"That was one of Poison's big hits in the eighties, 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn.' The title, the official title, 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn,' has the word 'It's' spelled I-T-apostraphe-S, which is the contraction of 'it is,' so, that would be 'Every Rose Has It Is Thorn.' Makes very little sense, but that's the official title, so...there you go."

--heard on the Eighties at Eight show with Kelly Turner, KRTZ. Cortez, CO.

"...hate it when people assume, just because I have a tattoo of a marijuana leaf, I must be a pothead. Maybe I just..."

--snippet overheard from two guys walking out of Wal-Mart as I was walking in. I was tempted to follow them to find out all the perfectly reasonable explanations why a non-pothead would get a pot leaf tattoo, but clocking in on time took priority.

"Evil is a valid lifestyle choice."

--one of the dozen or so kids in a group at Denny's. Durango, CO.

"It's not a purse, it's a messenger bag."
"And the message it's carrying is, 'Look, I'm gay!'"
"Don't be so clothes-minded."

--a couple of teenage (or young twenties...the older I get, the younger young people look) boys walking through Wal-Mart, Cortez, CO. I admit, the last words might have been a mock-lisp of 'closed-minded' but this is what I heard, and I'm sticking with it.

"We need a new spider."
"I'm sorry?"
"I killed the spider that was living under the shelves, and now the ants are out of control again. So we need a new spider or two."
"What will you do if the spiders get out of control?"
"Stomp 'em, I guess."
"Oh. I was hoping you'd say you'd get a bird."

--a couple of employees at the Ute Mountain Cafe, Cortez, CO.

"Dude, the only way I would order it would be with the foil on the side, and the caviar shoved up the chef's ass, 'cause I am not eating fish eggs on my fucking ice cream."
"With one of those black cards, you could probably pay the maitre d' to do that."

--Two guys kicking through the snow in the alley behind my house. Cortez, CO.

In a (I think) related note, my wife and I got cable TV hooked up last week. This is the first time in my life I can watch VH1, Comedy Central (Drawn Together! Yay!), etc, in my own home. A long-standing Crue fan (basically, ever since I discovered there was more to music than the country crap my parents listened to), I looked in on Remaking Vince Neil. My morbid curiosity was overloaded when I realized he no longer looks like Vince Neil--he looks like Jon Lovitz playing Vince Neil in a sketch about aging rockers. I'm serious. Neil could be Lovitz's long-lost brother. Or maybe it's just me...has anyone else noticed? Or cared? Anyway. I might check in on it again later, to see if the resemblance is still there, if there's nothing else on, which will probably be the case.

/pointless exhausted ramble.

"What does it even mean?"
"Uh, well, obviously...it means...if you ever break down, then you should always send the guy in the chicken suit for gas, because.... Because, look, three handsome jocks, two pretty girls, that's basic heterosexual, but if you keep the doofy chicken guy there too, then, like...that's perverted."
"That makes sense."
"I'm glad it does to somebody."

--a couple of people in a group wandering through Wal-Mart in the wee hours of morning. Cortez, CO.

"I don't think you should call the customers 'ass-nuggets' anymore, Rob."
--a man talking on his cell-phone while he walked around Wal-Mart. Cortez, CO.

"Grr. Animals, they're just frickin' animals. Not clean animals like cats, not friendly animals like dogs, no, some kind of nasty herd beast like...goats or, or yaks. Frickin' animals."
--an employee muttering angrily, not quite under her breath, while gathering up a number of items that didn't belong in her area, at City Market. Cortez, CO.

Oh, yeah: Since I have to listen to Christmas music every day already, I thought I might as well spread some early Christmas cheer myself. Work-safe, but a bit noisy.

A license plate: "AWWNUTS"

A car with a home-printed bumper sticker: "Somewhere in Texas a Village is Missing It's Idiot"; beneath, written in felt tip, someone had added "But we still have our's."

"It's a little racier than I remember it."
"No, and then, like, they put lips on the dick and it started singing..."
--the guy on my right, remarking on Les Miserables during intermission, and my wife on my left, telling her mom about the god-awful porn we saw in the hotel room before going to the theater.
Popejoy Hall, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

"Oh my God! It's a chocolate dildo!"
"It's huge!.... I wonder where she got the mold."
--a couple of older ladies browsing at The Candy Lady in Old Town. Albuquerque, NM.

"I can get most of this stuff at Safeway."
"You can't get seaweed at Safeway. And what about the sugary squid snacks? Oooh, and Inca Kola. 'The Golden Cola.' Snazzy, eh?"
"Okay, well, I can get most everything I actually want from Safeway."
--an older man and a young woman browsing the isles at Ta Lin World Food Market, Albuquerque, NM.

"It'd be like bringing a date to your wedding, son."

--an old man to a teenager, at the mall in Farmington, NM. Now I guess the question is, what would be like bringing a date to your wedding?