These days I spend most of my time in the car. Anywhere I go takes at least 20 minutes and 40 minutes in traffic. I’ve learned how to really multi-task and hold the wheel while singing, peeling a banana and checking my email. Sometimes I look over at other commuters while I’m pretending I can rap (I rocked out to this Aesop Rock song the other day when I was trapped on the 35N ramp for an hour and a half) and they give me this weird look while they are talking on the phone. Sorry Texas, I know you made it illegal, but it is impossible to stay off the phone in DFW. Most of the time other sad, parked drivers will smile at me or do a little head bounce back and forth. Occasionally I see someone who I know is pondering rolling down their window, leaping out and running down the side of highway screaming.
I went home to Austin for Spring Break and I forgot what it is like to drive for 15 minutes or less. Get in the car, blink and bam! Out of the car. Do I check my email while I’m driving there? No. Because I can see the end in sight and I don’t have to worry if it will be time for bed when I get home even though I got off work at 4pm. I’m pondering moving and while I compared cities in my mind, I realized something funny. We all know that Austin keeps it weird, but Euless might actually be weirder. Sure, Austin has hipsters and bands that play barefoot in the street wearing speedos, but Euless has people that aren’t trying to be artistic/different. Some of the Eulessites are “regular” people working a “regular” jobs and are more bizarre than anyone I have ever met in Austin.
So let’s play a game called Austin? or Euless?
1. Man gives me an excel spreadsheet of his bowel movements. He pulls them out from under his baseball hat and asks me when, where, and how often he should “evacuate his bowels.” He then goes on to burst into hysterical tears and tell me he is sad for all the sick people in the world because it is painful to be sick. After he dries his eyes, he begins a racist rant about muslims that somehow ends with him impersonating an African American woman in a falsetto. With his hands on his hips, he immitated a sassy black lady and said “I’m so lazy and all I want is free money from the government. I’ll just have another kid.”
What do you think? Austin or Euless? If you guessed Austin, you are WRONG. This delightful episode occurred in the sleepy suburbs.
2. Guy taps me on the shoulder and asks me about my elephant tattoos. ”Why elephants?” I tell him why I like my tattoo and he tells me he is working on his 3rd bachelors degree. (Really? Is that really necessary? Can’t you just take leveling courses and get a MA? And 3? You are only in your 20′s”) He then tells me “Elephant tramp stamp….niccceee.” Then he tells me he spanked a nun on halloween and he thought it was a fake nun, but it was an actual nun. What was an actual nun doing out at night? (Apparently nuns are reverse vampires). His final mating call is making a slew of priest molesting children jokes.
If you guessed Austin, you are RIGHT. This charming fellow stood behind us at the free Aesop Rock show during SXSW
3. In this city, I saw people who were not wearing shoes at the post office, at the gym, at TeXas Teachers, and at a community college.
Yep. This one is Euless. Apparently shoes are so last season.
4. I saw this girl.
Totally Austin.
Is everyone just a giant werido everywhere? Or do these two cities have something in common: me. I already knew I emit some kind of scent or high pitched sound that only lunatics can hear, but it seems like I am leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for crazies to follow me wherever I go.
Really, this is a good thing. Crazies don’t make the world go round, but they surely make it a better place to live. Where would we be without Andrew Jackson and his unpredictable duels? Okay we would have had a national bank and possibly avoided the Panic of 1873, but it is far more entertaining to hear about how he refused to admit he had been hit in a duel and lived the rest of his life with a bullet in his lungs.
May the crazies of the world unite, summon captain planet (in this case some middle aged man with a hernia who insists on wearing an american flag wrestling outfit) and continue to pop at my feet like firecrackers. You light up my life! Please just don’t burn down my apartment.