My God, as if I don't have enough to worry about...

The very first person ever to post a comment to this blog sent their comment before I'd even finished putting the blog up. The writer's name was Marinero-67, and he lives down South--in Louisiana. I'm not telling anyone exactly where he's from, because it's really not any of your business, but this Marinero-67 character claims to know what's going on in post-Katrina New Orleans these days. Two days ago he wrote that "that the west bank is in very good shape. Kenner is also pretty good, though there are still major areas without power. New Orleans itself had water intrusion in about 80% of the land area but not all of it was very high. From what I understand, the mold is the very bad in most of the houses that had any water intrusion."

And that's important, because one of my so-called "old friends" rang up the other day and gets into this whole, whiny, sing-song voiced begging thing about how he and his wife "lost their house in Hurricane Katrina" and they "needed help" and they wanted me to "drive them back home to New Orleans from the place where they're shacking up in San Francisco."

Oh, yeah, that's just what I need in my life this week after getting fired, two old "pals" calling me up long distance and telling me how they've been wiped out by a hurricane and it's up to ME to save their sorry asses by buying a plane ticket out to San Francisco, piling them and all their worldly crap into their crappy old cars and driving them cross-country to New Orleans to see if any part of their moldy old house is above water-level yet. Oh, yeah, that'll be a nice break for ME, after the stress I'VE gone through this week.

Then one of these losers calls me up again and asks me if it's okay if we go in separate cars, because he'd like to ride with his wife. OH YEAH, sure, I think, that's just dandy. I'll spend days and nights behind the wheel of one of your old lemons ALL BY MYSELF, toting two tons of your pathetic personal JUNK in back seat for company, singing along to crappy AM radio receptions of Garth Brooks tunes every waking hour, and picking up lunatic hitchhikers by the side of the road whenever I feel really lonely. Yeah, that sounds like a blast! Wait, Mat--I've got an even better idea--why don't I JOG cross-country out to San Francisco, pick up you and your wife and all your worldly belongings, and CARRY YOU ALL THE WAY BACK TO F---ING NEW ORLEANS ON MY SHOULDERS? That would be a lot more fun for me than anything you have suggested so far.

I knew it. I knew I couldn't escape from getting dragged in to this Hurricane Katrina thing even though I live a thousand miles away. "Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Katrina"--my God, it was weeks ago, there's been three hurricanes since then, get over it! Get over yourselves! Grow up, the city's gone, deal with it! Why do you have to drag everybody else along into your sorry little messes? I put an old "Member's Only" windbreaker of mine into the Hurricane clothing drive box out in front of the supermarket, I put my spare change in the little coin container by the register at Burger King, how much longer are you people going to milk this? And now I have spend "eight days on the road" transporting frigging refugees and their dog and their suitcases and cargo and loads of crap across country, as if I'm "Red Sovine" or "Dave Dudley" or "C.J. McCall and his Convoy" or something. Good Christ In Heaven! When do I get a break, can anyone answer that?