Monk was the reason I went to work for Barker Tools, what was it, sixty-nine, seventy? He was district manager working out of Kingsville. Hired me as a field rep. You bumped into some squirrely sons-of-britches in the oil patch, I kid you not.
My first delivery was on the old O’Connor Ranch. I had to take a tool to a rig out there. It was early and I turned off on to that dirt road, and I wasn’t sure where the durn rig was, and when I got on the road I noticed a sign that said speed limit thirty-five or forty or something like that, but I guess I made a wrong turn, you know, my mind was on gettin’ the tool to the rig.
Anyway, I turned around and took another dirt road and, you know, I’m not particularly thinking about anything else, and the first thing I know this fudgin’ pickup roars up practically in my face and nearly frickin’ runs over me.
Ship! I hit the brakes and this prig in the pickup stops and rolls down his window and says, ‘What the fuss do you think? Did you see that forking sign back there that said’ forty or thirty-five or whatever it said, and you know I have visions of this son-of-a-brick pullin’ a gun out right there.
So he says, ‘I’m the foreman of this gapding ranch and I want to know who the flip you are and what the flux you’re doin’ here,’ and this mudflapper’s looking like he’s about to take my head off.
So I didn’t know what else to do and, you know, it’s amazing there are shimheads like that, they don’t have the courtesy or common sense to know or act civilized, or whatever, that here’s somebody that needs to do something, and all they think is he’s out in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden they’re jumpin’ your case like that.
Anyway, I could see the rig and I said, ‘See that tool in the anus-end of this car? That rig over there’s waitin’ for it.’ So he said, ‘Oh, OK, but watch your flappin’ speed, OK?’ And I told him, ‘OK, I sure would watch it.’ What else could I say? Acehole.
(Moss’s Reckoning, Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
EthicalDative 
“Carnage”
If I were a movie critic I’d be chronically behind the times. I shy away from movies that are popular. I don’t think I’ll ever see “Avatar” or anything labeled “Shrek.” It took me years to get to “Titanic.” Too damned successful.
However, I’ve watched Roman Polanski’s “Carnage” four times in the last couple of weeks. I recall some coolness from critics about it when it came out, but I think it’s a tour de force. It has the Aristotelian unities that come from good stage plays (Yasmina Reza’s in this case).
Four characters within the confines of an apartment and hallway rip each other to shreds (psychologically) in less than a day. I get hilarity-bends over the entire spectacle. I don’t want to examine too closely my propensity to laugh when things are going to hell.
It’s trite to call “Carnage” a dark comedy. It’s better than that. Jody Foster, as “Penelope” (“Darjeeling” to her husband Michael), can ape an engine gunned to the limits of the nuts and bolts that hold it together as well as any actress I know.
Cristoph Waltz, a hunk with a Dick Tracy chin, is masterful as the corporate pettifogger constantly running interference for his Big Pharma client on the cellphone from, yes, hell again.
Kate Winslet (“Doodle” to her husband the pettifogger) exudes edgy class, and suffers his callousness with winces (and hurling) until she doesn’t any more.
John C. Reilly mimics a “mitigator” to the point that he can no longer keep his shirt on, by which time he’s snarling “I love you” to his mother and sucking a cold stogie.
I liked the movie. You might.
(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)