"When the astronauts moved to my neighborhood, all the leaves fell off the trees." - Colby, Upright Citizen's Brigade

Your tax dollars at work. Yes, the astronauts have a Monster™ Truck®.


As we were sitting watching Monster™ Trucks®, little did I know that a tragedy was unfolding, and I was smack dab in the middle of it. Let me explain.

The Boy and I were watching the Monster™ Trucks® perform. I noticed that every few minutes an Air Force commercial would play on the JumboTron (almost as big as the TV’s they sell at Best Buy nowadays). I then noticed that as the Monster™ Trucks® would race, they put a bracket up. In the upper right hand corner of the brackets was the Air Force logo. Huh. The Air Force sponsors Monster™ Trucks®. I was in a small way perturbed that the Air Force would spend our tax dollars (or even the dollars that the government just prints up) on advertising.

I was mistaken.

The Air Force doesn’t sponsor only sponsor Monster™ Trucks®. They own a Monster™ Truck®. Really. The Truck® in question was the Air Force Afterburner©. Our military owns a Monster™ Truck®. Let me repeat that: Our military owns a Monster™ Truck®. Now, at last, the reason that the Soviet Empire floundered can be told. We won the all important Air-Force-Controlled-Monster™ Truck® gap. How the hell could Gorbachev compete with that? (And, how the hell does spellcheck have Gorbachev in the dictionary??)

Frankly, with the demise of the United Soviet Socialist Republic (not the Californian one, the Russian one) I thought that we could beat our Monster™ Trucks® into riding lawnmowers. Peace, dude. No. The United States still retains our Monster™ Truck® advantage – I’m thinking that this is so the Chinese don’t ride coal-fired Communist© Monster™ Trucks® right into Smalltown, USA. Heck, maybe we keep the thing to scare the Swiss. Never did trust the Swiss, what with their little red Transformer© knives.

Here’s where the whole unfolding tragedy thing fits in. I’m thinking that actually driving the Air Force Monster™ Truck® must be the best job in the whole military. That must be the job that that astronaut dude just got, and his spurned, insane x-girlfriend couldn’t take it.



Q: How long does it take to drive from Houston to Orlando?
A: Depends®

Does it look like she smells like pee?

The Mrs. commented last night, “I hope that no astronauts move into our neighborhood. Bring the damn property values down.




So, that’s how I fit into the whole unfolding alleged-nutty-psycho-cheating-mother-tramp-astronaut-boiling rabbit woman saga. I feel so dirty. Makes me want to take a long shower, but she’s out on bail now. I’ve seen psycho.

As I alluded to last time, the freestyle Monster™ Truck® competition was actually interesting. The Monster™ Trucks® did acrobatics that would make Paris Hilton blush, jumping off of 30’ high mounds of dirt and landing on all fours ready for action. Wait, isn’t that exactly what Paris does?



$200,000 of your tax dollars just sitting on dirt in a Houston stadium. Doesn't it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?


The first bit of drama came when Air Force Afterburner© flipped, and the dashing young astronaut driver jumped up out of the steaming wreck and dashed up into the seats in the stadium. I must say, I’m not an alleged-nutty-psycho-cheating-mother-tramp-astronaut-boiling rabbit woman, but he certainly did look courageous in a “just wrecked a $200,000 piece of government property” way. Perhaps the designers of the Air Force Afterburner© did some work on the Mars missions . . . maybe they needed metric tires or something.


As you can see, the USAF can fly not only planes, but cars. That must put fear into the heart of whatever tinpot despot rules Vermont now. Stupid Vermont.

At 10:00 The Boy became very agitated. I pulled out my earplugs and listened to his voice over the roar of the hydrocarbon powered behemoths down below.

“Daddy, it’s 10:00 PM”

I looked at the clock. Indeed, The Boy was correct.

“Daddy, it’s supposed to be over at 10:00PM.”

I was puzzled. “The Boy, are you having fun? Do you want to go? Do you have an appointment with Stephen Hawking to discuss the postulate that the quantum instability at the event horizon of a black hole will lead to eventual mass loss and dissipation of the black hole resulting in the eventual entropy of the universe leading toward a thin smear of subatomic particles being the end state after 1X10^200 years? Assuming proton decay, I mean.”

“Respectively, Father, yes, no, and no. Stephen had to postpone.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“Daddy, it’s supposed to be over at 10:00PM.”

Let’s just say The Boy is nothing if not punctual.

The Monster™ Trucks® continued their acrobatics for the next 38 minutes. One of them (Taz©) caught fire. There’s nothing like watching $200,000 go up in smoke, though that must be cheap compared to the cost to train a alleged-nutty-psycho-cheating-mother-tramp-astronaut-boiling rabbit woman astronaut.


Okay, I only paid $20.00 a seat, and I got fire. That's value. It could have been better if they had burned some money.













The eventual winner, Maximum Destruction©, flipped and spurted oil everywhere. Somewhere there’s an astronaut joke in that. I’m just not going there.

Anyhow, getting out of the stadium lasted almost as long as the show. The Mrs. talked to The Boy via cell, and The Boy had the longest conversation I’ve ever witnessed.

I used to hope The Boy would grow up to be an astronaut, but, heavens, who would want an astronaut in the neighborhood?