Laughing Gas

Hello World,     G-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-A-L-L-L!!!!! Personally, I don't follow soccer, but apparently it's been interesting times afoot (get it?!) at the World Cup lately, and not just your ordinary everyday tournament, like all the rest of the time. (Yawn!) The teams have made it through the Knockout Stage (I have no idea what that means) and into the Round of 16, so from here on in, there's no room for error - and no more cream puff teams like Nigeria for an easy win when you need one. Mind you, to me this sounds just like every other World Cup that's ever been, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but the hardcore fans will tell you otherwise. Even in the local newspaper, there's been a story about the games every day in the Sports section, and whenever you hear anyone discuss the playoffs on television, ALL THEY DO IS YELL IN ALL CAPS!!! AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! AS IF THEY ARE ANNOUNCING A CURE FOR CANCER!!! OR A NEW ERA OF WORLD PEACE!!! rather than goals and penalty cards, for heaven's sake. And this is without even watching the USA (men's team) play, because even though there is a 2-year period to qualify for the World Cup beforehand, the USA men failed to qualify during that period, primarily by losing to Trinidad-Tobago, of all things. But there are still plenty of teams to root for (like the USA women) and for a variety of reasons, like Portugal's hunky Cristiano Ronaldo from those hilarious TV commercials - and that's a good enough reason for me, by golly. Also rooting against the Russians, which is usually the safe post-Cold war approach, after all. And may I say, for the KGB agents monitoring my email (whose name is Legion, heaven knows) "I love Mother Russia."     Of course, this week also included Independence Day on Wednesday, so I certainly hope that you declared your independence from drudgery and boredom, and instead, tossed off the shackles of tyranny to the old and irrelevant, by charting a new course to the refreshing lands of fun and frolic. While it's always nice to have a day off, with the holiday falling smack in the middle of the week, as it did, it made things a little more complicated than usual, for businesses deciding which day(s) to close besides Wednesday, if any. On the home front, it fell to The Flag Brigade to hoist the colors in the morning, as usual, and although it was a near thing, they actually remembered to take them back in again later. (Whew!) This is what I consider a successful outcome in the patriotic realm, and I don't mind saying, without a shot being fired. Garcon, more watermelon, if you please!     Bill noticed early on Wednesday that the neighbors had erected a rather large and unsightly sort of screen house in their back yard, as if they were planning to have a party, but since it was already about 2:30 PM, and not a sound to be heard, I was prepared to rule that out on purely logical grounds. But sure enough, when we checked in with them again around 6:00 PM, the place had gone full-on Mariachi, and there was no mistaking the furious guitars and pounding maracas, making it sound much more like the 5th of May than the 4th of July, amigo. And while I stand by my assertion that there is no wrong way to celebrate holidays, I think The Holiday Police would frown on this one - and that's not just the tequila talking, believe me.     Also on the local scene, I had to borrow Bill's car last week, when mine was in the shop for a pre-vacation tune-up, and glad to report that both cars lived to tell the tale, as it were. Driving home from work, I happened to notice that the gas gauge in Bill's Neon had moved into a whole new category of fuel quantities - going from FULL to EMPTY and then to FUMES, thanks not. Now, our old friends the dinosaurs will tell you that I can take a joke as well as the next fellow, but I still wanted to get home (not to mention, with the Neon also) and it should go without saying, without having to push it there at the end, and once again, thanks so very much not. So I dutifully pulled into the first gas station that I came to, and hopped out in a jaunty manner, and one might almost say, with a song on my lips. I had already put on my handy gas station gloves and was striding purposefully to the pump, when it hit me suddenly that I didn't know where to find the release lever for the gas cap door, and I would have to find that before I could pump any gas. "Oh well," I shrugged, "How hard could it be to find the thing, after all, there's a limit to where they could hide it." Au contraire! (That's French for "Hit the gas!") I checked under the dashboard, as well as on the floor and the door of the driver's side, but came up empty, much like the gas tank. (In my car, it's on the floor.) As long as I was already on my hands and knees at the gas station, I checked the dashboard one more time, and the whole door frame while I was at it, to no avail. I admit that it had me stumped, and I began to despair of ever uncovering the secret to unlocking the gas tank's mystery portal, alas. Anyone else who is the past or present proud owner of a 2004 Dodge Neon, already knows the punch line to this unfortunate sort of shaggy dog story: Apparently this is a car that doesn't have a locking gas cap door to start with, it just opens when you pull on it, and go right ahead and unscrew the cap. Unlike my Chevy, it seems the engineers at Dodge couldn't care less if any old schmo walks up to the Neon, opens the gas cap door with impunity, and after that, all bets are off. And while I'm happy to pitch in for the sake of family harmony, I think we can all agree, once again, thanks so very much not.     And just when we think we can happily envision the prospect of a long and balmy summer stretching out before us - full of endless days and nights of sun, surf, sand, and smiles - bursting upon the scene and popping our carefree summer balloons, I see that the pro football camps are opening on July 22, believe that or not. (Boo!) I don't mind saying that I consider this nothing less than an unwelcome cold weather interloper in the midst of our lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, and a textbook example of seasonal creep at its worst. (And when I say "creep," I do mean creep, in the creepiest sense of the word, I assure you.) So please hurry up and take this as fair warning that summer is a fleeting treasure, and almost before we know it, we'll be knee-deep in winter's icy grip once again. Oh, and did I mention that I love Mother Russia? Elle