Made several stops to the west and south Wednesday, and after a very unsatisfying visit at Krystal's grave, took a turn back east and got that all-too familiar stutter.

A quick reckoning put the nearest fuel about 11 miles, about a half-gallon, away.

I started driving about 1 mph and looking for farm fuel tanks, and saw some on a farm about two miles along. I parked the truck about 200 yards past, at the crest of a rise, just in case.

A very nice young Mennonite lady (past-the-calf skirt, long stockings, named Miller - what else you need?) accepted my $5 for a couple of gallons of gas and proceeded to pump in about 10. Would not take more money, even when I pinned her to the ground and stuck the business end of my Glock .40 S&W in her mouth.

Okay, I never even thought of that until my bitty-brain made fun while I searched out each letter on the keypad.

People are so wonderful...

That same afternoon I went to Sweetser to pay the cable bill for stuff I'm not watching. The gas prices had gone up nearly 20 cents that morning (why I didn't fill up, why I ran out) but hadn't been raised there, so I decided to top off the gift from the farm girl.

The first pump I couldn't make work, so I made a "U" and found one I could operate.

A lady in a van dicked around and made the machine I abandoned work. I was talking with her, and, if you have ever had a conversation with me, you know when I open my mouth my brain shuts down.

I drove back towards Converse, to the cemetery so the dogs could walk me. As soon as I got out I smelled gas, and saw that I had left the gascap at the station (not at the nice girl's farm. I remember the clicks as I sealed it for vacuum).

There are two big pines along the western (older) road through the middle of the cemetery, about two town blocks (15 per mile) apart. I park under the westernmost, and as we started east one of "my" red tails landed high on a bare branch in the other. He makes regular appearances in these posts, and would be on retainer, if there was any money around.

So I skirted his perch to the south, and even as it was twice as far as my approach brought me from the west, he took wing, as I pushed pebbles with my nose thinking about my gascap. I eventually picked him up in the sky southwest, a favored cruising haunt.

About 20 minutes later, I went back to the store and my gascap was gone.

*Warning: skip this part, as it is merely a self-serving rant.*

What kind of snivelling, lame-dick inbred piece of carp shit steals a fucking 20-year-old gas cap? The odds that someone came along to shit-hole Sweetser, Indiana, in those twenty minutes who actually needed that gascap are about the same as the pope fathering an out-of-wedlock child (you know the sanctimonious self-righteous hypocrite bastard would see to an abortion).

Shit's sake, the gascap had no value whatever. Some fuckstain who wipes his ass with his fingers then licks them clean took it for the same reason a mouse in a trap gets an erection.

So I wisely saved $1.60 by filling up in Sweetser, where the deranged don't cower in the light of day, then spent $9 at Advance Auto Parts, the World's Greatest Auto Parts Store (they don't got it you don't need it) to replace an essential item for my vehicle only.

This guy is too fucking stupid to cook meth, so I hope he gets a jones and tries.

For a single guy, I am simply overawed by my beautiful and wonderful nieces. Cara, one of my three best-ever friends, Ariel, so beautiful, smart, and witty, Olivia, a gorgeous super-athlete, Maddy, one of the very neatest people ever, beautiful and clever and affectionate, and Britt, my favorite nephew's wife: I'm only scratching at the surface of a lovely, interesting, and beautiful person.

Britt has a passenger, and I promised to put martinis out of their discomfort for her, in the process saving some gin from the insults of ice, condiments, and that horrid grenadine. As of yet, the juniper berries have not reached an optimum temperature for true appreciation, but I will keep my promise. In fact, I crave keeping this promise.

Saw my first Kildeer today. Kildeer are a Darwinian success. Shorebirds, they have adapted to a mid western terrain without shore and lay eggs in gravel, mostly along lightly travelled roads.

One of Darwin's rules was that to be successful, animals would adapt to changing environmental conditions. Because I'm already pissed off, let's revisit the "controversy" about the scientific term "theory".

Know that every time you add 2 + 2 you get 4. That does not mean that 2 + 2 = 4 every time.

For example, if you have 2 pies, and divide each into 6 slices, then 2 + 2 = 12.

Not a stellar exposition, but the truth should be apparent.

There are a distressing number of individuals so protective of an absolutely ludicrous belief system, one that is not just refutable on the most basic tenets but makes the most absurd and outlandish claims, who point to words like "theory" and say it's a theory, not a proven fact.

But their facts are an "Immaculate Conception", a virgin giving birth, walking on water, blind sighted, people risen from the dead, feeding 8,000 people with 3 fish and 5 loves of bread (not sliced - that came much later), rising from the dead, ascending bodily into heaven (this is a reprise, but if he was traveling at or above the speed of light, he'd be energy, not bodily in heaven. And if, as he must, he's traveling at less than the speed of light, Hubble would have picked him up. He'd still be in our galaxy.

And the Virgin Mary was assumed bodily into heaven.

Well, good for her. But what about James, identified in two gospels as Jesus' brother. Where does this leave that bastard? If the virgin is a virgin, he's out as a sibling, unless the same "Angel of the Lord" juiced up some local talent, then he and Jesus would be halfsies.

Okay this stuff is migraine-level stupefying. A belief system that throws in a fact every 1000 or so words would help some, but this is just so much bullshit my fact-checker is anorexic.