A year ago, I was paying around $2.40.9 for the high test that the VQ needs to operate at peak; a year ago the Tampa Bay Rays were at the bottom of the pack, the name “Sarah Palin” meant nothing, my investments were sound and my house was worth a cool quarter mill.
Now, the kid walks, the G has 11,000 additional miles on her, the house is a 150K shack, the stock market crash has removed a hundred large from my net worth, gas is $3.55.9 –and nearly everyone knows about Palin and the incredible turnaround of the Famous Rays.
Last year, my ulcer was an undiagnosed ticking bomb and I could glom Beck’s at will. Today, beer is forbidden. So is pizza, fried foods and anything from Taco Bell. And I’m seriously thinking about un-retiring and finding a job somewhere, due to the ugly feeling I have that the poorhouse is suddenly very close. Also, due to a recent speeding ticket, I no longer have a virgin- pure driver’s license.
I got the ticket driving into Tampa on I-275. Unbeknownst to me, the authorities changed the speed limit on 275 from 70 to 55 where it enters into Tampa Metro. I blew into the zone at 75 and the cop was RIGHT THERE, ready with his ticket book.
BAM!!!–20 over.
I sat on the side of the freeway eating my liver under the glow of soft, flashing blue lights as the cop wrote his damned ticket and the parade of lumbering Ohio motor homes, left-lane monster SUVs and 8-Mexicans-in-a-smoking-Corrolla coasted on by, vehicles I successfully passed down the road long ago.
How things change.
Anyway, it’s my nearly first birthday at NICO, and I’m celebrating the occasion by sipping ice water and dreaming about the old days when pepperoni was one of my personal food groups and Beck’s was mine for the asking.
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