"they got pigs' feet. y'all want pigs' feet?"

i swear, i swear that i actually overheard a mother say that to her children in fiesta, a local supermarket. please believe me.

also, as promised, here are my thoughts on smoking at a gas station. although i'll be the first to admit that i have very little experience with this activity, given as how i don't smoke, have never smoked, and never wish to smoke; how, if i did smoke, a gas station would be the last place i would light up; and how i have only once actually seen anyone smoke anywhere near a gas station during all my years of life. however, this brush with the phenomenon gave me pause, to say the least, and inspired me to reflect on the personality of a person who would partake in such risky business. such a person, i think, in bringing fire so near a stupendously explosive substance seems to be displaying either a tragic ignorance of or a casual disregard for basic gasoline safety measures. (i don't know what other safety measures one would really need to take with gasoline, except for the standard chemical ones: don't drink it or inhale it or douse yourself in it or get it too much on your skin. most of all, though, keep it away from fire has always been the standard line on gas). if it's the former, it's just sad. if nothing else, everyone old enough to pump gas should be able to read and heed the warning signs that are undoubtedly federally mandated on every pump in the country, spelling out what everyone should already know in big block letters: FIERY CIGARETTES CAN MAKE GASOLINE EXPLODE. however, if it's the latter, if this individual--likely an arkansanian--was aware that the whole joint could have been blown into tennesee if he had flicked his ash the wrong way, some part of me feels compelled to admire the guy's bravura. sure, he's risking his life and the lives of dozens of people around him. sure, he could carelessly cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. sure, he knows the dangers. but he just doesn't care. it's hutzpah at its best. it's hubris and it's idiotic and i can't deny that some pathological corner of my soul eats it right up. it's probably the same corner that loves steak and firecrackers and guitar solos and those bone-rattlings hits in football where a defensive back lines up a receiver going over the middle and knocks the guy's hat off and spins him around 90 degrees and drops him like a sack of potatoes.

some part of me likes all that flash-bang, but the rest knows what's good for it, and so if i ever saw someone smoking at a gas station again, i'd drive away even faster than i did the first time. which would be very fast indeed. that way, i'd outrun the blast but see it pluming gorgeously skyward in the rearview mirror.

step on it with me,
TR