This morning I saw a transformer blow. I had just parked behind the coffee shop when I looked across the street and noticed a bright blue light glowing near the top of a utility pole. It was amazing—I'd never actually seen blue fire before (which is probably for the best, seeing as how blue fire is VERY VERY HOT). The flame got larger and larger, and it was blazing out from the box in a corona of ethereal blue tendrils. It really was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. In fact, I was so fascinated that I didn't even think to move; I just stood there, mesmerized. I do remember having the presence of mind to estimate the distance between myself and the pole, determining that I was at minimal safe distance if it should happen to fall in my direction. I also considered taking a picture with my cellphone for posterity's sake. All at once there was a tremendously loud pop, like when you're too close to the place where they set off the fireworks, and the transformer went KA-BLAMM-O. I hunkered down by the car, and my right ear (the one turned toward the explosion) began to ache a little bit. Ouchie.

So this was my idea. Hey, maybe I could be the next Survivorman! I could teach myself to survive in the wilderness and then make an awesome show based on my efforts. Wouldn't that be cool? Except I don't really like camping, and I tend to get irritable when the creepy crawlies refuse to respect my personal space. But whatever. Those are obstacles that can be overcome, right?

Man, there's a lot of construction downtown. Oh, the right lane is closed ahead; it's a good thing I'm in the left lane. I wonder what that van is going to do. I don't think he's seen the signs yet, even though they're bright orange and the size of Sherman tanks. Oh, you don't say—he's cutting me off, because he just now noticed his lane was ending. That's a surprise. Wait, what's this? He stopped! Halfway into my lane he stopped. Look, Mr. Van, there's no point pulling your vehicle halfway into my lane and then stopping. Just go! For the love of all that is holy, just go. I couldn't get past you anyway. It's not like I can use a shrink ray on my car and just speed around you. Believe me, if I could turn my car into a Hot Wheels car I totally would (because that would be awesome), but I can't, so you should just go. What happened, anyway? Why would you start to cut me off and then stop halfway? Did your rudeness fail you? Did you suddenly have an attack of human decency? Not only am I being cut off, but now you're waiting there, blocking me, and asking for my blessing to go ahead. Well you know what? No blessing for you. You can just go about your day without a blessing. In fact, I'm going to give this blessing to that construction guy instead of you. Look at that, I just blessed the construction guy and you're still sitting there with your head craned around, waiting for me to wave you ahead. Well you can wait all day because I'm not going to. My philosophy is this: if you're going to be rude, you should do it with as much enthusiasm as possible. You should give your rudeness the full force of your personality. I mean, if it's your destiny to be a schmuck, then you should be the best schmuck you can be, right? I can at least respect that. At least you're being true to yourself. But this mealy-mouthed halfway thing is craven and shameful, and I feel nothing but disdain for you. Do you hear that? Nothing but disdain. Now move along and get your Astro out of my way.

I was mightily amused to read this morning that the young damsel in distress who claimed to have found a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili has been arrested. Aside from the shameful schadenfreude that inevitably accompanies reading of the misfortunes of others, I was struck by the peculiarities of the episode and its similarity to the tale of Medea and the daughters of Pelias. At any rate, it would seem that the young finder of said finger has quite a checkered, litigious past, and investigators are examining the possibility that she planted the finger in the chili of her own accord. Zounds! I'm chortling in my leather chair just thinking of such diabolical cleverness. At least, this is the reigning theory, which was arrived at after an extensive inquiry into the digitude of the Wendy's employees. The inquiry went something like this:

Q. Hello, there. Is this thing on? Hello, employees of the Wendy's corporation. Is anyone in any of our franchises perhaps missing a finger?

1. Shout "aha!," swish your cape around you, and vanish.
2. If you are Optimus Prime, transform into tractor-trailer form and pull off to the side of the road. Robots in disguise.
3. Tell the Hells Angel to please calm down. All you want to do is listen to the music.
4. "And now for my next impression...Jesse Owens!"

I saw a dog driving a car yesterday.

Okay, so I didn't actually see it driving, but I did see it sitting in the driver's seat of a Jeep Cherokee outside a convenience store. It was a big old Great Dane, and I could tell from the ears that it was pretty alert, which is a good quality when you're driving. In fact, that dog probably drives better than most people in town.

My recent flight to Atlanta was an uneventful one. However, when I reached my destination, threw off my pants, and exhaustedly opened my suitcase to retrieve my jammies, there was a small innocuous-looking piece of paper on top. It was a note from the Transportation Security Administration telling me they'd just been looking through all my personal belongings. And laughing. "Man, I didn't know anyone used conditioner anymore," they were saying. "And what is up with that sweater? Could she be any more of a fashion victim?" I've never gotten one of these notices before, so I read it thoroughly and tried to figure out what they had moved around. (Honestly, they did a good job of replacing things as they had been.)

Last week I scratched my eye somehow, meaning I couldn't wear my contacts for several days. For nearly four days I was stuck with my dissident glasses, which make me look all radical but make me feel totally helpless and weak. You see, when I'm wearing my glasses, I am reminded how terrible my eyesight really is and how easy it would be for someone to just grab them off my face and stomp on them. It makes me feel like Piggy from Lord of the Flies. If I were stranded somewhere and my glasses broke—well, let's just say the other little kids could paint their faces and come after me in the night, and I couldn't do much about it. "Wait, there's a shape coming toward me! A bunch of shapes! Oh, it may be, yes, I think maybe they're people, and they're holding something that looks sharp, and ... arrrrrrggggghhhhh!" (Perhaps I was dictating.)

Wearing my glasses makes me feel like an evolutionary reject.

Friday night, I got a sign from the kitchen gods.

As you may know, I've been doing a lot of cooking lately. This is not something that comes to me naturally, so I've been working my way up from scrambled eggs to chicken casseroles and the like. Quiches and souffles are still far in the future for me, but my progress has been good. And finicky Nick has eaten everything I prepared, so it can't have been too bad. Overall, I've been pleased with my new skills.

That is, until the stove caught on fire.

1. Privacy issues. Recently, two peepholes were drilled into the bathroom of my favorite coffee shop. The holes were about a quarter inch in diameter, and I first noticed them when I leaned down to pick up a tube of lipstick. One of the holes went all the way through to the main room, and for some reason, had a stir stick inserted into it (who knows what this was about). Upon emerging from the bathroom, I took a good look at the wall from the other side and saw exactly where the holes had been drilled. They were about an inch and a half apart, as if a strapping young vampire had bitten the wall. Naturally, I alerted the barista, and he filled the holes in with caulking. But it made me wonder: a) how long they had been there (I am famously unobservant); and b) how many other times my privacy may have been invaded without my knowledge. What with omnipresent security cameras and the myriad tiny surveillance cameras on the market, our personal privacy is more of a fiction than ever. Add to that the low-tech peeping Tom stuff, and you've got a first-rate panopticon situation. Creepy.

If I allowed myself, I could dwell on this until I was so paranoid I couldn't leave the house anymore. But, like Bartleby the scrivener, I would prefer not to. The illusion of privacy is one worth preserving.

Some construction worker in Littleton, Colorado went to the dentist and complained about a persistent toothache. Turns out, the man had been using a nail gun six days earlier and had fired a four-inch nail into his mouth without noticing. Get this. The x-ray showed that the nail had gone one and a half inches into his brain, and had just missed his right eye.

A few nights ago I had a flat tire. My co-worker and I had just left our place of employment and had made it about three blocks when . . . k-thud, k-thud, k-thud, k-THUD. "Crap," I said (edited for content). There's no mistaking the sound of a flat tire—it's like a jet engine coming in for a landing on your head or something. Anyway, I pulled into some corporate parking lot and stopped. My co-worker and I were starting to get out of the car—to check on the damage—when this guy hopped out of his truck and eagerly shuffled over.

"Do you have a spare and a phone?" he asked, cheerfully. He was short, bald, and looked like the Commish.

1. If you are a vampire who is craving blood badly, keep a flask of it in your suit pocket and discreetly take a sip or two when no one else is looking. It's extremely bad form to latch onto your mother-in-law and drink a couple pints before the pumpkin pie is served.

1. If a man at a haunted house runs at you with a chain saw, it's best to assume that he is an escaped mental patient who has chosen the perfect setting for his murder and mayhem. Push someone else in front of him.
2. You may say "Bloody Mary" twice in front of a mirror, but not three times. (Same with Betelgeuse, Candyman, etc.)

This weekend, a car caught on fire outside the Yello Sub shop in town. This struck me as a strange bit of coincidence, because the very same thing happened to me about eight years ago. At the time, I had a K-car (you know, that scrappy species of car that includes the Dodge Aries and the Plymouth Reliant). I'd been having problems with it, naturally, and it had just gotten out of the shop that morning. As I started the car up to drive it home, a thin trickle of smoke crept out from beneath the hood. The mechanic swore this was normal. "That's cause we just worked on it," he said. "It'll taper off here pretty soon."

"Oh, okay," I said, and happily drove away—the most naive girl in the world.

Every year, tornadoes ravage the Midwest. Although these meteorological temper tantrums cannot be prevented, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself from them. Here are a few tips gleaned from a lifetime spent in lovely Tornado Alley.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself during a tornado is to go to the basement or cellar. Go to the basement if: a) you hear the tornado sirens; b) you hear your local weatherman shrieking at you to take shelter; c) you hear the sound of four seals being broken, followed by eight pairs of hooves; or d) you need one of your power drills. If your home does not have a basement, flee to a neighbor's basement and introduce yourself at once. Be sure to bring your host a small gift, such as a bottle of wine or a generator. Engage in some pleasant conversation, then duck and cover.

A year after the fact, I finally feel I am brave enough to tell the story of Lollapalooza 2003, Bonner Springs stop. The show was held at the amphitheater formerly known as Sandstone, and the musical line-up included the Donnas, Incubus, Jurassic Five, Audioslave, and Jane's Addiction. I was excited about the Donnas, but my raison d'etre that day was to hear Audioslave (I loved their musical ancestors, Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine) and Jane's Addiction (I've been crazy about them for more than half my life).

There is no shade at the amphitheater formerly known as Sandstone. No shade at all. The structure is built at the bottom of a hill, so there is no breeze either. What there is—and in great abundance—is profiteering. Cheap t-shirts were selling for $50. Hats were going for even more. Most spectacularly, bottles of water were $4, and if you wanted a cup of ice, you had to pay an additional $4 (the price of a soda). Keep in mind that this was all occurring on a hundred-degree day in July, and that the bands started playing at noon.

Check out my brand-spanking new 404 page! Now, in glorious Technicolor! With croutons!

It's the Fourth of July today, and you know what that means—illegal fireworks for every man, woman, and child! Lawrence banned the use of fireworks several years ago, but there has been no appreciable decrease in their usage since that time. Driving down the street at night means you'll have to pass through the gauntlet of bottle rockets and Roman candles that shoot past your car like debris in an asteroid field. With this in mind, I've compiled a short list of reminders for those hoping to enjoy this important holiday in the safest fashion possible.