wish or not, then consider applying it to my own lawn. Until then…

So I guess until someone comes up with a proven method of getting rid of these annoying weeds, I will have to head out with my handy dandy dandelion puller and do things the hard way. I guess I should look on the bright side. I'm outside in the fresh air getting exercise. My property will look good and it won't kill me. And even if it does, at least I know it will be the hard work that does me in and not something scary that ends in icide.

If I Were In Your Shoes…

Who among us hasn't fantasized about winning the lottery? What car would you drive? Would you build a new house or renovate your current one. What would you spend all that money on? Every once in a while my wife and I talk about this. Usually the conversation occurs when the jackpot reaches 35 or 40 million dollars. What would we do for ourselves, our family and the community. In our case this fantasizing is really just that, because I can count on one hand the number of times I have bought lottery tickets in the last 4 years. It is not something we usually do. But it is fun to dream.

All this begs the question – What would you do if you suddenly came into a large sum of money? What would you do if that money was placed into your account by mistake? What would you do if both happened at the same time? With one couple the answer to all of these questions seems to be RUN! Apparently this couple applied for a line of credit at the bank and for some reason the bank mistakenly deposited 6 million dollars in their account. Did they call the bank? Did they call their friends? No. They disappeared! Packed up and left their home, business and friends and are now in the wind.

This, quite obviously, wasn't the most honest thing to do. Should they have called the bank and reported the error? Probably. Would they have gotten the line of credit or a reward for their honesty? Who knows. (Given the seeming greed of the banking industry, probably not.) They probably should have taken the course of action that says that honesty is the best policy. But obviously this couple took the advice of Steve Miller instead – "Take the money and run."