Mile 147

It's one of those days when everything feels a little out of whack. They had a fire alarm today. Everyone went outside, across the street, into an oversized gazebo, and out of the rain. A fireman climbed onto one of the picnic tables and announced that "as a part of fire safety week everyone should check the batteries in their fire extinguishers and make sure the pressure in their smoke detectors was still good". At first I thought it was just me, then the network server sympathetically failed when they announced who the "Employee of the Month" was. On a related note, they renewed the Son of Santa's network support contract today. A bald guy and a pregnant woman in a huge Chrysler challenged me to race to a southside taco stand. I didn't have enough gas for it. An abnormally tall man asked me why they put a buffalo on the back of the Kansas quarter because "everyone knew" that the last buffalo had already left and was swimming to the Phillipines. Is it still "dog paddling" if a buffalo does it?

Mile 147 is an ordinary mile marker on Interstate 40 in the Texas Panhandle east of Amarillo. Mile 147 is 1.4 miles from mile marker 146. This wouldn't matter if not for the fact that Mile 147 marks the secret entrance to the Isle of Misfit Toys. Stop by and say "Hi!" sometime. Rudolph and I work nights there with a small and charming Fish (who's our hero and union steward).