Would this title look better branded on a baby seal or carved in elephant ivory?

I don't eat babies. Don't even nibble on them. Likewise I don't so much as own the proper footwear for kicking puppies or any kind of meat grinder at all, let alone one capable of processing kitten meat. Please take all of this into account when I say that I'm kind of disappointed they've stopped making Hummers.

Yes, I'm keenly aware that there is a rapidly expanding puddle of murder soup in the ocean. I'm similarly aware that Hummers slurp that soup as obnoxiously as a toothless geriatric with clogged sinuses strains beef barley through ill-fitting dentures. The whole eating the planet and farting hate clouds thing isn't what I'm talking about. I'm just going to miss seeing the things. I think they're sweet.

Thing is, Hummers kind of look like the kinds of vehicles three year olds would drive. They're like giant safety cars for little people who need a little extra protection while they get the whole driving thing figured out. Who, until they do, can't be trusted to keep all four wheels on the road if they happen to pass a toy store, playground, or a particularly compelling cow. Everything's over sized and easy to grasp for infantile hand-eye co-ordination skills, and they're built nice and steady so they won't tip over if the driver gets over excited or forgot to go potty before leaving the house.

Seriously. If Fisher Price designed vehicles, they would design Hummers. You know I'm right.

I guess it's not so much the actual vehicles I'm going to miss as the wildly giggling toddler perched on a stack of phone books I imagine to be steering the things every time I pass one. Don't worry about me, though. I'll get through this.

They still make Harleys, after all.

You'd better not read any further than the title if you're not okay with discussions of barf.

I have the stomach of a god. You can't tell by looking at it (unless perhaps the god you're referencing happens to be Baccchus), but I do. Yea, I have walked through the valley of stomach flu, and have needed no bucket. Thirty one barf free years - that's including the year of the dreaded vodka and tang experiment - and still counting, baby yeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

Maybe some day I'll even build back enough confidence to eat something. That's right, I'd rather starve than barf. It's not so much the incredible discomfort. It's not just the horrifying feeling of suffocation. It's not necessarily even the terror of not being able to stop due to the self propagating nature of barf (it's one of the principal laws of nature that you have to barf when you're facing a pile of barf, and since nature also dictates that you face a pile of barf while you're the process of making a pile of barf it's a miracle we ever get anything else done at all, really).

It's the betrayal. The horrible, horrible betrayal.

My body gets hungry. It tells me it needs food. It does this in a variety of ways:

It commandeers my attention. I'll see only the coupon for 25 cents off a side of fries, not the stack of large bills with a "Free money! Help yourself!" sign it's laying on or the beautiful naked man professing his love for me holding it.

It embarrasses me. "I'm really looking forward to showing you these expensive options for your lavishly budgeted event, but first an entertaining selection of noises from my intestinal region."

If not attended to promptly enough, it will even very happily resort to pain. And how do I respond to this blatant manipulation?

I give in! I feed it! I give it everything it wants! And what do I ask in return?

Digestion. That's it. We have entered into a solemn pact, and I have already kept up my end of the deal. All I ask is that my body does with the food I worked hard to afford and prepare for it what it indicated that it was going to use the food for when it was demanding it.

I do not take kindly at all to having it literally thrown back in my face.

So I simply do not allow it. Nope. Not coming back this way. You know where the exit is. Use it. Go ahead! Make me drool, groan, pray for release from the horror that is unending nausea. You're not getting your way.

Darn skippy I'll take the pain on principle. Sure I suffer needlessly for an exponentially longer time than I would if I just gave in and opened the front door for the pestilence instead, but at least I suffer with the knowledge that I win.

Yay me!

Maybe?