e careful – this is
going to be one of those ranting entries. But I guess I wouldn’t worry
too much – my worst rants still don’t make it far beyond the pussycat level.
As I'm sure everyone in Southern California at least has heard, the
Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA championship last night. Since the NBA has
no team in either Pittsburgh or San Diego, I couldn't care less, but of
course in L.A., people were going nuts. Literally. They showed on the news
that people were setting cars on fire, and breaking windows, and throwing
stuff at policemen, and trying to overturn news vans, and starting bonfires
in the middle of the street. I just read that someone was even shot and
killed during all the melee.
I don't understand what makes people act like that. Even when I was
a young kid, or a teenager, I never had the faintest interest in destructiveness.
Shoot, I never even went toilet-papering or tic-tacking (does anyone know
what that is, or is it a Pittsburgh phenomenon? It's when you take dried
corn, what we called Indian corn, and throw it at the windows of houses,
just to be annoying). I can remember once, when some neighborhood kids
were getting their jollies from a cigarette lighter and a can of WD-40.
What did I do? I ran off and told my dad.
Sometimes things like this make me embarrassed to be human. I know,
the vast majority of the people at the Lakers game were calm and not causing
any problems, but it's not like there were only one or two people starting
bonfires. But when maniacal antics like this tend to become expected
after big events like basketball championships, I begin to feel better
about my propensity to never leave the house.
