The city of St. Louis is beseiged yet again by thunder and tornadoes. I still have a great deal of storm paranoia, but I need to get some things on paper (or whatever) since it's been almost two weeks.

I got my historic third parking ticket last weekend in front of the apartment building that houses nearly everyone I know. After an hour or two misspent trying to enjoy my Saturday, I went out to my car to discover that my heinous crime of not carrying nickels would not go unpunished.

The blame is entirely mine. I knew when I got into the car that I could not afford to stop it so recklessly. Nevertheless, I had gotten lucky several times in the recent past, and I thought I would avoid payment yet again. Unfortunately, the Parking Fairies have a mystical grudge against me, and so I found myself facing the prospect of mailing five bucks to the city, making it fifteen dollars total for the year to date.

I get more and more irate every time it happens, no matter how irrational that might be, because parking meters and their companions, parking tickets, are quite simply a manifestation of everything that is wrong with America. Sometimes I keep my nickels even when I have them, just as a little personal form of irrelevant protest. From the absurdity of charging someone money for not paying money the first time you charged them money, to the absurdity of charging someone money while performing no apparent service, to the absurdity of charging someone money to use a curb that you already charged them to build, the whole meter system reeks of bad capitalism. The worst part is, I get the distinct impression that the money gathered from the meters and tickets is spent entirely on maintaining the meters and paying the "meter maids," which implies that they only really exist to ruin everyone's day. I mean, it's not like the money goes towards fixing the streets. When I got my ticket, I had to climb into a pothole just to get it off the windshield.

(Maybe I'm onto something. Maybe the city should start building garages in the potholes. They'd make a lot more money that way, maybe even enough to subsidize a few more casinos. But that's a different rant entirely.)

I was so angry upon seeing this ticket in my windshield wiper that I did something rather silly. Instead of yanking it out of the wiper and bitterly taking it into my car, I was for some reason motivated to leave the ticket on the window as I drove down the highway. It was almost like I wanted to punish or torture the ticket for crossing paths with me. As I drove home, I was somehow gratified to watch it flop around against the windshield like a bunny in a dog's mouth. I have no idea what motivated me to get pleasure from the suffering of the inanimate object, but I was like some kind of ghoulish ticket Nazi.

At least, until it started to fly away, at which point I became a whimpering slave to the state again. "Oh, no! Come back, ticket! I'll get in trouble!" I pulled over so fast, it was as if I was afraid the mayor was going to come ground me.

I pulled over in the parking lot of a hospital, where I had the chance to witness an animal rights march against the hospital's unforgivable practice of trying to save human lives. Many of the righteous, high-chinned protesters waved big pictures of sad-eyed chimps, and as I watched them I could not help but think of an article I once read about how free chimps had a habit of carrying babies off into the woods and eating them. As I pulled over, I imagined chimps were parading down a monkey highway with big pictures of babies. The protesters annoyed me even further than the ticket, but I decided that everybody looks like a moron to someone and tried to let it go. I would have been successful had they not chosen to cross the street in front of me en masse at the exact moment when my light turned green. As they crossed, I pondered their argument that animals are entitled to the same dignity as human beings, only to notice that two of the women (and they were all middle-aged women) were dragging behind them little dogs wearing collars and chains. Ah, human dignity. The next time I pass such a protest, I think I'll get out of my car and free the dogs.

Today, a client of mine yelled at me for not noticing invisible text on his web page. Such invisible text, usually achieved by writing white text on a white background like so on the bottom of a page, was once an effective way to manipulate search engines but is now considered highly illegal by the Powers That Be. He knew this but included it anyway, and then yelled at me for not changing his page. Ergo, I got a rare chance to flex my sarcasm muscle at work today ("I'm sorry I didn't see the invisible text... I don't know how I missed it... oh, wait, yes I do: it was invisible.")

At the risk of hopping on what I'm sure is a very overburdened bandwagon, I would like to reminisce about Seinfeld for a minute. In particular, as the show goes off the air this week, I am thinking about an episode of Seinfeld that struck an odd chord with me, an episode that comes to mind every now and again. There was an episode in which George decides to combat the failures of his life by doing the exact opposite of everything he has always done, right down to the way he orders food at restaurants. He figures out that living his life the way he wants to always ends up getting him screwed over; his only hope for success is to fight every instinct he has. I always thought that was hilarious, but lately I've been wondering if maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

I have come to the conclusion that I will never understand people. No matter how long I am around people, no matter how long I work with people and play with people and live with people, they just keep getting weirder and less predictable as the years go by. I was always sure it wasn't my problem, but this weekend has just had me scratching my head from start to finish. Clearly, the only way I'll ever make it out alive is to just start doing all the things that don't make sense to me.

Where to begin.... I went out with my parents on Saturday night, because I hadn't been uncomfortable in a while and I needed a change of pace. We went out to celebrate the double whammy of Mother's Day and my mom's birthday, which have an unfortunate habit of falling on the same weekend and did so again this year. With that in mind, I tried very hard not to cop out by buying her one big gift for both occasions. I got her two gift certificates, instead of just the one big one.

We were going out to eat, and my dad told me we would be leaving their house at six o'clock. I took this to mean that I should be at the house at six o'clock, which was silly of course because no one was at the house upon my arrival. They had gone somewhere else first, and did not get home until closer to six thirty. I shudder to think what would happen to me if I were to pull something like that, but there you have it; as the one playing the child role, all I could do was sit in the house alone, watching cable and doing my laundry, waiting for them to come home so I could say, "Where have you been? I've been worried sick! You could've called if you were going to be this late!"

So you see, it's not as if my parents raised me in a crazy way that makes the normal world look odd to me. They look as odd as everybody else. At any rate, I decided to let the matter rest, since things were going to be uneasy enough. After all, my mom despises going out, which explains why my dad wanted so badly to take her out for Mother's Day. I alerted Mom to the clothes I was drying, so she wouldn't be startled later by mysterious phantom clothes that had popped up in the laundry room, and we were on our way.

We went to a restaurant that had been recommended by a family friend as the best place in town to get a nice piece of chicken. What we should have realized (besides the fact that "the best place in town to get a piece of chicken" is not necessarily a ringing endorsement) was that the family friend is an 81-year-old police veteran, because we got there to discover that the place was exactly where you would expect 81-year-old police veterans to hang out in the heart of South City, and in fact the place was crawling with them. With its wood-paneled walls and lighting/table arrangement, the place looked like a perfect cross between a cafeteria and a furnished basement. Old men and their wives sat around big tables and told war stories, and I sat patiently waiting for someone to pull a gun and laughingly try to shoot the pictures off the walls.

I wish my girlfriend hadn't been at work, because it was a shame for her to miss quality time with the folks. I have a running bet with her that my dad cannot go an entire conversation without trying to get me to quit my job. She used to laugh, but now she knows it's absolutely true. He has to do it every time. He is always talking to me about how I don't make enough money, and how I should always be circulating resumes, and how his friend at So-and-So Headhunters is recruiting webmasters for seven billion dollars a year... and no matter how many times I tell him I like my job, I haven't even been working there a year, and So-and-So couldn't define the word "webmaster" with a shotgun shoved up his rectal cavity, I can always count on the discussion continuing the next time. This is because of the Family Rule.

I am amazed I have gone this long without discussing the Family Rule. It is a very simple rule, which is probably why it was invented; it's easier to follow and keep track of the rules when there's only one. The Family Rule is simply this:

Whatever You're Doing Now Is Wrong.

It has been with our clan for centuries, and it has never led us astray.

The summer I turned sixteen, my parents harped on me every single day, every time they saw me, about how I needed a job. Since I was getting older and knew I would only have so many summers left, I fought as hard as I could to avoid wasting my precious time off by working. But dear old Dad, he wouldn't have any of that nonsense. He had worked all his life, since the moment he was able to speak, and it had transformed him from a mortal into the paragon of virtue. So after being harassed for a couple of weeks about how it was wrong to go without a job, I caved. I went and got a job at the library. The minute, nay the very second I was scheduled to begin work, he announced to me, "We're going on a family vacation, and you're going with us!"

"But, Dad," I said, "you told me to get a job. You told me I needed to start working. Now I'm supposed to ask for a week off on my first day of work? For no reason? If I were your employee and had done that, you would eviscerate me and make me into a coat as a warning to the other workers."

"Job? Your job is more important than your family? Feh! You're going on vacation! This is summer!"

That was when I learned the Family Rule. It has been with me ever since. When I quit at the library to go to college, my dad was appalled that I would leave behind such a steady job and just lie idly about. When I got a new job, my dad hated it, saying I was neglecting my studies and that it was unsafe (this would be my risk-taking adventure job of movie usher, a job that he would later try to upgrade to manager when "proofreading" my resume). And on it went through the years; wrong school... wrong major... too many years in school... not enough years in school.... It reached it peak when I was once again unemployed (an unspeakable crime), and only dipped slightly for a few days after I got a job, when it became Not enough benefits... not a high enough salary... not a strict enough dress code (not joking)....

So I realize that I will never reach a common ground with these crazy people, and I move past it. I smile and nod, occasionally repeating things to show that I'm listening while silently making note of all the exits. I try very hard to remember that, in their universe, all of this is meant to convey a concern for my best interests. That cannot change the fact that one day I am going to bop my father on the head.

After making nice talk with my folks for several hours, I got back to my car and realized that it was a lot later than I had expected it to be. My friends would be waiting for me; we had a date to catch the movie Deep Impact. I wished my mom a happy Mother's Day and a happy birthday (in two separate sentences), and gave her a big kiss on the forehead before leaping into my car without my laundry and zipping off. Fearing that the movie would sell out and feeling a bit generous, I dashed over to the theater and bought all the tickets before meeting my friends at Nicole's apartment. When I arrived with the tickets I had bought for them, I discovered that they were all tired of waiting for me and were getting ready to leave without me. I presume they would have called my machine to tell it where they'd gone.

The next day (Sunday), I was planning to sleep in, catch some of the TV that had accumulated on tapes throughout the week, and just generally spend some time recuperating from all the human contact of the last three days. After all, I had been out almost every night that week; my young friends were in the midst of summer and as I was quickly learning, when my friends are on vacation, everyone's on vacation. I, on the other hand, am genetically wired to explode if I don't get at least three nights a week all to myself. Still, social pressure like the kind my crowd excels in is pretty hard to ignore, and so it came as little surprise when I found myself spending my Sunday on the way to a Sonicburger out in the middle of Arnold, MO.

I mean, The X-Files was on. The Simpsons was on. But I never do anything Fun, I'm told, and I never go anywhere. So in the spirit of fun, I went to Arnold.

In Arnold, we stuffed ourselves with Sonic. We ate burgers and fries. We had lots of slushes, lots of soda, and lots of ice cream. We had a good time. I enjoyed myself. I was sated.

Unfortunately for me, I was sated at 7:00, and apparently there is a law which states that, once a fun evening starts, it cannot stop until 2:00 a.m. The minute, nay the very second, we got back in the car to go home, Nicole announced that we would be going to the Coffee House. My mind was a little boggled; I mean, the Coffee House sells beverages, such as slushes and soda. They also sell ice cream. (See where I'm going with this?) I was ready to vomit from all the beverages I had just consumed, and I was not under the impression that I would be out all night. In the back of someone else's car, I found myself in the midst of a hostage situation.

I was still in a good mood, and I was enjoying the company of my friends, but I protested that a more intimate setting might be acceptable. "We're ready to throw up from too many drinks and ice cream. Why do we need to go to a coffee house to buy more drinks and ice cream? Let's just go back to someone's apartment?"

Everyone looked at me as if I came from Mars. The Coffee House was about more than consumption! The Coffee House was a vital element to socializing! The Coffee House was about having smoke blown in our faces, and having to shout over the conversations of others, and having to find a table, and all those other things that make an evening enjoyable! Who would want to do something ridiculous like sitting around in private, enjoying one another's company? What a strange person, this Jim!

The Coffee House game plan?: We were going to play board (bored?) games and hang out with our friends. The thing was, all the board games were in the apartment. All the people we wanted to hang out with were in the apartment. Why did we have to leave the apartment? I began to realize that I just did not want to go.

"Come on," the whine went out. "You don't have to buy anything there. I'm not. None of us are."

"THEN WHY ARE WE GOING???"

"Is there something wrong with you? Are you ashamed of your friends?"

"Not usually."

I get the distinct impression sometimes that a large reason for going out is to prove to the public that one has friends. It is not enough to have them; people have to see you with them, people you will never interact with in your life. The other reason for going out is this bizarre psychological wekaness people have that convinces them that, if they see the walls of their apartments for more than twenty minutes, they will go blind. The rabid compulsion to Go Out and Do Something consumes all reason. I do not understand it, and I do not think I ever will, and it makes me feel like a bit of an outcast.

After leaping from the moving car, I managed to escape the Coffee House and get myself home. Somehow, I had been all over town with my friends for five hours and still managed to seem antisocial by the time I got back. When I got home, I had a message on my answering machine. It was snappish.

"Hi. It's Dad. A little disappointed that you couldn't bother to wish your mom a happy Mother's Day. Maybe you can talk to her when you pick up your laundry."
SLAM
Well. That last bit was decidedly accusatory, I thought.

I was completely broadsided by that call. I mean, I had taken my mom out to dinner, which I had rarely done before. I had probably put more thought and effort and (most importantly in my family) money into her gift than ever before. I had wished her a happy Mother's Day at the end of the evening, four hours before it was actually Mother's Day I admit but, dammit, it counted! Where was this call coming from? It was like I had completely blown her off. Not to mention the fact that she wasn't even the one making the phone call.

So in essence, I had gone out with my family and gone out with my friends, but the going out with my family didn't count somehow because I didn't make a phone call to repeat to my mother the words I had said to her ten hours before. The hanging out with my friends didn't count because I only wanted to hang out with my friends. All of this has helped me to realize that I am not actually living in a world full of lunatics. Clearly, I must simply be one. And if I'm not, I will be before too long.