The Czar in Winter

The time is 9:25 and I am listening to a song by the Jayhawks. Ok, I’m not actually listening to it, but it is stuck in my head, and for a person with O.C.D. that is as good as listening to it. We have a full plate today folks. We have ski talk, one great moment in O.C.D. history as well as interesting shoe devices. So let us begin without hesitation.

Blogski

So I went snow skiing last weekend. Yes, you can do that an hour or so away from where I live, yet another nice thing about living out here.

I said I went skiing and I was just about the only person on the mountain who was. Everyone else, and I mean darn near everyone else, was snowboarding. I felt totally out of place and very uncool. Then I took a good look at myself and remembered that I was uncool and so this was pretty much a normal feeling for me.

When I was younger and first started skiing, only potheads and punks snowboarded. Now everyone does and I thought this weird. I then realized that I am in California, where nearly everybody is a pothead or punk, so what else did I expect? (I know, I know, we have gay people here to, but they didn’t fit with my skiing routine.)

In addition to all of this I got sunburned too. This should come as no surprise to anyoen and let’s just say the snow wasn’t the whitest thing on the mountain. I hate that it is 40 degrees out in the middle of the winter and I can get still sunburned, doubly so due to the sun reflecting off the snow. Sunburn is the kind of thing that should be summer only. Beaches, camping, swimming etc. I should be immune to it in winter.

Speaking of colors, I noticed once again that the black man does NOT like skiing. Every time I go I notice this, it is all whites and Asians on the slopes. I saw maybe 4 black people and oddly enough all had dreadlocks. Hince I arrived at the conclusion that dreadlocks = extreme sports in the black community.

I asked a couple of my black friends back in Dallas about this once and they both said the same thing. That black people don’t ski because A. It is to freakin’ cold and B. the white people gots to be crazy to go flying down the side of a mountain with boards strapped to our feet.

They said black people think we are nuts to go sky diving, bungee jumping, snowboarding, rock climbing, mountain biking or any other extreme sport, unless they have dreadlocks of course.

I informed my black friends it’s not because we are crazy, although many of us are, but that since black people dominate football, basketball and baseball (golf now too-thanks Tiger) that us whities needed to create new sports that we could be good at.

I do have one thing from this trip…

Great Moments in O.C.D. History –

So one of the guys in my cabin brought some flip flops for him to wear in the shower. I did not. (Ok that makes two great moments because I had to stand in the nasty public use shower with no shoes on but I digress.) Anyway, they are some popular brand design whose name I can’t remember. He showed them to us and then said, “Look, check out the bottom.” He lifted raised the flip flop up and low and behold, on the bottom was a little nook cut out of the foam and in the little nook was a bottle opener!

I laughed because nothing says frat boy like the emergency bottle opener. Then I realized to my horror that people somewhere have actually used this invention. I told the guy, “dude, that’s disgusting. Think about all the nasty germs on the ground. Think about the floor inside the men’s bathrooms. Would you really use that to open something going in your mouth?” He laughed and agreed it was pretty gross. I can’t believe anybody would even think of such a thing. The guy then went on to tell me that they make one version that has a little flask in the heel you can drink out of. I would call that the Boot Liquor model. It is probably even worse then the bottle opener.

So that got me thinking.

What other great items could we build into shoes?

-A pop out knife blade, like the Joker had in Dark Knight. This would my preferred shoe device.

-A condom. This would be the other shoe the frat boys could wear. It would compliment the bottle opener well.

-A corkscrew, the next obvious choice as well.

-A cigarette lighter. It might melt the rubber of the shoe but it would be a great opener with girls. “Hey mister, got a light?” You lift up your shoe “Boy do I.”

-The new Apple I Crocs with a built in MP3 Player. Just plug your headphones into your heals and jog away. Dare I make a joke about soul music?

Really the list can go on and on. Mace, lipstick, garlic (for vampires or emergency food seasoning), screwdrivers, pens or pencils, Napalm, compass, deck of cards, GPS, flash drives, you name it and you can probably fit it into a shoe.

Of course, Maxwell Smart had the shoe phone and I once read a G.I. Joe comic book where Snake Eyes was captured and thrown in a jail cell. He kept a saw blade in one shoe that he used to cut through the bars and sneak out. Brilliant.

Once my brother even kept Skittles in his socks and shoes, an infamous story those that know him can ask him about.

So you see we could really be onto something here and I could be heading for the big time. Anyways gang that is about it for now. If you are offended by the term “black” people as used earlier then I suggest you reread this and substitute the words “African American” wherever you see the word, “black. Then you won’t be offended. Later.