Subway

Last week, the Captain was riding the subway home from work. Our subway system has no turnstiles. Instead, your ticket is checked by a highly paid, unionised employee who is also in charge of general crowd control, policing, and so forth.

Since the employees are highly paid and unionised, there aren't a whole lot of them. And since there aren't a whole lot of them (and, I assume, they're giving priority to resolving potential or actual Situations over checking tickets), not a lot of ticket-checking goes on. It's not uncommon to go months, even years, without being asked to show proof of fare.

So on Friday, the Captain was asked to show his proof of fair. He absent-mindedly pulls out his transit pass. The transit cop points out that he hasn't scratched out whether this is a transit pass for zone one, two, or three. Quite true, he hasn't. He scratches out zone one.

Walking home he notices that he has forgotten to replace his pass this month. He is riding on July's.

My daughter is on acid. She hears orange, thinks it's very pink today, and feels sorry for eight having to be there by mean Mr. Nine. She's usually having a good trip, but it's been known to go the other way.

My older son is on marijuana. He's happy and laid-back. He always has the munchies. He really, really likes Scooby Doo.

I don't know what my younger son is on. He buzzes around happily doing something or nothing, and then at the ninety minute mark he erupts in shrieking, the world's most hideous broken alarm clock. He does this at ninety minute intervals throughout the night, and sometimes throughout the day. He has this shriek that penetrates your reptile brain and urges you to suffocate him for the good of the tribe, lest a sabertooth tiger eat you all.

On the other hand, it's plausible that like a skunk or a hedgehog, his shriek is a way of signaling to sabertooth tigers that eating him isn't worth the aggravation.

I could be on anything, except I've got a massive addiction and I haven't had it for three days. In other words, today I could plausible feature as an addict in Intervention.

The problem is I didn't do any drugs (i.e. have any fun) to get here. It's just a manifestation of living with the world's loudest broken alarm clock.