Daily Ambivalence - I wonder what happened the first time somebody said abracadabra

Were they surprised?

I mean, if they made their little brother disappear, sure, but did they get in trouble? If so, I think some of the blame needs to go to the parents. What were they doing with a stand-alone closet in the middle of the room in the first place? That doesn't make any sense.

But magic itself doesn't make sense. That's the whole point.

You get on a plane, for instance, and it takes off. It doesn't flaps its wings or anything but the next thing you know you're arriving at your destination. Boom. Magic.

I guess in a roundabout way that explains why magicians pull rabbits out of their hats and not bags of potting soil.

I wonder what happened the first time somebody said abracadabra . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - I want my headstone to look like an actual head

Now don't you go thinking I'm all into myself. I don't want the head to look like me.

I was thinking Morgan Freeman.

And it would also be cool if they installed those freaky eyes that seem to follow you wherever you stand.

And then maybe Morgan Freeman could record some stuff that played in a loop so that people visiting my grave thought the head was talking to them.

Not a narration of events from my life, you understand, not even famous or inspirational quotes. I was thinking maybe episodes of 24, from season 5. Sure there would be copyright problems but screw them. I'd be dead. And it's Morgan Freeman. Hello?

I want my headstone to look like an actual head . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - my backpack has a secret compartment

I didn't know it until just a moment ago but my backpack has a secret compartment.

And you know, that gives me a brilliant idea. I'm going to play a trick on myself. I've got such a poor memory that I'm pretty sure I'll forget about this secret compartment, and so I'm going to create a time capsule and I'm going to say that in the year 2015 I was a secret agent and King of Saskatchewan all at the same time and won't I be surprised when I . . .

Oh wait, there's already a time capsule in the secret compartment. It says that back in 2006 I was a secret agent and King of Saskatchewan all at the same time.

Dude, I totally wish I could remember that. I was the bomb back in 2006!

My backpack has a secret compartment . . . eh.

That dream about chocolate chip cookies

There was that dream about my chocolate chip cookie recipe and the whole cover up at Sesame Street where it was actually Elmo who always needs a cookie fix and Cookie Monster was just trying to help his friend but then the whole thing spun out of control and Cookie Monster was stuck in his role and his real name isn't actually Cookie Monster but Roderick Alphonse and if you watch closely Roderick never actually eats the cookies on screen because he has a problem with gluten.

Daily Ambivalence - a Nestle Butterfinger will soon have fewer ingredients

I write these words with a measure of trepidation.

If you've never been to my house then I probably haven't shown you my shrine dedicated to the excellence that is the Butterfinger candy bar.

Chocolate - yes.

Peanuts - yes.

Both fantastic things, but a host of other candy bars can lay claim to the same chocolate and nuts boast. I've always thought it was the addition of Red 40 that made the Butterfinger that much better than its cousins. Not the Yellow 5 because, well, 40 is more than 5. That's just simple math.

It could also be the almost-an-afterthought addition of lactic acid esters that makes Butterfinger a "Holy %^#$@! What did I just put in my mouth?" kind of candy bar. Genius move whoever thought of that.

This might all fade into the past, sadly. I saw an article claiming that Nestle has vowed to go natural, as in, stop using products that are identified with just a color and a number. It's madness.

What am I going to do with my shrine?

Maybe my wife can have her sewing room back.

A Nestle Butterfinger will soon have fewer ingredients . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - I signed up for a free trip to Hawaii and now I'm getting tons of spam

Actually, the fact fact that I'm getting spam is kind of a good thing because it got me out of that prison in Juarez, which on a side note is a totally hilarious story and I'll have to tell it some time, at least after the statute of limitations runs out and that old woman in the black dress gives me her recipe for tamales wrapped in banana leaves smothered in Oaxacan mole that she promised.

Back to Hawaii though. Here I am wiggling my toes on Wai'anapanapa beach and I'm checking email on my phone and I'm totally sick of deleting male enhancement emails.

Great, I'm almost fifty and someone's sending me, like, seventy of those emails. That's just mean.

I signed up for a free trip to Hawaii and now I'm getting tons of spam . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - I wish that guy and girl would stop whispering

Ok, I freely admit that starting the bar fight here in Juarez was a bad idea. Those guys at the corner table got the wrong impression about me hating all Mexicans. That's not the case at all. What I said is that I thought their friend looked a lot like Anthony Quinn in the movie The Magnificent Matador, and I really do hate that movie.

Hating all Mexicans? Completely different. I totally don't hate Mexicans. It's offensive to me that they even thought that.

Not that it matters now.

I'm standing in line behind the jail waiting for the firing squad and the funny thing is that I'm not bothered by the intermittent sound of gunfire around the corner as we shuffle forward one at a time, or the bodies being carted past us on stretchers, but that guy and girl in the crowd that keep whispering to each other. It's really annoying. Are we boring them?

I'm thinking about starting another fight.

I wish that guy and girl would stop whispering . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - that guy in the hospital said he is afraid of dying alone

He didn't actually look like he was going to die soon, so I told him I'd come back and check on him in a few weeks. And I totally will.

Dying wishes are one of those things you shouldn't ignore. If I was making a dying wish right now though, I don't think I'd ask to not die alone. In my opinion you've got to be more specific, at least when you're making dying wishes.

Me, for instance, I'd ask to go to Disneyland and then I'd try to die on the It's a Small World After All ride. Then, even if I was alone, I'd be surrounded by all those moving dolls singing the same song over and over.

That'd be cool.

That guy in the hospital said he is afraid of dying alone . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - when I was a teenager my boat shoes smelled like death

It wasn't all that cool to wear socks back when I was a teenager and nobody had invented those one socks that are less than ankle socks that you can't even see when you have your shoes on. You know those? I don't know what they call those socks.

I can still remember what it felt like to slip into those boat shoes. Even if I left them out in the sun for half a day, whatever was growing in there kept the soles at a comfortable 65 degrees.

I'd probably still be wearing those same boat shoes today but they walked away one morning. I think it was a Tuesday.

I wouldn't welcome them back now. I heard they committed a double murder in Tucson.

When I was a teenager my boat shoes smelled like death . . . eh.

That dream about a butler

There was that dream where I inherited a butler from a third cousin twice removed who didn't die but was one of the astronauts taking a one-way trip to mars to be one of the first colonizers and it totally seemed like one of those awful sitcoms from the 80s produced by Aaron Spelling and after a few days a camera crew actually did start following me and the butler around and I found myself in crazy situations almost every week like that time the museum director hid the dinosaur bone in my kitchen cabinet and the laugh track was driving me crazy and I would have told them all to go away but I've always wanted an Emmy.

Daily Ambivalence - that fundraiser for little Jimmy Hinter

I'm going through my receipts for 2014, all the charitable causes I donated to, and here's that $20 receipt for Jimmy Hinter, which makes me wonder whatever happened to him.

I actually regret having written a check to the Jimmy Hinter Fund. I feel like I was a victim of a slick marketing campaign. The cause, now that I think about it, wasn't all that important, but their slogan was so catchy. But really, a fund for boys who climb fences?

Soothe Jimmy Hinter's splinters.

I'm a sucker for rhymes.

That fundraiser for little Jimmy Hinter . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - the problem is, I've got three tickets to Paradise

Yeah, I've got three tickets to Paradise.

Jim wants to go with me, of course. So does Alice. And Ramon, Brad, Angelica, and Sophie are all pretending they're my best friends.

I hear Paradise is great but I know Jim would spend the whole time talking about that cousin of his in Nashville. Record deal. Great. Got it. Thanks, Jim. As for Alice, she does that twitchy thing with her eye and she clears her throat too much. I don't want to take either one of those guys.

Same goes for Ramon. He'd just play that game on his phone the whole time. And no way am I taking Brad. We'd have to listen to that boy band he likes the whole trip. Angelia is hot and all, but how can I ever forget that one time when she took the last fry. And I paid! The last fry! Who does that? Sophie would be fine but she's got that mole on the side of her nose. The paradise guys might not even let her in. I mean, who wants to stare at that if you're in paradise?

I don't know, it's just paradise. Maybe I'll stay home this weekend and do a Harry Potter marathon.

The problem is, I've got three tickets to Paradise . . . eh.

That dream about an epic fantasy quest

There was that dream where I was trying to complete an epic fantasy quest, and so there I was walking on that dusty road with my trusty friends who like me were also once farmers before we found out it was our destiny to save the world, only I was a little depressed because somehow I knew this was only book two in a seven book series and that was a long time and I was already sick of mutton and cheese and nobody seemed to cook with curry around here, so I wondered what the Dark Lord was having for dinner right then and if he would just invite me over tonight for a taste of real food maybe I'd end this whole thing right now and go back to farming.