For Mad...

I guess they will never find this guy-but still: what. an. idiot.  First of all, there are at least five gas stations on the same road, second-who the hell WALKS all the way to their robbery location?  I mean, it's obvious you panicked just a bit when you climbed over that fence.  Third-you didn't even get any money?  Hope it was worth it.  Also?  I still hold out some hope that your ass gets caught.  And it's not because you ran into my yard where my husband was sitting and scared the hell out of him-it's because you fired that gun in a restaurant full of kids.  Most of whom were there to WORK.  You know, at a job to get money?  And I don't care how I'm coming off right now.  No amount of desperation makes what this guy did ok.  I don't care that he may be poor.  You know what?  I grew up poor, and I never felt the need to go stick up a Wendy's at gunpoint.  And I'm not talking "my mom didn't get me Nike's poor", I'm talking single mom on welfare, spent a winter or two without a heater because we couldn't afford to get it fixed, recipient of canned goods from a food drive poor. 

There are better ways...

OK, now I'm all frustrated again. 

National Night Out Against Crime...only not so much.

Tonight was the Night Out to "combat crime".  The idea is that when neighbors get out together and know each other, that they will watch out for each other, and in effect help to deter crime. 

I'm not sure what the statistics are or anything, but I can say that while my In-Laws were out at such a party (to which they thankfully took my son) and I was out shopping, a man robbed the fast food joint that is directly behind my house, and hopped over my fence, ran through my yard, and vanished.  The most frightening part of this?  MR was sitting on the back porch at the time, and saw the guy run through the yard.  Even worse?  The police later told him that the suspect had a gun.  MR told me that he started yelling at the guy when he hopped the fence, thinking that it was a kid from the neighborhood.  Thank God that this guy was only worried about getting away.

Still, he left a present for the cops-his sweatshirt, hanging off of our fence.  I'm at home right now just praying that this guy (who was foolish enough to rob a Wendy's) is not foolish enough to try and come back to claim his shirt.

Needless to say, I'm scared out of my mind, and doubt that I will be sleeping tonight.  And MR-he's trying to play off that he's ok, but when I got home (he called me afterward telling me to stay put until he said it was ok to come home) he was a shade of white that I never knew he could be.

Also-I hope they nail this guy.  I drove past the restaurant in question on the way home, and the cops had the employees outside on the curb, and one girl was just sobbing. 

Overall, just a very frightening experience, and I'm only getting it indirectly. 

Dear Last Comic Standing/,

I really did try this season.  I know that you all have had Some issues over the years, but I am a sucker for stand-up, and I came running back to you again this season.  My mistake.

See, in season one, when Dat Phan somehow took down Dave Mordal I was pretty pissed, but didn't think about the show being rigged.  Again, my bad.

But after watching both Drew Carey and Brett Butler walk out in disgust after it was totally apparent that the producers screwed them and the audience, I was done.

But then this season, at the first round auditions, I saw a ray of hope.  A hilarious ray of hope in the form of God's Pottery

And yet, Last Comic, you found a new way to screw things up.  I mean really, how have you been on for SIX seasons?  For real? 

This chick beats them out?  Where the hell does your audience come from?  I mean, it's almost like the producers decided that they would only put people in the audience who would be sure to vote in a manner that was compatible with their ideal of a female winner this year for the first time in Last Comic history.  But I know that this show has far more integrity than that....

Because she asked for it...

It was a cool October evening in 1999.  A nineteen year old girl stood on the balcony of a very nice house in New Jersey, in awe of the way the just set sun was playing colors in the sky over the expanse of marsh in front of her.  The evening was practically perfect, and she sighed wondering if at last she had found that special guy.  He was inside for a moment, giving her the time to take it all in.  It was more than the sky, it was more than the soft singing of the birds, it was more than the perfectly cool autumn air with the hint of wood fires and dying foliage...it was him.  Somehow, despite all the past pain and broken hearts, she found herself ready to try again.  Somehow, she believed that he was different.

It was amazing, she had only met him for the first time the day before.  She wasn't sure what to expect the first time her friend had told her that she had been set up on a blind date, but the first time she saw him she was instantly attracted.  Funnily enough, it wasn't his smile, or his eyes, or his good looks that caught her eye-it was his shoes.  No man or boy she had ever met would have had the balls to wear those boots with the point in the toe-those shoes that made her think of an elf from a J.R.R. Tolkien novel, and she admired the way that he walked in them-not caring if anyone thought it was lame to wear them.  He walked with a confidence that was totally devoid of arrogance, and she was intrigued.

And yet, this man was so full of surprises.  Just out of the Navy, recently moved to just across the bridge in New Jersey, living with his parents while he finished school-he was a world of things she had never known.  He drove a Jeep Wrangler...a stick shift, and in her eyes, he was the truly coolest person she had ever met.

But standing on that balcony at his parents home, looking at the stars as they woke up to add their visual symphony to the mix of the sensations about her, she was worried.

"He hasn't tried to kiss me yet.  Does he even really like me as more that just a friend?".  It was the only thing that could have marred the storybook tale she had created.  After all, he was 25-four years older than her as he had just had a birthday, and her's was in a few days, but those four years could be a big deal.  He had traveled the world in the Navy, and she had never really left her little corner between the suburbs of Philadelphia and the shore line of New Jersey.  There were so many reasons for this to be anyway but the way she so dearly hoped it could.  If only she could know.

For the moment, however, she forced the negative from her mind, and allowed herself to be swallowed in the moment of this beautiful view, for life, as it is at nineteen, is only made of moments.

She heard the distinct sound of metal and cloth sliding against each other as the door behind her opened, and he stepped out.

"Hey" she said.

"Hey" he smiled at her.

"You were right, it really is a beautiful view" she sighed as he came behind her and slipped an arm around her waist.

"I've been dying to ask this," he began, "but can I kiss you?" 

She smiled and said "I've been waiting for you to all night."

And as they kissed, she felt tears welling in her eyes.  No one had ever asked for permission to kiss her, and in him doing so, it made her feel like the most precious thing in the world. 

It was, she knew, the beginning of something truly magical.

And she was right.