Tough Call

It's really a tough call today as to what I should write about. I've run across several interesting articles, and they all struck me as something worthy of additional insight. Rather than choose just one, I'll try to hit them all and let you decide which you prefer:

• Crazy toll booth bill – Apparently, a woman was told she owed $870 when she tried to leave DFW airport after only being in the airport for eight minutes. Her bill should have been $2, but a "rare" computer glitch caused a slight miscalculation. My favorite part is her quote, "If it was someone else other than me, they might have paid the $870." So is she saying that she's the only person smart enough to realize that it was a mistake? I mean, $870 and $2 are nearly identical in most people's minds. Or is she saying that other people just have $870 lying around in their cars and don't care enough to question the bill? I really don't get it.
  
• Guilty Wife? – This whole deal makes little sense to me. A woman apparently was having an affair, and when she realized that her husband was about to catch her, she screamed rape. The husband killed the man to defend his wife. He was not indicted by a grand jury, and she is going to jail for manslaughter. Huh?
  
• Beer Can Coffin – I don't know what's worse, having a coffin that looks like a beer can, making the coffin look like a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, or actually keeping the coffin at home and using to store and serve Pabst Blue Ribbon until you actually need it. This story is so messed up, I'm not sure I could add anything.
  
• Pit Bulls – Hardly a week goes by that you don't hear about a pit bull attack, so from that perspective this is not too original. On the other hand, I've never before heard of a pit bull attacking the engine of a truck. Poor guy. Just got his truck fixed and now it's been attacked by a pit bull. I guess the dogs are losing their taste for humans and are after 10W-30 now. I think it would have been hilarious to see the look on the guy's face, though, when he opened the hood and his engine growled at him.
  
• Earth's Other Moon – Is it possible that Earth had more than one moon at one point in time? Without going into a lot of detail, scientists have identified several LaGrange points in the solar system (these are points between objects were gravity balances out so that each object has an equal force). In reviewing these different points, they are finding that there are generally objects trapped in them. They found, however, that the LaGrange point between Earth and our current moon is empty. So, obviously, the fact that there is nothing there means that we used to have two moons and some outside force messed up the trinity. Make sense? Sometimes, I really have a hard time understanding how scientists get to their conclusions.
  

Enjoy!

Excuses…Excuses

I think it might be simple human nature to make excuses. All the way back to the very first couple, Adam and Eve (not Steve), mankind has been making excuses. If you remember in that story, Adam and Eve both ate the fruit, and when God showed up and asked what happened (like He didn't already know), Adam said, "She made me do it." Or something like that.

All of us that are parents have experienced similar situations with our own children. I've got four, so sometimes it can get a little difficult to sort out the truth, but I imagine that even in a house with only one child and one broken lamp, the parents will still hear, "It wasn't me, Momma. Didn't you feel that earthquake? Look, it even knocked the pictures on the wall crooked." Momma, of course, is holding the golf ball that nearly hit her after it bounced between the pictures on the wall, and she is thinking, "At least my kid didn't hit me in the head with a golf club like that poor lady in Sachse."

Seriously, we all do it. We don't want to be in trouble, and in some twisted part of our messed up brains we think that lying can help us avoid trouble while the rational part of our psyche is quite certain that all we will get for our lies is more trouble. And how many of us are even all that good at lying? Take this woman for example:

http://www.nbc5i.com/health/16161866/detail.html?rss=dfw&psp=weird-news

As an officer of the law, you would hope that she would be above making excuses, but this just proves that no one is immune. The best part of the story is the excuses that she tries to use to get out of trouble. It's like an excerpt from a conversation with a teenager.

First, she's weaving all over the road, hitting parked cars, and crossing into oncoming traffic. Remember, she's driving a patrol car during all of this, so it is being video taped. After hitting one car in particular, she got out to inspect the damage and was met by a captain. How embarrassing would it be to get pulled over by another police officer while you are actually driving a patrol car?

Anyway, she's inspecting the damage, but she tells the captain that she didn't hit anything. Just like a teenager. "I swear, it was like that when I got it. I tried to tell the guy in the garage that I shouldn't drive around with a completely messed up vehicle, but he just ignored me."

And that's just the start. I can't even make this stuff up. The captain, after questioning the damage to the vehicle says, "I got another guy who saw you swerving all over the road." Wait for it and think about the last time your kids tried changing the subject rather than lying and didn't even realize that they gave away more incriminating evidence in the process. "I was on my cell phone; I wasn't swerving all over the road," she says.

Boy, that really justified things in my mind. Thank goodness she was just on the cell phone. There's no police officer in the world that would think driving and talking on a cell phone might be dangerous.

Understandably, she was fired, but she wasn't done with the excuses. Oh, no. She realizes now that the cell phone ploy was ineffective, so she's decided to tell the truth. She took Ambien before she got behind the wheel. You know what Ambien is, right? It's that stuff that helps you talk with Abe Lincoln, a beaver, and some astronaut. John Edwards pops a few before every show to get in touch with beings just beyond our reach. This is just based on the commercials, but it seems to me like it might impair your ability to think rationally and it could possibly make driving a little unsafe. I'm even going to bet that the side of the box says something like, "May cause extreme drowsiness and disorientation. Do not use in the shower or operate any motorized vehicles after taking. And don't say anything about Abe's pimple; he's sensitive." I know, you can't use anything in the shower anymore, not even hair dryers which really cuts down on my efficiency in the mornings, by the way.

Seriously? She wants her job back because she took Ambien before driving. She says in one quote, "I worked until 2 in the morning last night." Apparently, that was before she took the Ambien. Gee, I wonder what happens when you are dead tired from working, take a sleep aid, and then get behind the wheel of a patrol car? I'm betting the citizenry starts lose faith in the whole "protect" part of "Protect and Serve."

The good news is that she's got the perfect lawyer. Apparently, he's telling the grievance board that Ambien has been linked with erratic behavior and there are some reports of people taking the drug, driving around, and not remembering it later. Well, do you remember that whole part about how changing the subject doesn't always work in your favor? And he even implied that it might have been her supervisor's fault for letting her work since she showed up late for roll call and was wearing pink flip-flops. Umm…is anyone surprised that the board unanimously disagreed?