As a kid, I never really liked waking up early in the morning, let alone having to head out into the cold.  But the stillness of the morning and the freedom to run through everyone’s yards while they slept turned it all into a morning adventure.

I got dressed, stepped outside, put on my headphones and loaded up my paper satchel with our local newspapers, still warm from the press.  The music helped me jog for an hour with a heavy load on my back and I  let my mind wander as I worked.

The problem was that this carried over into how I approached school.  If I was not interested in what was being taught, I let my mind load up music and drift away until my interests were captured again.  A world filled with a soundtrack seemed so much more interesting than the real life noises that permeated my day.  If music didn’t fill in the gaps, then I rewrote dialogs to make them more interesting.  A conversation about algebra became a discussion on how a complex math problem that only I could solve will help save the world from a nuclear attack.

“Scott… Scott! Would you please do the next problem on the board?”

“Uh… oh.  Sure.  What was the question, again?”

It became an embarrassing habit, but it kept me from going insane at times. I was a kid who could hardly listen to others and often looked at the school clock like a Calvin and Hobbes strip.  Once the bell rang, I grabbed my headphones, ran to my bike, and went home to read a real book.

So, if you are trying to talk to me and I smile at an inappropriate moment, that’s just the next track beginning.  Carry on.

1. A woman told me that I shouldn’t let my wife eat spicy foods because it would make my unborn child come out with too much hair.
2. When I was checking out at the grocery store, I remembered that I had a coupon in my pocket, so I asked the cashier to pause for a moment  so I could get it out, and the man behind me stomped his foot and yelled, “Hurry up!”
3. After returning from vacation, I learned that my landlord had let himself into our house and turned all the electrical sockets upside-down because he “read somewhere that it was the new code.”
4. While working on my garden, the president of the unofficial home-owners association peered over my fence to inquire if I was growing marijuana. (It was a tomato plant.)
5. After parking my car outside the mall, a group of ladies pointed to my Alaska license plates and yelled, “We love Palin, too!”
6. I was walking on the beach in Southern California and in a discussion about how there was so much garbage on the ground when a resident told me that it was the fault of the recent storm and to just go home.

I hate dickish behavior…  I guess I am too much of a nice guy out in public.   This needs to change, I think.

More of Phil later…