Das Volk brauchen helpan, or The Call of Valinor

My German is crap. Anyway, it's still raining a little bit when I'm trying to get on the bus this afternoon and the idiot in front of me decides he wants a Darwin award. The little wuss opens his umbrella to walk from the shelter to the bus. About a second and a half. He opens his umbrella nearly in my face and holds up the line behind him to keep 1.5 seconds of drizzle off him. I couldn't help but offer my appraisal. "Dipshit." I can't hold it in anymore. I used to be so contemplative. I was still thinking misanthropic thoughts, just grinning benignly as I did.

I noted some people who were interesting in a good way a few nights ago. I was sitting in the Armadillo, where I go a wee bit too often these days, and a couple walked in the back door. Both were middle-aged. He looked like an upper middle-class biker, and she was an attractive 50 year old with enormous breasts. She was wearing a Playboy shirt and a bright orange jacket. Suede, I think. Their entrance was immediately palpable, to me anyway. A few other people seemed to notice, too. They weren't Chapel Hill/Carrboro people. They weren't North Carolina people.

"Probably left coasters, or Southwesterners," I thought. I imagined their story. He was probably a moderately successful small businessman. Maybe he sold leather sidebags to bikers, or Nalgene bottles to extreme sports posers or something. She may really have been a former Playmate (they couldn't have been real, but I'm not judging).

They got their food and went to sit outside. It wasn't on my way, but I had to go out the back door and get another glimpse of them before I went home. Maybe they rode in on a vintage Indian. Oh, yeah. I feel that mid-life crisis coming early.

But where will I put the dog?