When I think of how traffic, in general, goes...it's amazing that it flows at all. Think how you would explain traffic to someone, say, from another planet.

There are millions of these rolling, big machines confined onto strips of things called roadways. They are piloted by individuals. The job of these individuals is to steer, accelerate, brake, and--this is the most important part--dodge all of the millions of other big, rolling machines for the entire duration of not just the trip, but ideally for the individuals' entire lives. And get this: not even a single light touch is acceptable. Not even for a second. Yes, these individuals are deluded into thinking this is not only doable, but actually easy. They do this relaxed. In fact, they spend vast sums of money to buy more comfortable rolling, big machines. And they do it with--or all things--distractions. There is sound from speakers, sight of all things other than the road ahead--conversations with eye contact within the rolling, big machines. They do it while euphoric from substances. There is even texting.

I, myself, have not always been successful in dodging the other rolling, big machines. And there have been some individuals, perhaps a little too relaxed, who have failed to dodge me in my own rolling, big machine. Some of these failures in this master plan have been much more than light touches. There have been some that have resulted in my big machine no longer able to roll.

Before rolling, big machines there were horses. Even wagons pulled by horses. They had to navigate and dodge the other horses. But here's the thing: the horses don't want to ram into each other. They see other horses coming and they dodge them out of self-interest. If only our rolling, big machines could have self-interest as such.

Now there are companies making rolling, big machines that act out of self-interest. They use AI to navigate the impact-free paths in the most efficient ways. They will all be linked up, which begs the question: didn't we learn our lesson with SkyNet?

I once rear-ended a car stopped in front of me while reading a billboard that said, "Don't text and drive." Good advice. Then, a priest behind me rear ended me. Why did he do that? Is it because I was an altar boy in grade school?

No matter how it's done, rear-ending is just not genteel. But when there are millions of rolling, big machines to dodge--never-ending, everywhere, by all sorts of individuals--I suppost you're going to get rear-ended sooner or later.

#comedy

#observations

It's about time we settled this whole nipple thing, once and for all.

Is there a problem with nipples? Not for me. I'm all for 'em. A pair at a time, singly, or even supramammary. Consider me a downright areolar, erectile enthusiast.

But here's the problem, at least by the FCC's broadcasting standards: nipples are not appropriate on the electromagnetic spectrum from wavelengths between10 centimeters to 10 meters, even though most nipples are under 2-3 centimeters, tops. According to the FCC, nipples just should not be flying through the air along these currents, nor should nipples be digitally deconded/re-encoded for digital portrayal via cathode rays or LED pixels. Even though they are important and figured prominently in our species' survival and evolution, the FCC just can't abide nipples, even though those in the FCC who eschew them, have them.

I was watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel about a transgender individual who was going through the stages of surgical alteration into the gender he wanted to be, or alternately, the masculinized person who wanted to be transgendered to female. It was free to watch, although it was sponsored by Geico. As the documenary opened, it promised that the story would center around removal of male sex organs, contruction of a neovagina, hormonal supplementation with estrogens and other female hormones, and breast implants. Now it is policy that nowhere can be shown male sex organs or female sex organs. Penises, penis-like objects, vaginas (even neovaginas), and anuses (for which I'm grateful) cannot be shown. I've come to terms with these forbidden items. But there are organs that both male and females have--nipples--and here is where the paradoxical FCC compliance disintegrates into a hypocritical mind set.

Although men and women both have anuses, it is the anus itself that renders it forbidden, and not who it's on. But with nipples, this just doesn't hold milk. The transgender individual was featured on the show--don't remember his (her) name--let's call him (her) a nice millennial name:Taylor. Taylor's story begins with her initial visit to the surgeon. During the evaluation, she is still a he, so the documentary has no issues with showing him from the waist up as the doctor does the physical exam. There they are--Taylor's nipples. His male nipples. They look just fine, too. Two small hyperpigmented spots. No controversy...yet.

Next, the first surgical phase begins, wherein her doctor inserts the breast implants. During the surgery scene, everything is pixelated, so it's hard to know if the nipples were visible; this was obviously due to the "gross" guts factor, since the FCC also has policies regarding gross guts, oozing, ruptures, and generally any type of horrible bodily cataclisms, unless it's on CSI or cable...then it's called entertainment, which falls squarely into a category called the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. But here's where everything begins getting sticky. On Taylor's postoperative visit to her doctor, she is once again examined from the waist up. The "him" nipples, now on a "her," are pixelated out. Thomas Jefferson groans from his grave.

WAIT JUST A GODDAMN MINUTE! I JUST SAW THOSE NIPPLES ONE GIECO COMMERCIAL AGO!

They're not different. They're the same nipples. The surgery didn't change the nipples. Taylor's "him" nipples are no different from her "her" nipples. So what's the deal? I wrack my brain to try to rationalize why I'm not allowed to see Taylor's nipples now. The only thing that comes to me is...bulbosity.

Bulbosity: quality of being shaped like a bulb, being swollen, or bulging.

Aha! The implants imparted bulbosity. What is a female breast, exactly? It is a mammary gland, designed to produce milk for infants via breastfeeding. The mammary glands constitute the bulk that gives the female breasts their bulbosity--or in this case, their mammosity. Lactation is not about the nipple, it's about the bulbosity. Were the nipples pixelated because they were--not nipples--but trussed up by mammary glands? Not in Taylor's case, because Taylor had no mammary glands--just implants. Faux bulbosity. Faux mammosity.

Yet, if one were to watch any re-runs of Baywatch, there is bulbosity-a'plenty. It's allowed. Bulbosity above the nipples is fine, and that's called cleavage; cleavage is acceptable by broadcast standards and practices. Bulbosity below the nipples if fine, too, although approaching "the line" a bit, like side-breast ("Viewer discretion is advised.") Bulbosity above the nipples is PG-13. Bulbosity below the nipples or to the side is TV-14. But the dreaded female nipples themselves remain "X" on television, even though they're only "R" in movies.

Nevertheless, Taylor's need to have her nipples pixelated was obviously not because of her nipples, which were the same nipples I saw before the Geico commercial. And it wasn't because of their new, aesthetically pleasing bulbosity, because I've seen Pamela Anderson's bulbosity many times in primetime. It wasn't cleavage, either, because I've seen plenty of that, even on obese men on TV. When it comes to the FCC, is it that nipples just aren't that simple? Is there a complicated formula at work here that is used by the FCC to designate what is viewable and what is not?

Nipples + bulbosity + cleavage + intentional allusion to female anatomy (original or noe-constructed) = no-go. And a fine--just ask Jane Jackson.

The intentional allusion to female anatomy seems to be the key here. This is obviously a sexual reference. Nipples cannot be shown if they're female and being used for sex. But wait--Taylor wasn't having sex with her doctor. Maybe she did later, which would be a whole different story altogether, but there was definitely no sex during the entire nipplementory. Is it that showing nipples, now portrayed on the recently acquired female bulbosity, will make the TV viewer want to have sex with Taylor? Not with that penis that we all know is still there. Unless it makes a woman want to have sex with Taylor and her penis, in spite of her male nipples but female bulbosity and cleavage. This is a different situation altogether, because keeping something titillating (sorry) from the public because it might make someone think lascivious thoughts smacks of making "thought police" O.K. Is it O.K, George Orwell?

What about a woman wanting to become a man? Will the nipples remain pixelated after she has a breast reduction? Probably not. Once a female nipple, always a female nipple. What if Taylor ends up regretting her transgender surgeries. If she goes back to the surgeon to be made male again, will her nipples be unpixelated after removing the implants?

I am almost 900 words into this rant, trying to make sense of why I can see the same exact nipples before the Geico commercial, but not after. Every which way I am vexed and thwarted. Then the only thing that makes sense finally dawns on me:

It's the government, stupid!

It doesn't need to make sense, so stop fretting over two little hyperpigmented spots and when you see pixels, just use your imagination. That's not illegal...yet.

I woke up, hung over, in Mexico with no idea how I got here.

I was not alone. There were hundreds of people with me. We were parked on a hot asphalt strip just south of a huge wall. A man had a megaphone and led the chants. We were angry; we were hungry, dirty, and exhausted. We wanted work, and we were willing to work hungry, dirty, and exhausted. We were angry because we were denied, and we could see no sense in it.

The man then read a manifesto. It was all in Spanish, yet I could understand him perfectly. I looked at my arms and caught a glimpse of my face in the mirrored glasses of an ICE officer. Not only was I in Mexico, hung over, with no idea how I got here, but I was a Mexican, my blonde hair and blue eyes as gone as my memories of the night before.

What chance did I have of getting in, in spite of my board certification in neurosurgery? “I can contribute!” I yelled at the wall, in Spanish--the wall I helped pay for. “I’m skilled. With a unique skill. A surgeon. An American surgeon.” The people around me grew quiet. “You need me back. You could use me. Let me back in. You would be better off with me there!” But no one on the wall even pretended to understand what I was saying. The wall was up; the border was closed; and I was fucked.

“Speak English!” a man shouted back from atop the wall. “Go home. Where you belong. And speak English if you want to talk to us. If you want in. Immigration is closed! There’s no place for you here!”

My accidental entourage shrugged in unison. “You’re a doctor?” I heard a woman ask meekly. “I have this lump, right here, see? I sure could use you.”

“Ma’am, I can’t help you. In fact, I’m late for rounds on my own patients at my own hospital in New York.” But she couldn’t understand a thing I said, because I spoke American.

On the first day, we scanned and cataloged all of our epic and lyrical poetry, fiction and non-fiction, for those who might follow.

On the second day, we summarized and cataloged all of our scientific knowledge for those who might follow.

On the third day, we recorded and cataloged all of our music, songs, and hymns for those who might follow.

On the fourth day, we notated all of our dance for those who might follow.

On the fifth day, we transcribed all of our comedy for those who might follow.

On the sixth day, we erased the scrolls of our entire history so that no one who followed would ever suspect that we did this to ourselves.

On the seventh day, knowing that it was as if Melpomene had never existed, we rested.

This was it.

“Here we go,” ol’ man Templet mumbled inarticulately. Everyone leaned in.

He anticipated drawing in his last breath in his beautiful death and delivering it back out with the weight of a fleeing soul. A beautiful end to a beautiful story. The Templet obituary would be the one everyone would want. Painless and peaceful—who could ask for more? He couldn’t have scripted it any better. His cue would wait just a moment, and he gave one last perusal of his surrounding family with their silent tears and quivering lips. Some genuine, most staged. Tally time: one brother, one wife, two daughters, one missing son-in-law, one dead son-in-law, one son only half there. Three Templets, four others.

William Templet paused at each—certainly the final moment could wait—for one more eyeful of each one of them. The brother soon to follow him into the unknown. The two daughters, neither with husbands any longer. The wife who stood inert, no longer able to participate in the morbid vigil for a man who had sewn her doubts for the reaping forty years earlier. The grim reaping.

There were mistakes, sure.

One son-in-law of whom he never approved and was proven right by the painful explosion that shattered that marriage. Another son-in-law of whom he did approve—even loved, and he was proven a fool when the suicide happened. That feckless daughter—Suzanne—was it her fault? If it were, was that his fault in raising her the way he did?

Or in anything he had done?

Tally time: one unhappy wife, one widowed and unhappy daughter, one divorced and unhappy daughter, one ne’er-do-well son, one brother lost in dementia.

He had done his best with Suzanne, this widowed daughter. She had become a hysteric about forty years ago—as Suzy—still a child. He remembered how it was a change that happened rather abruptly. She became defiant. Had an answer for everything. The child who knew more than her parents. What’s done was done and you have to trudge on with the tools you have at the time.

When Suzanne came of age, he had pinned all of his hopes on her husband helping her navigate her life, but then he had navigated himself to the end of his own world and off the very edge into the abyss. He felt the draw of that same vacuum and it was seductive.

The abyss. His own world was now flat and he was moving toward his own finite horizon.

He snorted a laugh, which to his audience sounded like a cough, prompting raised eyebrows and a few open mouths of concern. Concern for what? They knew the deal. They knew what was happening here. He could start hemorrhaging out of his eyeballs and why would it matter now?

This was it.

After his eyes finished their sweep, the Templet passing in review complete, he privately reaffirmed his love for each one of them whether they wanted it or not; even his son, with whom he had estranged himself, then reconciled, all because of a son’s weakness and certainly not a father’s weakness: was David’s drug abuse his fault, like Suzanne’s fate?

He thought not. He did what he had to do with the tools he had at the time.

Would he have done things differently? Sure, now that he paged through the last part of his book—the index of his life, the final tally—any item available for reconsideration by just remembering it. It would take just a reminisce for a brief revisit to his life in review. But no re-dos. You trudge on with the tools you have at the time, and this time, on his deathbed, the tools were final: one hammer and six nails to shut his coffin for jettison into the abyss.

His life. How did he do? Were his couple of billion heartbeats tabulated somewhere in the great eternity’s actuary table of life along with the tallied daughters, sons-in-law, wife, brother, and son? Had he lived enough, trading one hour’s less sleep here and two hours’ less sleep there for three more hours of living? Did he break even? He would soon find out: the afterlife, if there were one.

Or nothing? The joke on us. His entire life story and sentience negated into irrelevance by oblivion.

Templet chose to believe the afterlife version. Had to be. Better be. If not, he would strain to sense his oblivion to resent it, fighting a paradox, contradicting oblivion itself; his anger would prove so powerful as to shatter the constraints by which oblivion imprisons one’s worth, fate, destiny, and intrinsic importance to self. And, of course, to the ones hovering over him in his final hour.

Go with the afterlife, he thought, because the alternative would muster feelings that would be hard to defend in that afterlife.

The afterlife. Would it be Heaven, perfect happiness, camaraderie with those who went before him? All his dreams come true? Where Malcolm lived and David could be brought back into the fold, whole? Where whatever happened to Suzy to make her so hysterical, did not? Where every facet of every relationship beamed beautifully and perfectly? Angels, seraphim, cherubim, and God Almighty himself and Jesus and Moses and Mother Mary. That would be nice. Wings would be cool.

But he realized such was his childhood afterlife, little Willie Templet’s religion of rules and Heaven and Hell, reward and punishment. His religion, he protested, was the adult version. Not Willie, but William Templet’s. A rational construct that only a Supreme Being could create. Sure, he could have some ideas, such as communion on a holy, supranatural, and fulfilling level with everyone who’s ever existed. Ever? His version also placed it outside of time. Ever was ridiculous. It wouldn’t be with everyone who’s ever existed, but everyone who has existed, exists, and will exist. What a presence! And in having an adult faith in a supreme being, he realized that however sensibly wonderful he thought his destination, that the limits of human understanding—within the capabilities of that 3-pound brain—would only be a scratch on the ultimate reality. He knew he would be blown away by this next reality.

Yes.

He smiled. He would soon be with all of his loves—the ones who ever lived or live now—many at his bedside—and who will ever live—great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, and on. The massive tree, whose branches were all made up of umbilical cords, all reeled back in for self-nonself and all-else consolidation. He could only imagine.

He did one more sweep of the gallery and then smiled. One more smile wouldn’t affect his lifetime tally of smiles. Everyone stood, but not because it was standing room only. Now he felt the recession of time and space that could only be filled by his last breath. He drew it in. It failed to return out. The weight of a fleeing soul would find another way.

He passed a sudden, unbridled torrent of gas. Everyone knew it was his last word.

The silent tears became noisy. The end of a chapter can be just as sorrowful as the loss of the one who creates the ellipsis…the next chapter would follow without him. A sobering reminder of one’s own mortality is a moving experience. Hands squeezed others’ hands. Quivering became soft cries. They all sought the eyes of each other, sweeping the circle as he had done just a moment earlier. But there was no cacophony or din for his had been a good death. A very nice death indeed. It didn’t get out of control, for not much would change in their lives.

This was it, Templet thought.

He opened his eyes and his childhood religion smacked him hard. There stood the pearly gates, very high and firmly shut and secured by a very large, solid gold lock, its key hanging from a gold chain on the white-robed man standing behind the dais between him and his afterlife.

Wow, he thought, as a sentiment he always had, has, and ever will have. Wow.

He eyed the keeper of the gates. Who would speak first? Certainly it wasn’t his place. He would wait. He laughed at the concept of waiting in a place outside of time. Out loud.

“That’s number 674,843,” the man said, adding an entry to the open book that sat on his dais.

“Excuse me?”

“That was your 674,843rd laugh, although I really should add it to the 1,642 chuckles. Do you care, really? I mean at this point, we really stop counting and tally it all up.”

“I’m sorry sir, I do not understand.”

“Mr. Templet—Mr. William Templet—you have laughed 674,842 laughs, guffaws, and hoots in your lifetime. Fewer chuckles and hardly any chortles, although I’ve always found that to be splitting hairs. Or splitting haws, I should say.” He laughed at his own joke.

“How many laughs does that make for you?” he asked the shining man.

“Oh, you don’t want to know,” he answered. Both shot each other a wry grin, as if it had been rehearsed. “My, my, look at the snickers. You were very snarky, Mr. Templet.”

The man fingered a glowing gold ribbon that sat deep within the packed pages of the book and used it to open to that section. “Ah,” he said, “eructations.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Eructations. Nothing? How ’bout belches?”

“Oh, yes, belches.”

“24, 205 eruct—er—belches.”

“You’ve counted my belches?”

The shining man looked back down at the book, finding some more shining ribbons of different colors. He methodically flipped them one by one, pausing at each. Finally, one section caught his attention. “Yes, belches,” he answered, then looked back up at Templet. “Oh, I have everything here,” he added. “Heartbeats, blinks—

“How many blinks, exactly?” The sarcasm didn’t project as obviously as he had meant it.

“Little more than half a billion, each eye.”

“Each eye?” The ineffective sarcasm missed its mark again.

“504, 576,342, left eye. 504, 575, 622, right eye.”

“They’re different. Are you sure your data is correct. Shouldn’t they be the same?”

“We count winks as blinks. You obviously are a right-eye blinker.”

“Of course,” the Templet said, “that would explain it.” He was confused, denied the mysteries of the universe in lieu of such superficiality. “This is all so very silly, isn’t it?” He watched the shining man page through the book again and grew inpatient. “And this all means what?” He asked, with a touch of demand included.

“You mean, besides your winks being exactly 720?”

“Yes.”

“In due time, William, in due time. Now, sneezes, ejaculations…”

“Ejaculations?”

“Um, yes. Ejaculations—orgasms. It says here…4,209.”

“Wow,” Templet whispered to himself.

“Even so, that’s actually way less than average.” He lowered his voice to a whisper.

“My wife and I had…issues,” Templet said quietly.

“We’re not counting masturbation of course. Otherwise, it’d be quite a different number, wouldn’t it? No, we shan’t count them.”

“Thank God.”

“Don’t thank God. It’s not that He disapproves. It’s just a don’t ask, don’t tell thing. So, we just don’t count them with the official ejaculations.”

“O.K., how many masturbations, if you must?”

“Well,” the shining man said, focusing on a line in the book, “it’s a footnote here, um…Whoa!”

“Yea, I get it, more than my ejaculations.”

“Your official ejaculations.”

“Of course, as you say, the…official…those things.”

“Ejaculations,” the shining man repeated.

“Yea, those. Thanks.” Whose afterlife was this? This fit nowhere in any version—the children’s version or the adult version. This was a Monty Python version. William Templet’s face fell. He appeared a bit dejected.

“Don’t fret, William. Can I call you William?”

“Sure.”

“Your maturation was higher than average. That’s something to be proud of, I suppose.”

“In what way?” Template asked. “What’s average maturation? How much higher was mine?”

“The average maturation, of course, is the median between an Oxford-educated gentleman and a transient, boorish sheetrock drywall worker.” Templet gulped.

“My first job was hanging drywall,” he said guiltily.

“You see, William, how far you came. I mean, you didn’t go to Oxford—not even Harvard.”

“Princeton? Does Princeton count? Because I did go there.”

“Really?”

“O.K., I was accepted there.”

“Really?”

“O.K., I applied there. Doesn’t that count?”

“Hmm,” the man said sadly, “not as much as Harvard. In fact, I think you’re probably closer to drywall installation than Oxford on the grand scheme of things. And, let’s see, you didn’t even do that well there, either…only 6200 square yards of sheetrock.”

“If you’re counting, and of course—”

“Oh, I am.”

“It was a summer job,” Template insisted. “So long ago. It was to help my daughter pay for her abortion—”

“Really? You two must have been very close. The daughter who could confide anything.”

He realized his mistake right away. If the exact number of ejaculations was well documented, certainly the number of abortions—whose exact number was 1—wouldn’t be a secret.

“Does that make me a bad person?” he asked the shining man.

“No, what makes you a bad person is that the number is zero. Well, not a bad person, more like a chump. She used that money for a breast enlargement. She wasn’t pregnant. Surely you knew that, didn’t you?”

“No. No, I didn’t. I thought she looked different by the time we got to beach weather.”

“Do you want to know how many times she had sex?”

“Not really,” he answered, but he knew the jig was up. “She’s my daughter. I really don’t think the confidante stuff goes that far.”

“Gee, forty-three years ago, from May 3 to June 22, why…she had sex as many times as you, and that—Mr. Templet—is what makes you a bad person.”

He was waiting for this shoe to drop. A single shoe from a man who didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“I guess that’ll send me where I need to go?” he said.

“Yes, William, and by my tally, for the 3,493rd time. For the man who knows everything better than everyone else. The man who has an answer for everything. Better luck next time, William.”