The good lord just made me this way.

Yesterday I was, through no fault of my own, dragged into all manner of ugliness. It was part recovered personal property, part custody dispute, and part asylum hearing. People think I am cool under pressure, but dealing with that during the day, then coming home to watch my Yankees lose to the Red Sucks is almost more than I can bear.

So there was a small detail about this weekend that I forgot to mention.

While at the house party in San Pedro. You remember the house party in San Pedro? Our host decided to turn the conversation to the most useless artifact. A 4 X4 piece of wood roughly 18 inches in length. Our host had gingerly sanded the piece of driftwood with some gauge of sandpaper. I don't know you would have to ask JEC, but there was something uniquely funny about the gauge of sandpaper our host used. Anyway back to the gingerly sanding part. Our host had sanded it to where he was reasonably certain that you could rub the wood in any way and for any duration and not get a splinter.

Surely not?

Was my initial thought, but not in the way you think. Surely JEC had not brought me to a place where I was expected to speak intelligently about a piece of wood. There were demonstrations. For a brief moment I contemplated throwing myself off the balcony and spending the rest of the evening connected to a morphine drip. But I learned long ago that it is best to pick your battles so I feigned interest in the driftwood. Big mistake.

After a few hours and several beers our host and several guests got it in their inebriated minds that it would be fun to bring the splinter-free driftwood to some vato cholo bar. Those of you that have witnessed my powers of persuasion won't be surprised with this little bon mot:

"There is no fucking way I am going to that bar wielding a piece of driftwood."

The issue soon became moot. Given enough alcohol the average human quickly develops the attention span of a Chihuahua. Our host and guests quickly forgot all about the driftwood and the bar the moment someone mentioned carpet. This gave JEC the perfect opportunity to abscond with the driftwood. Why he did this was of no concern, I was simply overjoyed that all of a sudden manslaughter had ceased to be the order of the evening.

Seven shades of thrilled to be leaving San Pedro, we giddily raced back to Long Beach driftwood in tow. Where you can pick up this story below at The Pike where I, refusing to be one-upped by anyone with a beard, stole a beer glass.

Fastforward. Yesterday.

I am reading a friends blog and I am startled to realize that someone, her name is not important but it rhymes with cotton spittle phoney, is planning on returning the driftwood to San Pedro. Since I am still convinced that we barely escaped with out lives, or at a minimum without a felony indictment, I am understandably concerned. This link here will take you to further discussion on this issue. And I apologize if yesterday's discussion thread became confusing for some.

P.S. Following the jump, please disregard all discussion of cross eyed boyfriends. It is way way beside the point.

And if you get a sec. click here. I'm feeling nasty and I want to destroy you.