A nervous tick.

My sister and I went for our first hike of the season through a marshy grassland area. It was windy and cloudy and it looked like it was going to rain, but we went anyway.

On the drive home, we were just coming into the city, when I saw a black spider crawling over my hand. I asked my sister to take it off and she freaked out. It was a wood tick.

We pulled up to a nearby pizza place and took off our sweaters and shook them out. Four more ticks.

Then, over lunch, I found another tick, so like any good responsible citizen would do, I flicked it across the restaurant. I should have put it in my salad to get a free meal.

On the drive home from the restaurant my sister found another tick on her hand, so she rolled open the window and stuck her arm out, shaking her arm and screaming. The guy who was standing on the street nearby found this funny.

We found three more wood ticks at home. I threw them outside for the family dog to pick up later. Wood ticks are virtually impossible to kill - have you ever tried stepping on one?

Coincidence?

Do you ever notice your bathroom items run out all at once?

So you find yourself at the story buying dental floss, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner and soap all at once.

Whenever I end up at the store buying these items all at once I have to refrain from telling the cashier: "I'm not new to personal hygiene. I've had showers before. Honest."

Drowning

I watched the David Blaine: Drowned Alive special and have since been pondering the phrase “drowned alive”

To drown one must be alive and in need of oxygen. You cannot drown if you are dead, so you would drown alive.

And to be drowned is the past tense of drown, in which case you would be dead. So it is impossible to be drowned and be alive, unless you are almost drowned. And David Blaine did not almost drown.

Drowned can also mean to be completely submerged in water, but that is no great feat. I can completely submerge myself in water if only for a moment and be drowned alive.

Also, the title is close to what he titled a stunt back in 1999 called Buried Alive, which was never really a creative title.

His other stunt titles could also be scrutinized: Vertigo, Frozen in Time and Above and Below.

Deconstruction is fun.

Foreshadowing

Sometimes I wonder if life, like movies and books, has foreshadowing events.

Like on Saturday afternoon I watched the First Daughter, which is a fluffy movie about the President’s daughter having a romantic relationship with one of her secret service officers.

Then, that evening, I got an impromptu invitation to go to The Sentinel, a movie that I knew nothing about. I agreed to go anyway.

As it turns out the movie was, in part, about a secret service officer who has an affair with the President’s wife. It was another fluffy movie.

Watching the First Daughter foreshadowed how I would spend my evening, but I did not heed the warning and ended up watching two very mediocre movies.

Association Games

It’s weird how television can influence our thoughts.

I’ve been making my way through the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time recently. There is a popular musical episode called “Once more with Feeling” about a demon that makes people dance and sing until they are so worked up they burst into flames.

In one scene, a dancing Buffy is spinning around so fast that she is literally starting to smoke.

So anyway, I was at a men’s figure skating event. While watching the skaters spin faster and faster, a weird thought walked across my mind: “The figure skaters could spontaneously combust doing those spins.”

I shook the thought out of my head.

It’s weird how our mind makes connections. It’s not so much word association as concept and image association. And it’s funny how and when those associations work.

Cops

Sometimes I wonder if cops get frustrated when they are driving.

The police might want to speed a little. You know, go 10 kilometres over the speed limit like the average driver does.

But the people driving in front of the police are deliberatly driving slower, because they fear getting a ticket.

Meaning police likely always have to travel 10 kilometres slower than the speed limit, because of people terrified of getting a ticket.

A New Taste

Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches—Yep, apparently there are some people out there who eat them on a regular basis.

And they think it’s normal.

Now I’m a regular consumer of the peanut butter and banana sandwich. And, occasionally, I will have peanut butter and jam. I would also not be above peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwiches.

But the thought of peanut butter and pickle sandwiches literally makes my stomach turn. It’s just wrong.

That said, I’ve met two people now, who work in the same office, who claim to love peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. They are how I learnt that such an abomination even existed.

One of those people brought in such a sandwich for me to try. You can imagine my horror when I saw the sandwich sitting on my desk.

I stared at it. It stared at me. I had to at least try it. It was made for just me.

I held it up to my mouth, and then put it down. I held it up to my mouth, and then put it down.

I finally took a very tiny bite. I tasted peanut butter and followed by pickle.

I contemplated the taste. It wasn’t horrible. But still my stomach was turning in discomfort.

I took another tiny bite. Again, not horrible, but my stomach, at this point, started screaming: “NO!”

I listened to my stomach and threw the sandwich in the garbage.

I tried, but my stomach just couldn’t do it.

Besides, perhaps the whole peanut butter and pickle thing was just a cruel joke, because no one really eats peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. Do they?