3:37 p.m. | 2002-07-06 I Got Me Some �Spare� Ribs! In pure desperation, I ran some errands today. Not one of my favorite things to do. Ranks right up there with cleaning the bathroom. I even stopped at three different places. You�re aghast, I�m sure. One of those places was the grocery store. And, no, I�m not all hopped up on drugs. Just kinda desperate for some things. Okay, I NEEDED some things. That�s what happens when you avoid errands like the plague � eventually you just have suck it up and hit the streets. If I was rich, I would order everything online and have them deliver it. But, I�m not rich. Anyway, I�ve been on a BBQ ribs craze for several months now. I eat them for breakfast. With some mashed potatoes (cheesy, or garlic, or otherwise enhanced), and a salad. Although it sounds odd, it makes sense to me because I eat the most when my pain level is at its least, which is early in the day. And, since I don�t usually eat dinner, due to pain, it makes sense to me to eat dinner at breakfast. And, I eat breakfast at work since I eat really slow � about 2 hours per meal, longer if I�m busy � and my coworkers think that I eat odd things for breakfast, but they always walk away saying things like: �That sure smells good!� and �That sure looks good!� I refrain from making the observation that they too could have ribs for breakfast. It is a free county and all. Oh, and don�t worry, I do work while I�m eating. In fact, if I�m really busy, I finish breakfast right before I go to lunch. I�m a grazer; I eat all day. Some people are surprised that I�m so �little� because they always see me eating. That�s because I�m still eating the same meal hours later. So I carefully picked out some pork ribs. I chose a package of 10 so I could take 2 ribs to work each morning. So, I get home and begin to chop these ribs up and throw them in the crockpot with some BBQ sauce. I flip the slab of ribs over, and voila, there were 5 more ribs that had been tucked under the others. Imagine my surprise. I guess that�s what they mean by �spare� ribs. I now have 5 spares. *** In addition to not being rich, I do think its important to go out and wander amongst others even though they�re all talking on their cell phones, thereby forgoing the proper etiquette of strangers � which is to commune with other strangers, not isolate themselves by talking to nonstrangers on their cell phones. That is one thing that I find really offensive about cell phones. People are able to blot out the whole rest of the world and keep their experience limited to only those they know. They also, apparently, believe that talking on a cell phone enables them to be rude at random. I have watched people in stores complete entire transactions without ever saying one word to the cashier, the person they bumped into, or the person who held the door open for them. I mean, they come into the store talking, they talk while they shop, they stand in line talking, pay while talking and leave the store talking. Now, if the person was a doctor telling a nurse or patient what they needed to do while rushing to get to them, or if the person was a parent telling their child to put pressure on the bleeding part and they�d be right there, I would excuse such rude behavior. I would find that behavior appropriate. But, no, that�s not the conversation I hear. This is what I hear: �She said what? No. No way. I can�t believe she said that. What was she wearing? OH MY GAWD! You�re kidding right? Well, you can just tell her that I said that he said that she said that my momma said�� You get the idea. I�m offended that strangers aren�t even being strangers anymore. When I�m out, I want to wander amongst strangers. I may not ever speak with them, but I might smile or nod, or something. And, we would both recognize that we�re strangers out wandering in the same space. I might � shit, I would � make observations about that person, as they would me. Observations that we would keep to ourselves. But we would be together in stranger land. That�s all changed with cell phones. Now strangers aren�t even in stranger land, they�re in their own little world, talking to their own little people. I�m offended by that. Strange as that may seem. Here is my message to those cell-phone people: There is a whole big world out there people and you only get to live once. Try connecting to real life occasionally. Oh, and by the way, we can HEAR you when you�re talking about really personal and private things on your cell phone. Just because you block all of us out, it doesn�t mean we all lose our hearing. Especially in the elevator, it being such a small space and all. your thoughts? seed flower