One True Pants: Anniversary and Wake

bowed headWe’ve done it. The process has taken every bit of tensile strength OTP could muster. But the day has come. It’s official. OneTruePants are dead. Long live OneTruePants.

At midnight tonight it will have been 365 days that the same pair of hemp pants have adorned my blessed lower half. (Heroic music begins as OTP montage rolls.) We’ve had some great times together, and nothing less than the glory of the afterlife will be able to fill the drafty emptiness OTP will leave behind (in all our hearts). But the pants are truly spent.

Through summer heat, winter chill, dirty diapers, spit-up, diarrhea, dog bite, roofing, demolition, wine, chocolate, chili and BBQ, dancing, laughing, crying, two weddings and a funeral, my one true pants have been my rod and my comforter (wait, that sounds familiar).

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Signposts: Filthy, Rotten Liars

Belize Speed Bump SignIn Montana there is a bit of an unspoken rule when dealing with warning signs along roadways. The further in advance the placement of the warning sign from the road condition for which it warns, the smaller the occurrence of that particular road condition.

For example: If you are motoring down highway 93 and you spot a sign warning you of an imminent “Bump” at the same time you spot an irregularity in the pavement no further than fifty feet past the sign, then you best hit the breaks. ‘Cause it’s gonna’ be a doozy. On the other hand, if you fail to see any irregularities in the road what so ever until you have driven another mile, then you can ignore the warning all together. A bump a mile after the warning will end up feeling like nothing more than a pimple of asphalt beneath your tires.

I’ve been wondering if this is how sign posts and warnings should work in real life and good story as well.

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Confessions of a Dr. Pepper Addict

Dublin Dr. Pepper six packHow many of you own an honest to goodness flag emblazoned with the logo of your favorite soft drink? (O.K. several of you.) But do you also have photographic evidence of a college dorm room wall decorated with sticky 12 ounce cans?

Satan’s syrup, white mambo, carob powder. However you pronounce it, there is an addictive chemical used in every can of Dr. Pepper which makes you crave it much more often than fortnightly. While this disastrous addiction is spreading like gangrene across the United States resulting in increased blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, irritable bowel and the sugar shakes, one tiny section of Texas still sucks down their juice pure–the forty square miles between Stephenville and Hico.

The original bottler of Dr. Pepper in Dublin, Texas still shoots their bottles up with pure Imperial Cane Sugar.

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