As if we needed further proof that people are nuts…or easily angered…or both, along comes this guy to make my day.

“Who is this man?” you ask. Well, let’s do some deductive reasoning together.

They say your nose and ears keep growing your entire life, and obviously they do.

Look at this snarly mug. Does this man look angry?

Yes! Yes, he does!

Does he look like he forgot to take his meds?

Right again!

And does he look like a man capable of delivering a beat down onto a stranger’s two-year old child in a Georgia Wal-Mart?

Well, it should, because he did.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. – Police say a 61-year-old man annoyed with a crying 2-year-old girl at a Walmart slapped the child several times after warning the toddler’s mother to keep her quiet.

A police report says after the stranger hit the girl at least four times, he said: “See, I told you I would shut her up.”

Roger Stephens of Stone Mountain is charged with felony cruelty to children. It was unclear if he had an attorney and a telehpone call to his home Wednesday was unanswered.

Authorities say the girl and her mother were shopping Monday when the toddler began crying. The police report says Stephens approached the mother and said, “If you don’t shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you.”

Authorities say after Stephens slapped the girl, she began screaming.

I think the saddest sentence of this article is the last one, because it highlights the audacity of arrogance: Here this man was bragging about his ability to shut up babies, and when given a chance (or seizing a chance…either way) to demonstrate his skill, he failed miserably and made the baby even MORE upset. And then he decided to applaud his failed efforts by tossing a saucy, “See, I told you I would shut her up,” out for all to hear.

But you didn’t, Roger. You didn’t shut her up, you made her scream more.

On the other hand, just looking at him, maybe he didn’t know the difference? Or maybe general screaming sounded more pleasant to him than whining for cookies? It stands to reason he hasn’t had much contact with kids. Or at least I hope he hasn’t.

At the same time, there is a silver lining to be had. Now I’m not saying the toddler deserved this, but let’s break it down objectively here:

1. Kids are annoying. You know they are. You’ve met kids. You may even have kids. In either case, I can guarantee you’ve been annoyed by kids. And if you haven’t? Watch two minutes of that “Nanny 911″ show (whatever it’s called where the British nanny comes and straightens out the hopeless, raising a brood of horrifically spoiled brat parents) and prepare to be ANNOYED. Look, I’m not picking on kids: We were all kids once. We were all annoying. I’m not saying they’re ALWAYS annoying and don’t have their cute or charming moments, I’m just saying that a screaming two-year old – no matter how you slice it – is annoying.

2. In a way, Roger Stephens, Wal-Mart shopper and occasional looney toon, was doing this toddler a favor. The next time she sees a face like that? She’ll know what to do: Shut up and get the hell out of Dodge as fast as humanly possible. There’s no need to lecture this little one on ‘good touch’ or ‘bad touch’ or ‘getting a funny feeling about people.’ Just remind her about that time she was at Wal-Mart, and was physically assualted by a stranger, and she’s good to go.

3. In my opinion, any time you enter a Wal-Mart you really are on your own. All bets are off. Never wanted to see a 400-pound woman in a halter top? Too bad, because there’s one waiting for you by the toilet paper. Have no desire to be hit on by a toothless man in his 80s? That’s a shame, because there’s one hovering around the mangos hoping to pretend that he doesn’t know whether they’re a fruit or a vegetable in order to extract unnecessary cooking advice from you as part of a poorly constructed come-on. Don’t want to be bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake? Well, as we’ve all learned, stay out of Wal-Mart, because you are shooting your odds way up, baby.

And normally I don’t go there, largely because I have no interest in senseless arguments or other blowback, and I completely respect everyone’s right to have differing opinions (but don’t so much want you to try to change mine), and so – simply stated - I just really don’t want to fight about it.

Can't get enough of those tired and poor...

Nonetheless, this health care thing has finally gotten to me. I have to say something.

And I hardly know where to start I’m so appalled.

See, this morning while making some scrambled eggs and french toast (I know. I’m so domesticated.) I put on Comedy Central and watched some of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert’s shows and inadvertantly learned that people are showing up to these town hall health care debates with semi-automatic weapons.

SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS

Apparently they’ve gotten confused and think their first amendment rights require them to execute their second amendment rights, and I guess in their minds showing up to have a rational and intelligent discourse about differing opinions requires bullets.

But I digress.

When I see this stuff I can’t wrap my brain around it. I really can’t. And I can’t honestly believe that people think making sure that everyone has acess to an equal level of care is socialism. And I can’t understand how you would actually believe that ANYONE in this country wants ‘death panels’ and thinks it’s okay to kill babies with Down’s Syndrome. (Trust me. If that happens, I will be the first one in line waving a torch.) And when they make it about religion or Christianity or Hinduism or Confucianism or anything other than what it really is about – health care for all – I get confused.

Here's where we keep the fine print.

Moreover, if this is about taxes, I can’t fathom why if you have more than me, you wouldn’t be willing to throw a little extra in the pot to cover me - because I would certainly do it for you.

So here comes the (probably offensive to some, and apologies if so) theory: America was founded by a bunch of religious zealots who left their own country so that they could do whatever extreme weirdness got them banished or shunned or otherwise forced them out of their homeland and then those same folks risked their lives on a boat for several horrific months in the hopes of surviving long enough to get here. And then most of them didn’t survive the first winter, anyway. So you figure only the toughest of the nut bags were left to procreate, and that’s saying something.

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So I vaguely recall seeing the book ‘Julie and Julia’ when it came out and registering the plot (woman cooks way through Julia Child cookbook), but not being particularly compelled to read it. (I love to cook, but I have very little interest in watching other people cook – a la Food TV – or, even worse, reading about it. I LOVE cookbooks, mind you. To me, a perfect rainy day is to sit down with six or seven cookbooks I’ve never seen in my life and read them cover to cover, but that’s because I’m analyzing the recipes and looking for winners. I have no desire to hear about someone else’s experiences doing the same thing. [If that makes sense.])

Anywho, now it’s apparently a movie, and the trailers feature the woman playing Julie running into a friend of hers whose blog has been optioned into a series by Showtime (does this HAPPEN!?!? Really!? Blogs get turned into premium channel shows? Is that where ‘Hung’ came from, because that show is awful.) and then Julie goes home all huffy and says, “I can write a blog. I have thoughts.”

I hear you Julie.

I DO write a blog. I ALSO have thoughts. And I would also like a book deal and a movie deal and even a TV show on Showtime!!!! (although if I get to be picky about it,  I would prefer HBO as I associate Showtime with creepy soft porn.)

The issue, it seems, is that I don’t have a gimmick.

Me, about five seconds ago (and still a bit haggard having just survived an assassination attempt by a Mexican swimming pool) showing you a portion of my vast cookbook collection.

What I do have is about 150 cookbooks, so I figure somewhere in here is the cookbook that will rocket me to fame and fortune.

So let’s see…

Vanessa and Alice? (as in b. Toklas. It’s actually kind of a worthless cookbook in the old style of ‘here’s a giant paragraph and you sort out the ingredients and quantities’ which I bought solely for the “Haschich Fudge (which anyone could whip up on a rainy day)” recipe on page 259. Sadly, I’m not willing to grow my own cannibus sativa (“a common weed, often unrecognised, everywhere in Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa”).

She also suggests that in the Americas, we are throwing caution to the wind and growing cannibus indica in window boxes. First off, those must be some honkin’ big window boxes. Second, I imagine those Americans same are in jail somewhere right now.

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But at the same time it’s all kinds of awesome.

I can’t help it.

Stupidity slays me.

Zoolander? One of my favorite movies EVER.

Rob & Big? I bought the complete series on DVD.

Anything Chris Farley ever did? Can’t get enough.

I rest my case.

Anyway, okay, so do you remember the charmingly idiotic Keyboard Cat video that was all the rage a couple years ago? If not, or if you’re just not travelling in the cool circles like I am, here’s a refresher:

Okay, so yesterday I saw someone Twitter something about ‘in memory of keyboard cat’ (because the cat is dead. In fact, I think it had already passed on before becoming famous.), and I followed the link and found this.

I so want this.

Oh yes.

The horrible wolf shirt re-envisioned as a celebration of the majestic creature known as Keyboard Cat.

It’s genius, and I only wish it were actually available rather than a mere suggestion that maybe threadless.com will sell.

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Sometimes I have to learn lessons the hard way.

Like the lesson that other people really aren’t my responsibility.

Case in point: The friend hosting the week in Mexico (at a timeshare owned by her parents) revealed to me that she was going to drive to Acapulco from Guadalajara (and back) by herself, about five or six hours each way.

Me the night before the big drive, looking surprisingly alert despite the fact that I was running on about two hours of sleep. Other members of my party have been cropped out to protect their identity!

Now I’ve driven through Mexico before, and let me summarize the experience by saying that when we got back across the border in Nogales, Arizona, I literally knelt down and kissed the ground.

America never looked so fine.

Nonetheless, some sympathetic motherly part of me was concerned for her safety and volunteered to come along. Two is safer than one and all that.

(Otherwise known as: “You’re putting yourself in harm’s way!? Well, let me do that too!”)

More than anything, my concerns centered around the current drug cartel activity (a.k.a. random killings) and Federales stops. In my previous experience, the Federales would stop us, separate us, interrogate us, and search the VW van end to end, followed up what looked like a oil check, but wasn’t. They’d have us drive over a big hole in the ground – exactly like you’d see at Jiffy Lube – and someone would inspect or do god knows what underneath the car.

A mob of horses (per Wikipedia, this is a legitimate term) just popped out and crossed the 120 MPH freeway. I spent the rest of the trip praying we wouldn´t crash into another mob of the giant beasts.

In hindsight, the VW van was the equivalent of wearing forehead tattoos that said “we’re drug smugglers” (although we weren’t), and something of a magnet for trouble.

Thanks to the fact the rental car was some kind of tiny Chevy, we at least had that going for us.

In any case, we set out from Morelia around 10am, and within two hours were in the middle of freaking nowhere.

Seriously.

No-where.

Now, nowhere is one thing, but Nowhere, Mexico is quite another thing.

Nonetheless, not wanting to add stress to the situation, I held my tongue and didn’t ask to double-check the directions or scrutinize the map. However, when my friend inquired if I thought we’d pass a town with a gas station soon (as we were nearly out), I broke down and spoke the three fatal words: “Where ARE we?”

She informed me that we were somewhere on Highway 14 or 14D, and when I asked if I could take a peek at the directions, she handed me a notebook in which she’d scrawled “14D to 37 to 200.”

I just realized all the pictures of the dirt roads we had to go down are vertical shots, so here are the musicians at the very cool guitar bar in Morelia from that first night.

Ummmm….?

What?

Feeling my stomach sink to the floor, I realized we didn’t have a map. Or Google directions. Or even (sometimes terribly inaccurate) MapQuest directions.

We didn’t have distances or landmarks or, well, anything.

And barring the generic answer of “Mexico,” we didn’t know where the hell we were.

Truth be told, although I admired her devil may care/just ask for directions from the locals approach, all could imagine was my dad’s reaction when he learned I’d be murdered somewhere in the middle of rural Mexico and we didn’t even have a friggin’ map in the car.

That stated, when we finally came upon a gas station, I went inside and acquired a Mapa Carreteras immediatemente. Thank god for the thing, too, because we weren’t just off track then…there were several other ‘where the hell are we?” and “which city do we head toward?” moments to be had before it was over.

Three cheers for the mapa!

Meanwhile, apparently the male Mexican sense of time/distance is different from that which I like to call reality.

You see, it doesn’t take three hours to go from Guadalajara to Morelia, it takes four or five (depending upon traffic). And it doesn’t take five hours to go to Acapulco from Morelia…it takes TWELVE.

That’s right, we rolled up to the resort, sore-butted, bleary eyed, and road weary just around 10pm.

Needless to say, I have wizened up, and I will not be returning to Guadalajara via motor vehicle. Nope. Tim has wonderfully, graciously, kindly booked me a flight, and my friend has a Mexican friend accompanying her back to Morelia, if not Guadalajara, so I’m not abandoning her to the elements.

Moreover, I’ve learned a valuable lesson about trusting your gut and cutting corners to save a few bucks.

Never again will I go against my own instincts in the interest of ‘going along to get along’ or being a good friend, so if you’re planning a big road trip through the Middle East later this year, you can count me out.

I’ll be in my own house, knitting a ‘home sweet home’ pillow, with an American flag in one hand and my life insurance policy in the other. And grateful for every minute of it.