Tag: grandma

Stinking Nebraskans and Their Stinking Low-Beams!

I spent some time back in Montana over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  Spending some time driving in a normal state made me realize how ridiculous drivers are in Nebraska.

In Montana, especially eastern Montana, there are a lot of deer.  A LOT OF DEER!  When you drive in the rural areas after the sun’s gone down, you have to constantly scan the sides of the road looking for any sign of movement.  I lived in Montana for most of the first 22 years of my life; I hit two different deer on two separate occasions.  If you live in Montana and you drive at night, you will almost unavoidably hit a deer.  Something that Montanans realize is that it’s a heck of a lot easier to catch the glint of a deer’s eye in the headlights if your headlight beams are on high.  Thus, people in Montana, when approaching another car at night, usually dim their headlights about 4 to 5 seconds before passing the other car.

Nebraskans (and, to be honest, Wyomingites are even more anal about this than Nebraskans) start flashing their headlights from high-to-low in an effort to get you to dim your lights at anywhere from 1/2 mile to 1 mile away.  This means these morons are flashing you at 30 seconds to 1 minute away!  Seriously!  If these old Germans have such poor eyesight that they need oncoming lights on dim at this distance, they should have their licenses taken away… not only because they are increasing the risk of roadside hazards becoming unexpected surprises, they also just annoy the CRAP out of me!

These light-flashing idiots used to get to me so bad that I would wait until I was about 4 or five seconds away before I would dim my lights just to make them mad.  Of course, this backfired, because the light-flashing nincompoops started sticking it to me.  By “sticking it to me” I mean that they would wait until the last second and then hit me with all that they’ve got… high beams, low beams, and if they got ’em, fog lights, all at once.  The blinding brightness usually lasted well after the other car passed and made me even madder.  I actually considered turning around and running the idiots off the road on more than one occasion, but doing hard time because grandma Schultz ticked me off on her way to make butterballs at church wouldn’t sit well with the wife.  Instead of tinkering with my blood pressure more than need be, I have attempted to learn to conform to the local idiotic driving patterns.

And then I went to Montana and re-experienced night driving the way it should be: safely avoiding the hazards at the side of the road.  On our return trip, it started getting dark right about the time we arrived in our local driving area… and I once again had morons flashing their lights at me from up-to a mile away.

I wanted to get this straight once and for all.  Tonight, I went to several states’ DMV websites, including Nebraska and Wyoming, to find out what the law is regarding distance for dimming headlights when approaching another vehicle.  Nebraska did not list a specific distance.  It did list a distance of 200 feet when approaching another vehicle from the rear but it didn’t list a distance for forward-approaching vehicles.  200 feet from the rear was the same distance I found on several other websites, except for the Wyoming site which put this distance at 300 feet.  The funny thing is (and I don’t mean funny in the sense of “ha ha” but more in the sense of making you want to stick a red-hot steak knife into your eyeball) the distances on the sites I visited regarding the correct distance to dim you lights when approaching another vehicle from the front ranged from 300 feet to 500 feet.  The Wyoming site stated 500 feet.

So, you might ask yourself, how long would it take for two vehicles to meet each other from a distance of 500 feet… considering a speed of about 55 mph?  Thanks for asking!  The Wyoming Driver Manual, on page 75, states… and I quote… “You should dim at least 500 feet (about four to five seconds) before meeting an oncoming vehicle.”  I kid you not!

So, let’s see if we can get Adventurer Rich’s situation all straightened out.  I have been dimming my headlights in a very legal fashion and should have increased the safety on the road (due to potential roadside hazards) in the process.  The stinking knuckleheads that blast me with all that they’ve got are, in reverse, breaking the law because they think I am breaking the law (which I’m not) and causing a danger to me and anyone in my car by  obscuring my vision with their temper tantrum… not to mention that they are tempting fate that I don’t have a temper tantrum of my own, turn around, and run their sorry butts off the road!

Let’s see if we have learned a little lesson here.  If you are driving on one of the many rural highways in western Nebraska or eastern Wyoming and you come across a gent who refuses to dim his lights at 1/2 mile away, proceed with caution.  If you get to anywhere from 10 to 4 seconds away and he then dims his lights, remember that he is acting in a completely legal fashion.  If you, at this point, decide to blast him because he didn’t dim his lights when you wanted him to (law be damned!), accept that he may very well turn around and do everything within his power to see you run off the road (which would be no more illegal or put any more life in danger than you did by blasting him with your headlights.)  And the number one thing that I hope you have learned is this: if you would even consider flashing your lights at someone when they are 1/2 mile away in an attempt to get them to dim their headlights… you need to turn in your driver’s license, Grandpa, ’cause you shouldn’t even be on the road!

Softball #3

You know what?  I played softball Friday night and for the first time this season I felt like I could actually run!  Did I stretch more than usual?  No, I stretched no more than usual.  Have I been running sprints on the days between games?  Haha… seriously, run on days I don’t have to, that’s funny!  So what, you may ask yourself, is Adventurer Rich’s secret to being able to run without feeling like the muscles in his legs are actually going to explode?

When I was a wee tot, I remember something my grandma had around the house.  It came in a small bottle with a funky, sponge-like applicator at the top.  When I would press the applicator against myself, cool green liquid would erupt onto my skin.  Within a matter of moments, the liquid was absorbed into my skin and a mild heat consumed my flesh.  This was an amazing liquid that my Grandma rarely let me touch.  She, however, reeked of this liquids pungent odor almost all of the time.  This magical liquid was the reason for my ability to run in last Friday’s softball game without feeling like my groin was going to burst.  This magical liquid is… Absorbine Jr (I can’t believe I actually found an Amazon link for Absorbine Jr 🙂 )

Absorbine Jr. is amazing.  The cool of the (I’m sure mildly toxic) chemicals that first splash across your skin is invigorating.  The oddly green appearance of the liquid is reminiscent of the Grossolium 90 that transformed Melvin Junko into one of the oddest superheros of all time: The Toxic Avenger .  Remember that awesome flick?  I could do a whole post on how much that single film transformed my entire adolescence… or not.  Anyway, back to the Absorbine Jr.   The cooling of the skin is of course followed by the mild burn that never quite gets hot enough, you know?  It starts to burn pretty good, and just when you think it is going to kick into a full-fledged Icy Hot type burn, it levels off leaving you wanting more.  And that classic smell… that classic “old person” smell… that classic “old person” smell that stays with you for hours after the warming sensation has disappeared and reminds me of my grandma; the smell is unforgettable.

So I bought a bottle of Absorbine Jr the other day because I’m feeling a little sore all the time now since softball season started.  I know it was good enough for my grandma, so it’s gotta be good enough for me.  I get home and I sponge it on all of my sore spots.  The cool feels good, the warm feels great, and the smell waxes my nostalgic.  I’m wishing they would sell the green, stinky magic juice in 5 gallon buckets so I could fill a tub with it and just soak.  Another great thing about Absorbine Jr is the fact that you don’t have to beg a family member to put it on you.  You know how no one wants to rub you down with Icy Hot or Bengay because they have to spend too much time washing the crap off their hands after rubbing you down with it?  With Absorbine Jr, you need no one.  You just rub the green toxin all over your body with the handy applicator-tipped bottle  (or, if you find it in 5 gallon buckets,  just soak)  and let the magic begin.  The smell is just annoying enough that you will keep various family members away from you (which often helps your muscles relax as well).

The Absorbine Jr works so well after a softball game, I’m thinking to myself (which is always a dangerous proposition) that maybe putting the stuff on before a game would be a good idea.  So, that’s exactly what I do, I douse myself down with Absorbine Jr before driving to the Carpenter Center to play ball.  On the way there, the warm tinglies are kicking in and I’m feeling great.  I get to the fields and find some of my teammates.  I saunter over, feeling pretty cool and collected with my major Absorbine Jr vibe going on.  One of the young kids starts to look around and wrinkles her nose.  “What’s that smell?” she asks.  I kind of drift off to the side of our group.

I grab a softball and ask who wants to warm up.  Another whipper-snapper says he’ll warm me up, and we disengage from the rest of the group and toss the ball back-and-forth.  We throw and we catch and we throw and we catch some more until the whipper-snapper finally asks, “You warmed up enough yet?”

I know that if we go back to the group that I’m sweating just enough right now that the Absorbine Jr smell is at an all-time high (it appears that it somewhat lodges in the pores of your skin and when you sweat… POW, the smell really comes alive!)  “Just a few more throws,” I holler back to the whipper-snapper.  We throw the ball until the game is ready to begin.

The thing with Church League co-ed softball is that you always have plenty of guys to play, but you never seem to have quite enough gals to play.  Since there were more than plenty of guys, a few of us sat out for the first couple of innings and would go in as replacements at a later point in the game.  Now, with me being one of the older dudes on the team, sitting out for two or three innings after already having warmed-up freaked me out a little.  I just got through stretching out the old muscles and letting the Absorbine Jr work its magic.  If I just sat on the bench for two or three innings, those muscles would tighten right back up and I’d be in serious trouble, so instead of just sitting on the bench, I’m outside the dugout running little sprints, laying on the ground stretching muscles, and doing everything I possibly can to keep those muscles warm.  In the meantime, I’m working up a little sweat and stinking to Absorbine Jr high-heaven.

When I finally get to go into the game, I’m up to bat.  I can tell that the stink is pretty heavy on me, and it’s making me a little self-conscious.  I get up to bat and I glance back at the catcher.  The catcher’s face is all twisted up in a wad and I can’t help but think it is because she can smell my Absorbine Jr reek (it could have been that the lady just had a kind of wadded-up face, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly… I think the Absorbine Jr fumes were getting to me.)  I hit a little dinker down the third base line and off to first I go.  I’m safe on first.  The first baseman has a funny look on his face and I’m dead certain that he smells the “old” on me.  I start sweating harder which makes the Absorbine Jr stench stronger and when the gal at bat blasts over second base I run like a bat out of hell so that no one can smell my stink.  I run harder than I’ve ever run and any pain in my muscles that had hampered my play in previous weeks was nowhere in my mind as I attempted to leave the hideous old person smell of Absorbine Jr in my dust.

Needless to say, I was out at second.   But throughout the rest of the entire game (which we lost) I ran without giving any thought to my old muscles.  The pains and flair-ups of previous weeks were gone as, with every move that I made, I attempted to keep those around me from becoming disgusted with my smell.

The funny thing is… the way I was pushing my muscles in an attempt to seperate myself from my stench should have made for days of sore muscles and aching joints.  After the game, I felt just fine.  The day after the game, I felt just fine.  Here it is, Sunday, Father’s Day, and I feel just fine.  I’ll admit, the hideous odor following me throughout the game made me rather uncomfortable; however, I feel better than I have felt in weeks.  I think my grandma was really onto something with Absorbine Jr.  I love and miss my grandma very much.  She has passed from life on this earth around 17 years ago.  I am very thankful that she passed the secret of Absorbine Jr onto me… I just wish I didn’t have to smell like her to enjoy its benefits.