Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy “celebrity immersion” by following tabloid television shows, fingering through celebrity magazines, and tweeting through award ceremonies. Not that there is anything wrong with this kind of behavior …

Me? I’d rather watch the World’s Tallest Man try to lay down in a regular size bed because I am fascinated by extremely inappropriately sized humans. Another thing I’d love to see would be a car built to the proportion that would be necessary to transport the World’s Tallest Man, hopefully not built by Toyota.

And while most people would marvel at the shoe size of the World’s Tallest Man or wonder where he gets his socks,  not me … I’d like to see him perched on the World’s Only Proportionately Accurate Bar Stool. Seriously, how cool would that be?

I completely understand that Extreme Individuals, as I like to call them, risk being exploited by circuses and carnivals but that falls under the jurisdiction of People for the Ethical Treatment of People. I also understand Extreme Individuals come with Extremely Uncomfortable Lives that make it difficult to move, walk, eat, sleep but I inappropriately choose not to think about that part of their situation.

I’ve never watched an episode of Little People Visiting It’s A Small World or whatever that show is called, but I am without a doubt enjoying every moment of 22 inch tall Ping Ping’s life. Now that Ping Ping has reached his eighteenth birthday (legal man age) he plans on getting professionally measured in hopes of getting into the Guiness World Book of Records.

My personal hope for Ping Ping would be to see him walk down a red carpet and be asked, “Who are you wearing,” only to have him shout back “Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary Line” as he smiles and waves. That, to me, would be good television.

For example, although we are on the no-call list sometimes solicitors sneak through the “system” and manage to find me.

*Disclaimer: If you are an amputated veteran or know one or love one or know a neighbor who might have an accountant that is one I apologize in advance.

I routinely get calls from the *Amputated Veteran’s Society (not their real name) asking me for money because these amputated vets needs stuff. I usually zone out once they start talking about light bulbs and garbage bags for sale but I wake up again when they ask if I can help in just a small way by purchasing three cases of their products (available in any combination).

*These callers are never amputated vets themselves. They just try to talk like one. I have nothing against vets. I swear. I tear up when I see really big American flags, I stand the entire time during most parades. I stand out of respect but also because the constant up and down, up and down, up and down thing get me crazy. I even cry during that one coffee commercial where the vet secretly comes home and wakes up his parents with the smell of fresh brand name coffee on Christmas morning. That soldier’s parents are all cheerful where I would have been angry because I don’t like surprises no matter how much I missed my kid. Oh, I put my hand on my heart during the Pledge of Allegiance AND the National Anthem. That’s serious respect, people.

Anyway, while I am on the telephone I am wondering what the veterans actually need and why can’t we just have a concerned friend of a real amputated veteran put together a grocery list of requests and we could send them magazines or videos and whatever else it is instead of us having to buy stuff we don’t really need.

So, my mind is rambling and even though I was thinking this In My Head I must have announced it aloud to the caller. I told the American Veteran’s Society that about ten minutes earlier I donated fifty dollars to the American Starfish Society (A.S.S.) because they have the ability to grow new limbs and the starfish are trying to help the amputated veterans.

Caller: Are you sure?

Me: Yes, I am sure. I am sure starfish can grow new limbs and I am sure I gave them fifty dollars via PayPal. The A.S.S. explained that since starfish can grow new limbs they should learn more about starfish and help all the amputated people in the world and not limit themselves to veterans.

Caller: Silence.

Me: Hello?

Caller: I was not aware of this program.

Me: Now that’s a surprise because I thought A.S.S. was International, maybe they should concentrate their efforts in your area. A.S.S. is where it is at, I’m telling you now.

And our conversation concludes. And I wasn’t asked for anymore money. And then I realize that maybe I, too, could be a scammer during these tough economic times.

I am not saying the caller for the amputated vets was scamming, I had a revelation that I might be really good at scamming. I’ve got a quick enough mind to take people in directions they never saw coming. Up until now I have used that power for good. That is, until I invented A.S.S.

Here’s a few more of my invented organizations:

Santa Has Icky Teeth (S.H.I.T.) By donating to me I could help all the mall Santa’s get their teeth whiter and brighter and even teach them how to enhance their smile.

Common Rodents Are People Too (CRAP2). I would just work off of PETA’s mailing list on this one. Ka-Ching.

People Have Unnecessarily Clean Kitchens (P.H.U.C.K.). By purchasing my not-quite perfect sanitizing products they could keep the right amount of germs necessary so our bodies are experience the inability to fight bacteria. If you would like more information on that you can take a nominally priced on-line course entitled People Have Unnecessarily Clean Kitchens Education (P.H.U.C.K.ed).

Now, who wants to be on my call list? I can add your name for a small fee.

I mean, I know it was me. It was my thought process, seen through my eyes, carried out with my skin which surrounded my bones. It was me. Even though it was someone else’s lifetime ago, I still know it was me.

Six people also know it was me. Two of them have since died. One of them is in prison and is eligible for parole in 2018. One lives in Colorado, on Spring Court (I know because I checked this morning). One is a doctor and I’m choosing to believe the HIPPA agreement is retroactive. The remaining one lives in my zip code.

And any one of those six people could take me down at any given moment. Well, maybe not the dead ones, but the one in my zip code actually did successfully take me down in the past. I ended up looking stupid. And I got judged by a lot of people that didn’t know anything about me. And I didn’t stand up for myself, I got what I deserved.

I have to live with myself and my actions. This includes my thought process, my eyes, my skin, and these bones because even though it was a different time, it was still me.

Yet years later, I can only control me. I’m not worried about the two dead guys talking, they are a done deal. The one in prison probably won’t make parole. The one in Colorado is a treatment facility on Spring Court and really can’t be taken too seriously. I talk to the doctor twice a year. It is part of our guilt-wrapped friendship. It is the individual that lives in my zip code that freaks me out.

When you do a shitty thing and learn a valuable lesson, it doesn’t erase the shitty thing. The valuable lesson can make you a better person, keep you goal driven, give you peripheral vision, and a lifetime of what might have otherwise been overlooked opportunities. But it never erases the shitty thing.

And like Tiger Woods, I still live just one degree from some idiot deciding they need to talk again.

One of today’s headlines has new allegations regarding Tiger Woods. I’m not going to click on it. And I challenge you not to click on it.

A McDonald’s straw wrapper

Old french fries underneath my car seat

Three pieces of gum with the foil attached

Four Tic Tacs and one dryer sheet

The swim suit bottom my daughter had lost

When she was only a size 6 X

Four pencils

One pen

Two Lego men

A Tinker Toy and three K’NEX

Este Lauder Lipstick

Had melted real quick

Earthen Nude, Limited was the shade

Twenty dollars a pop, in a sweet little glop

Nothing left but the stain that it made

Nineteen Kleenex balls

Seven Tootsie Pop wraps

An Addidas sandal, navy blue

A Nike golf club

A parking lot stub

A dead wasp, no wait, make that two.

Looks like a litter of puppies, doesn’t it?

I told you so!

Directions are super easy.

1. Let your kid pick out what ever clothes they think make them look their best.

2. Print your Valentine message from your computer.

3. Have a super fun photo shoot!

4. Print out as many wallet size pictures you will need.

I miss sweaty kids.

I miss being on the swing set.

(Don’t judge me, I like being on the swing set.)

And I miss letting my alpaca roam.

(Alright, I don’t have alpaca, but if I did this one would be my favorite.)

Remember when it was warm enough that you could

actually take your snake for a walk?

Yup, I miss green.

What do you miss?

Alright, that plan didn’t last long. I didn’t get cold but the air pressure in the car was making my ears go all wooblie and I couldn’t handle it. But for about three and a half minutes I was in my zone.

I was headed towards a community two zip codes away from mine, I’d been on this road so many times I could have done it with my eyes closed.

Seeing the farms, the shops, and the gas station brought me back to a different point in time.

About ten years ago my friend Barbara Christine and I were the second car to arrive at the scene of a fatal accident. We were in white out blizzard conditions during an unforecasted snow storm. I slowed down before the accident scene, tapping the brakes hoping the person behind me would notice. The deceased person was behind the wheel and my driver’s side window was parallel to his. I’ve seen dead people before, but never with my kids in the back seat.

The first person at the scene had already called 911. I don’t even remember if that was a man or a woman, but I rolled down my window and they approached. The person nodded their head in the direction of the deceased and said they were gone and now there were two goals; one keep the other driver from learning that fact right now and two, prevent any more accidents.

And as I looked at the guy slumped over the wheel, his bloody head arched at a sharp unexpected angle, his vehicle was rear-ended. I saw the body lunge forward, fling backwards towards the seat, and jut forward again over the steering wheel. It happened in real time speed, yet in my mind it keeps occurring in slow motion. I can’t eliminate the memory and I can’t make it speed up so I can hurry through it. The sounds plays out in slow motion, too. There was no squealing of tires because there was zero visibility, just the crashing crinkling crunchy sound of metal collapsing.

I’m probably the last person anyone would call in case of an emergency. Sure, I am the emergency contact on school forms for a bunch of my friends’ kids but by then the emergency has already been resolved and I would be nothing more than a simple Plan B that would hang on to said kid until a parent could step up to the plate.

As I craned my neck to check if it was safe to pull to the side of the road, I saw the young man. This was the first time I saw the driver of the other vehicle, the one from the original crash. I’m guessing he was about 25 years old, medium build, wearing blue coveralls and driving a company truck. His image is burnt in to my mind, too. Only his scene plays out in real time.

He was pacing, mumbling to himself, very animated and drenched. The snow was falling fast and heavy. I quickly parked on what I was hoping was the shoulder of the road. I told Barbara Christine I’d be right back. I think my exact words might have been, “Keep the kids busy.”

I popped open the trunk and grabbed my blankets. I’ve always got blankets in my car. Not any extra boots, not a flashlight, not a gallon of drinking water or a first aid kit, just blankets. These were heavy wool “car” blankets all of them plaid and none of them very big. The purpose of a car blanket is to cover yourself while you are in your car, I don’t know the exact dimensions but they are significantly smaller than regular sized blankets.

I remember running across the highway to the young man. I dried him off with one of the blankets. He bent towards me so I could wipe off  his hair.  I  “dried” him until he straightened up. I think he just wanted to be touched. I convinced him to get back in his vehicle which was in the ditch. I tucked carefully tucked him in under the thick blankets. I did an “exaggerated tuck,” the kind where you scoot the blanket just a little bit underneath the person so they feel tightly tucked in.

I told him to stay in his truck where it was safe. I asked him to sit tight and wait the emergency crew come to him. It was then that he spoke, “I didn’t see him,” my eyes were locked into his as I told him everything was going to be alright. I knew right away it was a lie. Almond shaped, cocoa brown, heavily lidded, black specked eyes. And I lied right into them.

I ran back to my vehicle and Barbara Christine suggested we start driving forward with our flashers going and blaring our horn. Hopefully we’d alert other drivers.

The fatal accident never made it into our newspaper. I didn’t know the names of the victim, the survivor or the first person on the scene. I’ve never forgotten about the crash. The slow motion movie and sounds effects run through my head less often than they used to but not seldom enough for me to be comfortable. I now keep more blankets than before in the back of my vehicle but now they are full sized. If I ever have to tuck someone back in their vehicle I’ll be able to do a better job.

My lie to the young man bothers me. I didn’t know what else I could say. I told him everything was going to be alright. Those were intentional words, carefully chosen. I didn’t say, “It wasn’t your fault,” because that wasn’t up to me to decide but I should have said, “It could have happened to anyone,” that would have been closer to the truth.

If I can be transported ten years backwards with virtually total recall after a glimpse of a twelve inch plastic cross on the side of the road, how can everything be alright for the man in the blue cover alls driving on Highway 23 West during an unforecasted blizzard?

It must really be horrible to be famous and have people wanting a chunk of you. I’ve always thought of David Copperfield as a well-groomed man of mystery. I also imagined that he would smell good when he wasn’t working. If he would smell good on the job you would be able to tell where he was going to be next and that would ruin the entire illusion. He would leave a fragrance trail that could expose the exact path he took to get from Point A to Point B.

I’ve got a really good sniffer myself. We’ve got a couple of cats and I can tell as soon as someone takes a leak in one of my VERY clean litter boxes. I am able to detect urine in a baby’s diaper within seconds after its appearance. Basically, if David Copperfield was incontinent I could totally destroy some of his phenomenal illusions.

So back to David Copperfield, which is one of those names where you always have to say the first and last names together every time he is referenced. He is not a David and he is not a Mr. Copperfield. But he is very much a David Copperfield, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, much like David Copperfield, I like stuff. I don’t have warehouses of stuff like he does, but because I don’t have a garage right now I do have a storage unit of stuff.

So the feds have been sifting through David Copperfield’s stuff because he is famous and somebody said something crappy about him. From what I have seen on CNN highlights, our international man of mystery has some way cool stuff. Much more cool than my stuff, but there is no way I would want the feds rifling through my stuff either! I would look suspicious for just about any crime they would want to pin on me. I would be a profiler’s easiest day at the office.

** Hmm, she’s got a decapitated Barbie doll. It appears to be one of the originals but why would she have a naked Barbie with chewed off fingers wrapped in one bag and the head wrapped in a totally separate bag?

** Hmm, here’s a monkey with it’s lips colored brighter red than the original lips were intended.

** Look at these baby dolls, they all have holes punched in the sides of their heads.

If a stranger looked at my stuff I would come across as a self-maiming baby-mutilator with mommy issues where in reality I am less colorful.

** Yeah, Barbie’s head is off. She’s almost fifty and her neck is shot.

** Sure, I tried to recolor my monkey’s mouth once its lips faded from me washing it’s little monkey face.

** Big deal, I tried to pierce my babies’ ears. Who hasn’t?

But peoples’ stuff in storage is private. If there is an investigation going on within David Copperfield’s warehouse I don’t think it is my business to be invited along in for the once over. If given the opportunity I would gawk and stare and tell my friends everything I saw, but I don’t think I should be given the opportunity in the first place. I love my friends dearly, but invite them into my storage unit for a look see? I don’t’ think so.

Stay strong, David Copperfield. I think it must really suck to be you right now. I’ve never been in the spotlight to the degree that you have been, in fact the closest I’ve ever come to a spotlight is the light that goes on when you open the refrigerator door. However, I have had my private life scattered around in a somewhat public manner and it is a miserable thing to have to go through and. I can appreciate the tremendous amount of stress that must be in your life right now. I have no words of wisdom to offer you except that this will pass. Perhaps once the authorities are done with your warehouse and you think there is faint urine odor where some chief of something may have whizzed on your biz, call me and I can help you determine the exact site of contamination.