I do not like riding in a vehicle when I am not driving it. I found myself in a scenario the other day where I had to ride in a car with a complete stranger at the wheel. I would not say I experienced fear, but more unease, about not being in control of the car. Maybe this guy has had 150 car accidents in the last year. Maybe he really sucks at driving, or is perhaps one of these road rage people you hear about on the news. To make matters worse, he was in a rental car, so it is a vehicle he is not familiar with. Yet even worse, we were on a really busy major Texas highway. Unlike busy roads in a lot of places, where there are so many cars that its bumper to bumper slow type traffic, in Texas you can have really busy roads where everyone is going 70+ miles per hour. So to top everything else off, this guy is from out of state, so he is unfamiliar with the area and has no idea how to get to anywhere, and the entire time, he is trying to talk industry business. Also, for some unknown reason, this dude was listening to a Spanish talk radio station, and the volume was just loud enough to be annoying. All this is a perfect recipe for some sort of accident.

So after a few near misses, I started thinking about what it would be like if we got into an accident. At 70 miles per hour, it is quite likely that I would be thrown from the vehicle, or at least the car would be crunched up and pin me inside it. I do not believe that I am claustrophobic, I don't particularly mind being in small cramped spaces, so long as I am in control and I choose to be in such a scenario, but I don't think anyone would react positively to being forced into a small space without the possibility of being able to extract yourself from it.

So anyhoo, my heart started racing, and I was on the edge of my seat. Was this guy going to get me killed? That would be weird. I then started thinking about how my family would feel. It would be sad for them to have to deal with a situation where someone else was completely responsible for my being dead. Would they file a lawsuit against this person, assuming he was still alive? What if he died and I walked away unscathed, what would that be like? Could I handle being pinned in a crushed car, maybe with some serious injuries. Could I relax enough to make it through until a rescue team could extract me? That would be sme serious mind over matter work to do.

After going through all the possible outcomes over and over again, I sort of realized that there were no alternatives to what was happening. I could not get out of the car. I would also have to ride in the vehicle again on the way back to the office. So with some work, I was able to calm myself down and just accept the fact that whatever was going to happen would happen, and there is nothing I could do to change the outcome.

It made me think about fear. Is there a difference between fear and anxiety? I feel like what I experienced was anxiety. Fear, to me, is some sort of phobia of a known threat. For example, if you fear spiders, and you see a spider, you are afraid, so you have experienced fear. I do not think this some something that you can control. On the other hand, anxiety seems to occur as a reaction to something unknown, a perceived or anticipated danger. I think that fear could cause anxiety, but I think that anxiety could be controlled to prevent fear. For example, if you think a spider might be in the area, you could convince yourself that there isn't, until you know for sure.

I don't know. I can't figure it all out tonight, so I'm just gunna hang with your daughter.

I just don't get dancing. I never have. Have you ever watched someone dance? It is stupid. I have always hated dancing my whole entire life. When people try to get you to dance, they are assholes. If you dance with someone, you secretly want to fuck them. If someone dances with you, they secretly want to fuck you. I am not sure where my heart felt opposition to dancing stems from.

While I was growing up, when there were school dances, I avoided them. If I was pressured into attending one, I would hang out on the sidelines and pretend to be busy doing whatever. As an adult, at weddings and other such nonsense, I avoid dancing at all costs. In grade school, in physical eduction class (gym class), I was forced to dance. Typically square, although I seem to recall some other styles as well, but I may have just imagined those. This was always a fucking nightmare for everyone involved. Children should not be forced to touch each other under any circumstances. I hated dancing then, so whatever caused my hatred of dancing started
before then, so I cannot imagine the source.

One night, as an adult, some friends, male and female, dragged me to a "club" of some sort where dancing was going on. They pleaded with me to dance on a dance floor with probably 50 other people, and I simply refused. At one point, these "friends" of mine, literally grabbed me by the arms in an attempt to pull me into their retarded desire to dance. I got violent, and at one point, I believed that I was going to be forced to throwdown and kick some ass over it. Ridiculous.

I never was good at dancing, but I feel like no one really can be good at something that has no set rules or boundaries. I never even wanted to be good at it. Dancing could consist of damn near any movement, set to music or not. Its odd that dancing is judged, on TV and/or in real life. At any given dancing scene on any given day, anyone dancing is being judged by someone else.

There is one time. Once. In my entire life when I enjoyed dancing, and it was not even a real scenario, it was more of a drunken joke. I was flying high on the alcohol, and whatever else, and I happen to be wearing a 70s leisure suit of all things. It was not Halloween or anything, its just how I roll sometimes. Anyway, an impromptu break dancing competition broke out in the kitchen. I had just enough liquid courage to think it might be a good idea to try and win the breakdancing competition. There were several people there enjoying the event, so its not like it was just me and one other person. I don't recall all the details of my moves, but I know I ended with the most awesome backspin ever, and clearly won the competition.

I have thought about my hatred towards dancing quite a bit over the years, and I have yet to come up with a reason why I feel this way. I guess dancing is just dumb.

In summary, if you dance, you are a gay assfucker.

Why is it that the most unqualified people are usually the ones giving the most advice, on subjects they know practically nothing about?

I went to Oktoberfest the other day. There were literally thousands and thousands of people there. So many people that its pretty much shoulder to shoulder when you are anywhere near the huge food tent, or any beer service lines. Sometimes the beer lines are so long that by the time you get to the front of the line, you have to go right back to the end of the line and start over, because your beer will be gone by the time you reach the front again. Now, I have always sort of hated crowds. Something about the noise that crowds make rubs me the wrong way. But, at some point, being immersed in a large enough crowd sort of makes the crowd kind of disappear. The crowd can be so ridiculously loud and big, that it turns into something completely different. This is mostly the case at Oktoberfest.

The first few times I went to Oktoberfest, my group would walk around and browse all the German wares, and visit each exhibit, and experience the entire thing. Over the years though, it has more or less just turned into getting together, eating German food, and drinking mass amounts of German beer. There is nothing wrong with that at all. We don't get together very much I suppose, so an annual city organized event gives everyone an excuse to hang out together.

So, I was at Oktoberfest and I was walking around, generally looking down as I walked so I didn't trip over stuff or another person, and I notice a pack of cigarettes laying on the ground. I pick it up. The pack appear to have been trampled on quite a bit, but was generally intact. I pick it up and take a peek inside. There are 19 cigarettes in the pack. Someone spent their hard earned cash for these fine Camel tobacco products, smoked one, and somehow managed to lose the rest. I suspect they fumbled while attempting to reinsert the fresh pack into their pocket, due to so many people bouncing around. Score.

I announce my good fortune to the group. Hey, check this shit out, fate has brought me a fresh pack of cigarettes, one shy of 100%! I look around at my team, and most of them have a confused or hesitant look on their faces. Wha?

I commenced to busting out one of the Turkish delights for a smoke.

Whoa! You aren't going to smoke that are you?

eh? Whatta you mean? Of course!

These peeps were freaked out that I was going to smoke one of these found cigarettes. I explained again that there were 19 of the 20 left. Clearly someone had inadvertently dropped them. What did they think? Was it possible that some weird sicko bought a pack of cigarettes, smoked one, poisoned the rest with anthrax, went to Oktoberfest of all places, found a good spot, put them on the ground, then stomped on them, with the intention of killing some random fool who just could not resist the cool smooth pleasure that only a Turkish tobacco could provide? Give me a break! Did they think someone had shat upon them, or used them as some sort of butt plug, or perhaps merely urinated on them? Oh Come on! It is not like I had a cut on my leg, so I found a nice used band-aid, or like I found some previously chewed gum to enjoy.

What if I had found a twenty dollar bill. Clearly someone has already used the money. Clearly they didn't mean to drop it. Would they have the same dumbfounded look on their faces if I picked up some money? As a side note, I would wager the cigarettes were cleaner than any found money could possibly be.

I later offered one of the cigarettes to a fellow reveler. He was hesitant. There was another conversation about how they were obtained. I eventually said, just smoke the fucking thing, it'll be OK. He did.

I found the entire thing quite interesting. What would you do in this scenario? Would you have smoked the cigarettes? Maybe you don't smoke, but suspend your disbelief and pretend that you do. Or, in your reality, let's say it was a fresh package of gum, with only one piece missing, and clearly untainted in any other way. Would you chew some?

I took the cigarettes to work a week later, and I offered one to a dude. I said, hey, I found these cigarettes on the ground at Oktoberfest and they were stomped on, you want one? He said, heck yeah! and smoked it right up. He didn't bat an eye or ask any further questions at all.

So, I guess it boils down to a person's sense of adventure. I have sort of taken on an approach that life is a garden, dig it. When something delivers itself, it should be taken advantage of. Maybe the unseen forces wanted me to smoke those cigarettes, so they put them there for my benefit. Life goes by pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. That's your homework for today. Find an opportunity, and capitalize.

OK, so that wasn't about unqualified people giving advice at all I guess, too fuckin bad.