Silver Lake

I've safely arrived at my destination, and I am tired, but I still have more than half a country's worth of stalls about which to write (the unit to measure stall amounts is called the "country"). I will begin to finish this thankless task in the morning. There are no jokes is apparently one joke in this post.

More Thoughts on Cat Condoms

Another possibility demanding the urgency of condom use among cats is an outbreak of feline immunodeficiency virus, known best by its technical name, Kitty Cat AIDS. While sexual activity is one vector of transmission, the virus can also be spread through scratches, bite wounds, and snuggling. Such casual transmission would, of course, require the condom to cover not only the cat's genitals, but, in fact, the entire cat. While the enormous condoms that I personally require (but do not use, since pregnancy prevention is a woman's concern, and acquiring a fatal sexual disease could never happen to me) could easily fit a cat (and often do), not all men have been endowed with a cat-sized (and shaped) penis, so some men may need to purchase a different condom to protect their pussy. Cats native to Southern Indiana must be rather small because the condoms specifically indicated for cat use were advertised for their "Slimmer Fit."

Housekeeping III - Picture Cropping

This damned electric printing press is cropping the right sides of my pictures against my will. While several posts ago I bravely mustered a laissez-faire attitude towards the random formatting, shrugging it off as God's will, I naggingly worry that if I do not stop this atrocity in its tracks, before long it will be cropping my family. Thus, going forward, I will be attempting to correct it through such tried and true techniques as HTML troubleshooting, opium eating, and self-mutilation. Please bear with me through this difficult time.

Feline Prophylactics

If you look closely at this out-of-focus and unpostworthy photograph (which would indict me as a failure and a hack had that not already been made voluminously clear), you'll see that some thoughtful gentleman went to the trouble of blacking out several letters on the second and third Hygeia condom labels, altering the content of the message. The result: "1 Premium Cat Condom." Southern Indiana must be suffering quite the epic bout of feline promiscuity if men are depositing three quarters at a time to buy condoms for their cats. I did, however, notice a plethora of roadside billboards advertising vasectomy reversals, so perhaps neutered cats, having achieved financial independence through their unprecedented success in the theater, are taking advantage of those services. I should mention that I did not see a single cat during my visit to the Sunoco at exit 29 of Interstate 64 (where this picture was taken), but if I had, I would have demanded he use protection.

Kentucky Looks Outward

An industrious fellow named Howard Johnson built a two-story hotel on Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona, and I write to you from within it (room 205, to be exact). Several days ago (I have fallen tragically behind on the delivery of my findings), I drove through Kentucky, where all the grass is blue and the horses all play basketball. Considering the great variety and nonsensicality of the local culture, I was surprised to find such a worldly potpourri of issues discussed on the walls of the men's room stall at the rest stop at mile 63 of Interstate 70.

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This is quite possibly a remnant from the Revolutionary War, when anger at the Crown reached its zenith and impudent Colonial scribes penned fiery pamphlets bemoaning the immense suckitude of the United Kingdom of Britain.

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An ancient and sacred symbol dating from the Neolithic period, this particular image, called a swastika, denotes good luck. Mischievously appropriated for a short time by a pesky band of ne'er-do-wells, it has apparently reclaimed its rightful place as an emblem of peace and magnanimity in many parts of the rural American South.

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Not often do I receive the great honor of following an honest-to-Goodness celebrity into the stall, but such was clearly the case in Kentucky! As you can see from the above picture, I was obviously preceded by none other than Democratic presidential candidate and black separatist Muslim Barack Hussein Obama! Truly, hope springs eternal in the human bowel.

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Drunk with excitement from the Obama near-miss (and eager to report my findings to the Department of Homeland Security), I was in the process of leaving the stall when my good eye caught a familiar sight scrawled faintly into the pale yellow paint. Could it be? Yes! The initials of my most elusive quarry, KKK himself! What a rich yield had this stall provided me! I should have known when I saw the swastika that luck was on my side, and KKK would not be far behind, or ahead, as the case may have been. And as goes KKK, so go I. Onward!

Brief Update from Albuquerque

I write you from a Starbucks in Albuquerque, New Mexico, daintily sipping an iced coffee, which, I must admit, tastes terrible, and I loathe myself for drinking it. The mo-tel in which I slept last night (room 111, Americana Motel, Tucumcari, NM) had not yet been connected via a series of tubes to any of the Internets, thus I was unable to continue my blogtastic journey into the heart of the American stallmonger. I have, however, continued to accumulate stunning photographic evidence, and I pledge to share it with you this coming eve. Take heart, pitiable cyberdenizens, for your bottomless appetites for trivial pseudo-anthropology shall soon be temporarily satiated once again.

Housekeeping II - Format Wars

My technical ineptitude is not limited to photography. As you can see from this web-log, formatting problems abound. Line spacing rejiggers itself willy-nilly. Pictures are reframed and occasionally embiggened or consmallered. As I have neither the time nor the inclination nor the wherewithal nor the interest nor the humility to delve into the weeds and figure out why these published blog posts don't match their previews, let's assume for the sake of expediency that it is all happening this way for a Reason, and that this format is the best of all possible formats. I should no more concern myself with my line spacing than a leopard should concern himself with my spots. Internets, I submit myself to thee.