Well ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

There comes a time in all of our lives when one has to pack it up and take a short trip to Colorado to celebrate a birthday or two.  Along the way, there could be all sorts of excitement which has been generously seasoned with nuggets of danger to liven up the experience.

Of course, by the time you read this, I will have either survived the trip with my muffin top and expansive bald spot intact, or I will have succumbed to the demands of Karma, which has self-identified as, and has been referred to on more than one occasion as a bitch.

Several years ago when I made this trip with a couple of teenagers in tow, I watched a real estate agent get chewed out by an angry client who was wearing moose jammies.  The subsequent ear infection I encountered on a trip up and down Pikes Peak fails in comparison all these years later.

None the less, this year’s trip has proven to be eventful and worthy of a proper application of hyperbole and bullshit so as to make the imminent foray into verbal brilliance a page turner.

As you may recall, ladies and gentlemen, one of the key items I used to gritch about here on TharpSter.Org when I first launched this site was the implementation of enhanced pat downs conducted by TSA agents at this nation’s airports. 

At the outset of my trip, at approximately 6 am on the last day of 50 DT (During TharpSter), I was subjected to such an affront. 

What a bunch of bullshit.  I basically forgot to take my belt off before stepping into the Taking Nekid Pictures of Travelers Booth, and the buckle triggered a warning in my groin area.

The most common sense approach would be for me to take off my belt and have the security guards check it out, have me step back in for another nekid picture, and send me on my way.

Can I call attention to the fact that stupid decisions are a dime a dozen? 

Instead, I was subjected to an examination that left me feeling about as robbed of my dignity as when I got that rectal exam practically 2 years to the day before. 

An hour later, as I sat there at the gate waiting to board, I began to do what everyone does in an airport as they work to restore the self-esteem that has been confiscated as an unsafe material by the TSA.  I began people-watching.

In particular, the yoga pants clad young lass who kept brushing her hair back in an effort to draw the attention of those of us just sitting around watching people kept my focus for a few minutes.  There were others to watch as well, however as of this writing, they didn’t make an impression.

Okay, let’s stop it right there.

As of this writing, the date is June 7th.  I started this piece back on the 2nd, and haven’t been able to come back to it with any real gumption of finishing it.  The reason for that is because it’s just a bunch of long, drawn out rambling about a Friday to Tuesday flight that lacked all of the danger inherent with those monkey fighting snakes on a Monday to Friday plane. 

You don’t really need to know about the luggage that didn’t make it out of Dallas at the same time I did, even though it was inevitable given my disdain for that place.

I’m not going to elaborate about the jerkwad who made a parking spot out of a non-parking spot at the Seven Bridges Trail.

Everything you need to know about the songs which played overhead while I consumed my birthday lunch is featured in the adjacent media.

On the trip back, I found myself watching another pair of yoga pants (this time a metallic purple) wrapped around a lovely young lady.  It was at that point I came to the conclusion that just about every time I’ve found myself in an airport in recent years, my view at one point or another has been enhanced by such a sight.  I’m not sure if this is just a cog in the machine or just a co-inky-dink.

Even still, none of that subject matter is fresh and new where an otherwise dull internet is concerned.  For that matter, none of that is new for this site.

So what do we do in the case?

On Saturday, June 1st, 2019, at 7:47 pm mountain time, that box got shook.

While sitting on the deck at the apartment in which the aforementioned client with moose jammies resides, it became necessary for me to locate Reddy Killowat in order to power my laptop and save some battery life.  After moving the propane and propane accessories away from the wall, I spied two outlets on the wall. 

One was on top of the other.

Yes, I thought it was strange too.

The outlet on top had a cover on it, but the bottom one didn’t.

That’s even stranger, I thought.

Why would one outlet be covered, and the other one not be?

For whatever reason, I decided to use the outlet on top, so I opened it up to expose the outlets.

The secrets revealed to me by merely opening that cover on what I now consider to be New Year’s Day will baffle me for years to come.

In the end, I will survive.