Mess With the Bull, Get a Horn.

Upon driving Marc home after a leisurely afternoon man-date at the mall, I commented that I was feeling tired. I followed up that comment with a comment that I should try some of that Red Bull Energy Drink. It gives you wings, you know. Marc relayed the information that the Shoppers Drug Mart up the way kept a healthy stock, so I decided, upon dropping Marc off, that I’d go and get some Red Bull and give it a whirl since when I got home I had farm chores that required my attention.
.....Standing in front of the chilled shelves that held the drink in question, I read the can: “Warning, do not exceed 500 ml in one day.” I thought, “Lets go maximum.” I took two cans, went to pay, yes to Optimum card, got my change, and went, somewhat lethargically to the van. I started the van and cracked open the first can. I took a sip. I was some what anxious about what the drink might taste like and my initial response in that respect is as followed:

Red Bull tastes like what I'd expect pink cotton candy melted and mixed with crushed aspirin and seltzer water to taste like.

.....Not exactly delicious, not exactly horse piss in a dog doo-doo rimmed glass, but just this side of tolerable.
.....In the advertisements that I’ve seen on the tube Red Bull purports to give you a boost of energy or as they call it, “Wings”. Well, in my case, it gave me ass-gas as well as another enjoyable side effect.
.....Read on faithful reader, read on.
.....Half way home, a 15-20 minute drive the way I drive (I drive like your grandma gorged on a bottle of tranquilizers while blaring Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon" with the windows down), I’d finished my first can and was feeling, aside from the gas, nothing at all. “On to the second can,” I thought, shrugging my shoulders and tossing the empty over my shoulder. *crack-psssh* (That’s my attempt at onomatopoeia for what a can opening sounds like. Shut up, it’s dead-on.)
.....Finishing a third of the second can, I stopped. South of the boarder an uprising was welling. My pants were suddenly a size too small. My third leg got stiff. Euphemisms not penetrating? In other words then:

Wood like you or I have never seen.

.....I’m not talking soft pine; I’m talking fossilized redwood here. This is the hard-on of legends, I shit you not. And frankly, I’m getting a little worried.
.....Have you ever heard the story about that guy who was hard for days? At first it was all fun and games (no, no one lost an eye) but then after 4 days it hadn’t gone away and he could not sleep or urinate because of the pain? He eventually had to go to the hospital, where subsequently he and Pedro went under the knife? This is the prospect I’m currently dealing with. Yes, it’s only been an hour, but my body has grown chilled while my pants are on fire. Excuse the lack of sense this post might exhibit, but all the oxygen rich blood has travelled out of my brain and is currently funding the revolt below.
.....I still don’t get the whole “Wings” deal though. Maybe it’s a veiled reference to your balls filling like sails in a warm breeze. That made no sense whatsoever. Blame the Bull.
.....It’s 4:44, I’ve got a painfully happy full pair of pants and must go feed my dogs.

To Protect and Serve (u tickets.)

If you’ve ever found yourself with your chest against the front fender of a police cruiser with your hands immobilized in cop-issue restraints, you’re intimately familiar with the words “To Protect and Serve”. We all know what it means to “protect”, and I’m sure we all know what it means to “serve”, but the word “serve” has another meaning. Keep in mind that semantics will play a part in this post. I realized that other humorous meaning that I’m sure many other drivers have realized upon getting a ticket. I realized it as Officer J. *Sivklyis (I don’t think that name has a proper consonant to vowel ratio) proceeded to say, “This is a ticket for not having a safety inspection sticker.” If you don't get the joke, get pulled over. You'll laugh, maybe not loudly, maybe you'll curse me, but you'll laugh -- Guaranteed.

.....Let’s back it up a bit, that introduction was purely for stylistic and shock value purposes.

.....I was on my way home from town with my mum riding shot gun when I realized, “Oh shit, I need to get gas for the lawn mower.” So I stopped at a gas station just outside of town. As I stepped down from my beastly truck, which by the way I had just washed, a police officer bum-rushed me and asked for my license and registration. I gave it over without hesitation as he asked, “Where’s your safety sticker?” I responded, “What sticker?” Officer Sivklysi retorted, “The yellow sticker. Your truck needs a yellow sticker.” I’ve known about the infamous “yellow sticker” that officer Sivklyis was referring to, but only on large, 18-wheelers and commercial trucks, so I told him that. He said, “Hold tight, I’ll be back,” in true cowboy fashion.

.....When he returned he had a ticket in hand for 255 bones. The crooked toothed officer explained that since the GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) of my truck exceeded 4,500 kilograms I needed to have an annual inspection done. I didn’t take the ticket right away while reasoning, “Yes, annual. The truck isn’t a year old yet. I don’t even carry the limit in this truck. Heaviest thing I carry is straw.” He said, “It doesn’t matter, as soon as this truck comes off the lot you have to have it inspected.” I stared him in his pseudo-oakleyed glasses and could see he was positively throbbing to give me a ticket. He then proceeded to point at my rear wheels, “This is a dually, it’s heavy duty. You need to have it safety checked.” I said, somewhat flippantly, “I know it’s a dually, I bought it.” He then threatened, "Hey, look. I have the power to take your plates and have your car towed." (If you know me, you'd know this is some fuckin' serious, military-grade deja vu) I realized at that moment this guy wasn't going to tear up the ticket and let me go on my merry way. I took the ticket, smiling, and as he turned to walk to his police van, not car, van, I yelled out, “you didn’t give him a ticket.” And I pointed to the same exact model truck, same year, but in silver, that also did not have the yellow sticker as the driver in it sped away from the gas pump abrest of my truck. The officer, struggling with his girth to get in his van, yelled out as he attempted to mount his shitty cop van, “I can only give one ticket at a time, sir.” Sir. That has to have some latin origins that means, "I'm politely calling you an asshole" in certain circumstances.

.....I turned away and said, “Racist,” quite loudly continuing my intentions of filling up a gas can so I could cut the grass tomorrow. Officer Sivklyis didn’t bother asking me what I said because he’d already gotten his jollies from the ticket serving.

.....So. Let’s go over the facts.

1. My truck is less than one year old. Doesn’t annual mean “once yearly”?
   
2. Shouldn’t my dealership have told me this bullshit? (Not that I blame them, they just sell the truck)
   
3. And this is a big one: if you’ve ever bought a used car you know that you cannot register the car for driving on the road without first having it “safety inspected”. Why then was I allowed to register my brand new truck without getting this yellow sticker that it so desperately needs?

Assholes.

.....Let me tell you another story. My parents recently came back from the Philippines where they are the proud owners of a 1980 mazda pick-up truck. It’s a hunk of shit, and I feel sorry that I cannot buy another truck for them… yet. While they were in Manila, the largest city in the Philippine islands, their truck stalled because it ran out of gas. My dad didn’t know it had run out of gas because the gauge gives faulty readings. Sufficed to say, mom and dad caused traffic in an already congested area. There is traffic EVERYWHERE in Manila, and the traffic here does not compare to the traffic there. You could actually die in it.

.....While trying to get the truck to start, a police officer came up on them.
.....**“Is there something the matter, sir?” the officer asked.
.....“The car just stopped, I’ll get it started, don’t worry.” Dad replied.
.....After a few dry cranks with the engine not turning over, the officer said, in his kindest, most sincere voice, “Sir, you are creating a lot of traffic. I’ll just push it.”
.....Dad was stunned, and as he moved to go out and help push the officer said, “Oh, sir. It’s okay, I can manage. Just steer, sir.” And off they went, with the police officer pushing dad, mom, and their quarter-ton truck out of traffics way.

.....Now that’s serving.

.....What would a Canadian cop have done? Maybe he might’ve pushed. Maybe. But maybe he would’ve written a ticket and called a tow-truck. That seems more likely.

.....Maybe the officer that pulled me over was cranky, maybe he was having a bad time with the wife (or husband, we are in Ontario after all), maybe he just didn’t like seeing a young Asian kid behind the wheel of a brand new sixty-thousand dollar truck. Whatever his reason, shouldn’t he have given me a warning? Shouldn’t he have told me, seeing as that I wasn’t pulling anything heavy that the truck at the time, that I need the sticker and he’ll let me off? Couldn’t he have listened to my reason and let me off? He could’ve, but he chose not to. So much for that "Mr. Police man is your friend" bullshit they feed us in elementary school. Friends don't write friends tickets, assholes.

.....Well... Since officer-lacking-a-few-vowels didn't take my plates or have my truck towed under the suspicion that my brand new, not a yet a year old, truck isn’t safe, I’m going to gunna go back out on the road now and smash my truck into the first cop cruiser I see and blame it all on a faulty accelerator. Officer Vowelless will be in some deep, deep doo-doo foesho.

Toodles.

N3RD-0 OUT.

*Name changed, don't really feel like getting sued for slander.

**Translated from Tagalog