What do you want to see today?

• My chocolate cup cake with tangy orange frosting?
• A sign outside of Washington Mutual telling people not to wait for the bus on the sidewalk in front of their bank? (I hate WaMu).
• A picture of me pouting next to the "closed" sign of Red Mill Burgers?
• My consolation burger from Scooter's?

Well forget it, you're not seeing any of those things today, because I've managed to forget both my camera and my camera phone. I'm sitting in Cupcake Royale, blogging instead of grading storyboards, making a composition assignment, or practicing for my guitar lesson in an hour. I could also be working on my administrator evaluations, which were due today, ha ha ha.

I was supposed to make a bunch of phone calls at work today, but I couldn't because I had to check out a company van and pick up a group of retreatants on Beacon Hill. On the way down, I rememberd time on the Las Vegas Strip where my H forced her way into the next lane, because some jackass thinks he's so important that he can't let somebody in front of him.

For all of you jackasses out there that can't let someone into your lane: it's pathetic that your self esteem is based on your ability to make people wait. Do you hear me? You are pathetic.

Anyway, it was a mistake to go down to the Strip that night. On our way back home, D started yelling LEFT LEFT LEFT, and so H got into a left turn lane. Then he called her stupid for not getting into the left-most lane. "It's not the end of the world," I said, but he shouted back, "That's not the point!"

In the end, H turned her left, got into the left lane, and then.... and then moved back over to the right lane, since the on-ramp was on the right. So the leftmost turn lane was not only not the point, it was not the correct lane.

This is something that aggravated me last Christmas, and now three months later, it is aggravating me again. I know you're all saying, "My God, let it go," but that is just not a skill I have. I will remember that night in vivid detail. I remember telling H, "We don't ever have to come back here, ading."

And I don't. I never want to go back to the Las Vegas Strip. It will remind me of the time H got called stupid over a lane change.

It must be nice just to be able to 'let it go,' but I don' t have that skill. In fact, why should I forget? Only an idiot would allow himself to forget such negative reinforcement. Would anyone suggest that Skinner's subjects just 'let go' of negative reinforcement? Is the pigeon just supposed to 'forgive' the behavior that earned it a mild electric shock, like water under the bridge? You expect me to be smarter than a pigeon, don't you?

Ha, I think I've just had a breakthrough: I've been trained through operant conditioning to avoid a stimulus, namely the Las Vegas Strip.

Let it go, my ass. I am smarter than a pigeon.