LA Lesson learned today: Apparently smog checks don’t cost the same thing at every mechanic. In Texas I do believe the yearly state inspection sticker always cost fifteen bucks. So when I plunked down fifty today at my closest mechanic I thought nothing of it. The rest of the day I passed smog check signs that read “$24.95!” I should probably go back and complain, right? I mean, fifty bucks!

Which lead to my favorite conversation of the day:

PAMIE
Fifty bucks!

STEE
Debt free by thirty…one!

PAMIE
Ha.

STEE
Wow. Look how pregnant that lady is. She shouldn’t be carrying groceries. It looks like she’s trying to steal a basketball.

PAMIE
I don’t think I’d be pregnant like that, just in the tummy. I’m pretty sure I’d be pregnant everywhere.

STEE
You’d look beautiful. **

PAMIE
I’d be pregnant in my neck. I’d look like Olive. Head and then WHHOOOSH! Everywhere.

STEE
It’s not that Olive is fat. She just sits fat.

PAMIE
I’m pretty sure I sat fat for years.

STEE
Hey, did we just pass Chingy?

PAMIE
I was just about to ask you that. That’s Chingy, isn’t it?

STEE
Yeah. You know where he was?

PAMIE
Right therre.

STEE
Right therre.

PAMIE
I’m gonna wave to Chingy. I just did it. Hi, Chingy!

STEE
He looks so happy in his new Escalade.

PAMIE
He does look happy. I hope he follows us home. Can we keep him?

SOUND OF SCREECHING

STEE
Whoa! What was that?

PAMIE
Chingy almost hit someone.

STEE
So busy talking to Big Boy on his celly, talking about the Holiday Inn, he almost plowed into some people–

PAMIE
And four of their friends. Right. Got it. Hey, if we saw Chingy actually hit someone, we’d flee the scene, right?

STEE
Instead of testifiying against Chingy? Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.

PAMIE
“The People versus… Chingy.”

STEE
“Chingy, I’m gonna need to see your registrrration and proof of insurrrence.”

PAMIE
“Officer, he was driving right therre, and then he kinda did a swerrve, which caused him to hit that carr, and then that carr, and then that carr right therre.”

STEE
That court room would be like a video, with the sexy stenographer, taking off her shirt in the middle of the proceedings. Big, white angry judge pounding his gavel. Snoop’s the lawyer.

PAMIE
“The defense rizzles!”

STEE
And we just wrote your new entry.

PAMIE
Sometimes it’s just too easy!

** – He probably said that. I can’t exactly remember. It was words to that effect. What? Shut up.

Currently Reading:

• Henry’s List of Wrongs, by John Scott Shepherd
• Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon, by Chuck Palahniuk
• CD in Heavy Rotation: Hang On, Mike by Candy Butchers