KICKIN' THE HEAT STROKE TO THE CURB

We FINALLY got a riding lawn mower on Saturday so that I would no longer have to mow half an acre of land in 100+ degree weather with a push mower and come into the house afterwards huffing and puffing like a little pig-obsessed wolf with asthma.

Oh. My. God.

This has to be the greatest invention that's ever been wheeled in to my home.

Point of reference: Usually it takes me about two hours to mow my yard while walking behind a lawnmower.

Yesterday?

Thirty freakin' minutes, baby.

Our backyard, if you can remember by the pics I've posted in the past, is huge.

If you can't remember from the past, here's the pic ...

You can see a little speck halfway in the yard. That's my late dog, Maggie.

Not that she's late for any appointment ... she's dead.

Dogs don't have appointments.

Dogs don't have much of a social life.

I'm sure that most dogs would prefer to have some sort of social life where they'd have to be certain places at certain times, but that's never going to happen.

At least not until someone invents doggy watches that they can wear around their little paws.

But until that day comes, dogs will have to settle for sleeping 90% of the day away and licking their butts the other 10%.

Sorry dogs.

Don't look at me.

I didn't knock yo' mama up.

So anywhooooo .... big backyard.

And I was FLYING around the yard since the majority of the yard has no obstructions.

Susie came out at one point, and I'm trying to look all serious like a redneck trying to two-step.

In case you've never noticed ... when people "country dance" they don't smile. Rednecks take that crap seriously, don't ya know??

But I could not HELP but have this poop-eatin' grin on my face as I had the majority of the back yard done in 15 minutes and hadn't even broken a sweat.

I then made the foolish mistake of letting her cut the front yard.

Oh ... she did a fine job despite her recent track record of TOTALLING VEHICLES.

It was foolish because she liked the new riding mower more than me.

She was cruising around the yard and giving me a huge grin and a thumbs up every time she passed me.

She finished her part of the yard in no time and then just kept driving around after she was finished until I finally made her park the mower in the garage.

For the next several hours we talked about how much we loved our new riding lawn mower.

Yes.

We're some pretty exciting folks, huh?

Friday was the first ... and probably one of the only times that I will ever work all three of my jobs in one day.

Worked the day job.

Went to the club afterwards and worked until 11:30 at which time I put on a Mix CD to the groans of the crowd.

Then went and did a church lock-in for my dear friend Jillie Willie.

I had a good time there except so many of the kids wanted to hear the gangsta rap ... inside a church.

I had to keep reminding them ... you're in a church. No gangsta rap.

Oh. Well then how about some AC/DC?

Oh sure. How about "Highway To Hell"? Or "Hells Bells"? Or "Givin' The Dog A Bone" which is not about giving your dog some meaty bones at the end of a meal ... it's about porking an ugly chick.

Y'see ... AC/DC isn't really church music either.

Finally, the party ended when my freakin' fog machine from Hell set off the fire alarms.

We were in a stinkin' gymnasium ... a huge one at that.

And yet, here's my freakin' fog machine ... once again causing fire trucks to come racing in the middle of the night to find out that it's only Uncle Bob and that stupid fog machine again.

That makes a total of three times I've played and firetrucks have had to come racing to the scene for false alarms.

Yeah.

I'm gettin' notorious.

Yeah.

THAT went over real well.

(Sarcasm).

It started at 9:00 and it was an outdoor party.

I showed up at 8:30 and there was NOBODY there.

I set up my stuff and about 8:55, two guys walked up to me.

They explained that the students were still eating and would be out momentarily.

It was kinda cute, really.

Y'see ... College freshmen on their first official day of being in college are still scared to death to do anything on their own.

They have to be told to do things because they still haven't gotten into that groove of "I'm in college now ... I can do whatever I want!"

They're still subscribing to the "If I do something wrong, my parents will beat me" theory.

Nope.

You're in COLLEGE now.

Your parents will only find out about a tenth of what you do now.

So they all start coming to the area but they're milling about on the far end of the field near the entrance.

I'm having to get on the mic and coax them to me.

After about five minutes of this, they're still nowhere near me. It's like herding unruly sheep.

"Just a few more inches to your right. Everyone move a few more inches to your right. Okay good. Now take three big steps toward the music. Ready? 1, 2, 3. Good. Okay, now take seventeen baby steps toward me .... good."

It didn't help that the Dean of Students was standing there with me and they're all really nervous and this isn't so much a "party" as it is torture for these kids.

I literally played music for 45 minutes from 9:00 until 9:45 with 15 of those minutes actually playing a game instead of trying to get them to dance.

All of a sudden, I put one record on ... you old folks won't know it but it's called "Back Then" by Mike Jones. It's one of those grating rap songs that makes you want to torch your radio when it comes on.

And the kids freakin' VANISHED.

I had about 150 kids and within three minutes, they had all left.

It blew my leetle mind.

The Dean assured me that it wasn't me and my choice of music.

He informed me that A)they had been busy since 7:30 Saturday morning.

B) They were not at ease grinding on each other in front of the Dean.

And C)He had already heard that some of the kids had managed to smuggle alcohol into their dorm rooms and it was time to get their party kickin'.

So I packed my shiznit up and left.

While I was packing, the Dean and I had a great conversation about where to go in town and what to do since he's new to the area.

It kinda blew my mind that I was actually enjoying having a conversation with the Dean of Students at a college.

When I was in college, I did everything humanly possible to avoid seeing our Dean.

And yet, had I not been a sweaty mess, I would have gladly went out on the town with the Dean of this college.

Instead, I drove to the nearest Sonic Drive-In, ordered a vanilla milkshake to celebrate the easiest $400 I've ever made and cruised on home.

I had read a lot of positive stuff about this TV series you have over there called "Little Britain".

It was supposed to be the funniest TV show ever.

Yeah.

So I bought it the other day.

Put it in my DVD player.

And after 20 minutes of excrutiatingly unfunny skits, I turned it off.

Go ahead. If you have the time, click on that link and read the reviews.

You'd think you had the second coming of Monty Python on your hands with this DVD.

Uh-uh.

This was so unfunny it wasn't even funny.

I haven't officially given up on the disc, and I'm sure eventually I'll put it in again and give it a second try.

But my God ... so terribly lame.

Now THAT was a decent show. Not rip-roaring funny, but it doesn't claim to be. It's just a nice, entertaining show about college freshmen.

I remember seeing a few episodes when it was on Fox and enjoying what I saw.

Now I'm halfway through the entire series and loving what I'm seeing.

They even have a party their first day of college, just like my party on Saturday night.

Except they had a hip student DJing their party.

And the party I did on Saturday had a middle-aged fat guy gettin' down to Mike Jones.

And no alcohol.

And the Dean standing there with his arms folded across his chest watching their every move.

So yeah ... I guess there's a difference there.