Making Sense of Safety

Today we received little desktop cards listing the “Five Keys to Safe Driving.” There’s a little picture of some car keys on a ring. Guess how many? Keys to safe driving! As in car keys!! Get it?!

The actual keys, however, make no sense at all.

1. Aim High in Steering®

What does this mean? And how exactly would you go about it? It might make sense in an airplane: throttle back, there’s a mountain at 12:00! And it’s already 11:59!

But it doesn’t seem applicable in any way I can think of to driving a car – in fact, I’m pretty sure that remaining earthbound is one of the central tenets of automobile safety.

2. Get the Big Picture®

Consider the global economy. It’s not in very good shape, is it? And the automotive industry, struggling under declining sales, is a significant factor. Well, I don’t want to point fingers or anything, but the fact is that it’s entirely your fault. Look at you, all taking care of your car, changing your oil and rotating your tires and driving responsibly. I bet you even wax the damn thing.

A car will last 100K, 200K miles or even more when properly cared for. What are you trying to pull? Redline it, wear the engine out, maybe put a little sugar in the tank sometimes. Try to get in a wreck now and again. It’s the least you can do.

3. Keep Your Eyes Moving®

What, randomly? When I was learning to drive, the rule was to keep your eyes on the road. Then again, a lot has changed since the 80’s, and nobody can say that’s a bad thing. Bad is the new good, brown is the new black, 50 is the new 30; maybe dangerous is the new safe, I don’t know. So look! There’s a bird! Ooh! Was that a sale sign back there? Hey! There’s Jennifer! Here, let me find a better song on my iPod.

4. Leave Yourself An Out®

Since you stopped maintaining it, you never know when your car might suddenly overheat and explode. So always drive with your seatbelt unfastened and the door slightly ajar. Safety first!

The same principle also applies to relationships.

5. Make Sure They See You®

We can’t all drive the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, but you could try weaving in and out of traffic, making random sudden stops for no reason, and other attention-getting moves to ensure that other drivers give you a wide berth. Either that or dress like Liberace.

Anyway, these “Five Keys to Safe Driving” were brought to us by our Occupational Safety group, and – not to suggest that I’m prone to hanging on to a grudge – these are the same folks who wouldn’t let me have the snake guy at our safety presentation last December. So I suppose it’s in character for them to distribute safety tips that make no sense at all outside the context of whatever materials they were pulled from.

“Make Sure They See You.” Not if I see them first!

Lessons from a 7-Year-Old

Your zoo is a pretty sorry excuse for a zoo if it only has one animal. Your seven-year-old visitor probably won't even want to pay admission, and will sneak in by wriggling through the ticket window, giggling. Then she will swipe your animal, which is actually just a four-inch-tall stuffed bunny, and convince you that the pillow she's thwacking you with is actually a sack full of much better animals, so you quit tickling her and allow her to escape, only to find out she's only given you a pillow! So your zoo has to close. Way to go.

I don't really know what you were thinking, trying to open up a zoo in the first place.

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

Not really, I've been doing so much, like, omigod you guys, I am sooooooooooooo tired.

Okay. Tuesday I was on by 6:30, breakfast at 7, on the buses at 8, 7 stops and 3 drive-by tours, lunch and dinner, coordinating videos and step-on guides on the bus and making announcements, back at the hotel at about 9pm, check my room set-up for the following morning, go find a banquet manager to make a small change, visit the hospitality suite, back to my room about 10pm.

I was wiped, if you can believe it. Oh and get this, they delivered bed down gifts Tuesday afternoon and they left my door unlatched and the sleeping room doors are not self-closing - in fact they swing open - so I get back to my room at 10 and the door is just wide open. Hello! iBook on my desk and iPod in my backpack and all!! Thank goodness nothing was messed with, but we're having a little word with the hotel about that at the post-con.

Okay. So yesterday it was general session in the morning, and I did not hate the speaker anywhere near as much as I expected to - she was actually pretty funny - but still a motivational speaker, so it can only be so good of course. That being over we boarded the buses and went for lunch, an afternoon of quickie little tourlets, and a dine-around with a couple of bars downtown. This was really fun. Saw a gator wedding..

Now, there were three buses, right? Mine was Gator Green. You have to come up with a cheer. Not my idea; cheers never are, but my boss' boss was on my bus and she was pretty insistent, so we came up with, and last night at the final bar performed, in a cheer-off with the other two buses, which I would like to point out that we won, the following:

Clap four times and shout, "Go Green!
We're hot! (We're hot!)
You're not! (You're not!)
We're mean! (We're mean!)
We're green! (We're green!)
That's right! (That's right!)
We got bite! (We got bite!)
So get back on your bus! And don't you mess with us!
Don't be a hater, cause we're the Green Gators!
Na na na na, na na na na, Green Gators, Number One! (repeat a few times)
Woo Hoo!!! (etc.)

Okay, so we did that at the bar, but there were a whole bunch of us - a busload, not to put too fine a point on it - but back up to yesterday morning, when -

Okay, I'll continue this later, I gots ta go, yo.

Soundtrack of My Life

This MySpace survey was so much fun I'm scootching it over here. Last time I did this was for an awesome survey that asked for your bank account number and your mother's maiden name, so you know it's a good one.

The premise: Open your music library, put the whole thing on shuffle and press play. Each song is part of your life's "soundtrack." The first song will be "Opening Credits," the next is "Waking Up," the next is "First day of School," etc.

Try it out! See what happens!

Beth:
The Soundtrack of My Life

Opening Credits:
"Taking Tiger Mountain" Brian Eno.
This is a slow, pensive song; much better suited to a romantic drama than the kitschy 60's sex romp I was hoping for. But at least it's quirky. We'll see how it goes.

Waking Up:
"Whistling in the Dark" They Might Be Giants
Okay. Maybe it's a comedy.

First Day of School:
"Hurt" Nine Inch Nails
Oh snap. Well, you know, sixth grade won't be easy, will it?

Falling in Love:
"Burning Down the House" Talking Heads
Watch out! You might get what you're after!

First Kiss:
"So This is Christmas" John Lennon
It might be. If I recall correctly, "So This Is Arbor Day" might be a more accurate description. Still, I can hardly wait for...

Losing Virginity:
"Think I'm in Love" Beck
Losing your virginity'll do that to ya, that's for damn sure.

Break-up:
"Voices Carry" 'Til Tuesday
Ruh-roh! Sounds like there's a married man involved. What was I thinking?! Geez, I was just sixteen.

Depression:
"Lovefool" The Cardigans
"You love me no longer, I know, and maybe there is nothing I can do to make you, do..." Sigh! It's so true! And so sad!

Graduation:
"Que Onda Guero" Beck
And when I graduate, I move to the barrio and start hanging with some vatos. Hey, let's go to Cap'n Cork. They got the new Yanni cassette!

Driving Song:
"Fuckin' in the Bushes" Oasis
So I drive fast. You would too, if you lived in Texas, had no air conditioning, and were chronically late to everything. Now get the eff outta my way, beeYOTCH!

Fight Song:
"Earthquake Weather" Beck
I can't think of any way this is a fight song; but then, I'm really more of a lover.

Okay, a dancer at least.

I don't know! Just don't punch me.

Getting Back Together:
"Yeh Yeh" They Might Be Giants
No No! Don't go back! As I've mentioned before, going back to an ex is just like putting on dirty underwear that's been sitting in the hamper for a week.

We'll take this one as ironic.

Wedding:
"Turn Around" They Might Be Giants
"I was out by myself in the graveyard/I was doing an interpretive dance/When I felt something heavy and pointed/Strike me in the back of my neck/Then the ghost of my dance instructor/Pushed me down into an open grave/And as dirt rained down, she played the xylophone, and sang me this song:/Turn around, turn around/There's something there to be found/Turn around, turn around/It's a human skull on the ground/Human skull on the ground/Turn around..."

Fair enough.

Birth of First Child:
"I've Got My Mind Set on You" George Harrison
Remind me to remove this song.

Final Battle:
"Chains of Love" Erasure
Apparently my final battle will be staged against my approximately 367,482 gay friends.

I will lose.

Death Scene:
"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" Culture Club
In context, this seems like a fairly stupid question.

Funeral:
"White Room" Cream
I don't actually know what this song is about, but it's Cream and it's the late sixties, so I'm going to take a wild guess and say drugs. Probably NyQuil. I should've known!

Ending Credits:
"I Say a Little Prayer for You" Burt Bacharach
You can always count on Burt!