The Toddler and The Exploding Cattle...

    I have a madman's obssession with Sarah Vowell. 

    It started today while I sat in my Jeep, in the rain, contemplating an accident on the expressway involving a dump-truck whose contents of gravel were scattered across the road.  Adding to the mess in front of me was a trailer lugging cattle to the slaughterhouse.  Their eyes peeked out through the holes in the trailer, and I felt kind of sorry for the poor animals.  However, with all the synchronization of a twenty-one gun salute, tails raised, and, as if following the dump truck's example, the cattle also emptied their contents upon the rain-soaked, gravel expressway. 

    So, there I crawled with gravel pinging off the skid plates of my Jeep and a light frosting of putrid cow shit being slowly applied for good measure.  Obviously, there was little to smile about. 

    Fortunately, before plowing through the traffic-jam with all the subtlety of a Grand Thef Auto video game, the voice of reason I found was that of the adorable, yet sardonic, lisping, little pixie, Sarah Vowell. 

    Ages ago, someone sent me a copy of her novel Assassination Vacation on audio book, and since I'm not one to drive all that much these days, it's taken me a while to get started on listening to it.  It's nice.  And, as the smell of cattle and the contents of their recently emptied insides wafted upon me, I heard her child-like voice chattering happily like a tiny toddler as she detailed her obssession with dead presidents.  I half-expected to turn around and see a three year old sitting there buckled into a car-seat going on and on about John Wilkes Booth, the flayed skin of Jesus Christ and the dessicated remains of St. Francis of Assisi --oblivious to the growing pungent mess speckling her window. 

    So, obviously, being the easily entertained imbicile that I am, I laughed myself silly at these thoughts.  And there we crawled: me and this disembodied voice of an extraordilarily articulate toddler babbling away in a Jeep ringing from the impact of flying gravel while being sprayed with a fresh coating of rain-soaked cow dung.  And, even better!  I've got six more CD's to listen to. 

-DP