Random Thoughts

  Yesterday I stopped by the drug store looking for some children's Tylenol.  I was comparing store brand to name brand and decided to go cheap.  Identical in their make up with and extra .02 ounces, you can't go wrong.  I walk around the store for a little while wondering if there's any candy I want to buy or if they carry Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi and finally go up to the counter with the bottle of medicine only.  The lady rings me up and before I go she says "I hope your little one feels better soon".   She has no idea how much that meant to me.  I was in Rite Aid.  I normally go to Kinneys.  I'll be going back to Rite Aid more often.

  Tonight I was sitting in the truck waiting for D to finish talking to his friend so we could run into town to buy milk and a lottery ticket.  I'm listening to the radio when the song "Hysteria" by Def Leppard comes on.  I crank it and all of a sudden I'm 17 again, listening to the radio with my friends.  It was so good back then - hanging out, drinking cheap beer, smoking cigarettes and pot, pretending to be cool.  The best part was the making out.  The anticipation of what could happen, the talking about it the next day with your friends.  It's funny how music can transport you like a time machine. 

  When we got into town we were at the gas station when a woman came up to us and asked how to get to the next town.  After we gave her directions D asked me if I knew who she was as I had called her by name.  As I started telling him her story I started tearing up.  The year I turned 17 was the year she lost her 19 year old son.  All those good times I was telling you about in the last paragraph caught up to us in June of that year.  I was in a motorcycle accident (drinking related) and laid up.  Less than two weeks later her son and another boy, both of which I loved very much in their own way, were in a car accident and killed instantly.  Also alcohol related.  She was never the same after that.  Neither was anyone else that knew them.

  My dogs are allowed to get up on the couch now.  We were training them not to, for the last year and a half.  Then we decided, one day for no reason, that we missed them and who cares if you get dog hair on your clothes.  It washes off.  I love the feel of warm dog laying next to me with their head in my lap.  We don't get a lot of company, but we sure do get a lot of love and puppy kisses, and isn't that all that matters?