**

Today must have been a day for death. The first thing that happened, I was driving down entrance road and hear this "thump" like I hit a bump in the road or something. I look in my rear-view mirror and there is a sparrow doing the hokey-pokey in the middle of the road. I guess it swooped low and smacked the side of my car. I feel like a murderer.
Next, I'm still feeling like shit. My cold has turned into a sinus infection and my head is about to explode. So I call Doctor Dolittle and he calls in an antibiotic for me. I decide ( and my boss concurs) that I need to go home. I hit the road and get stuck behind a truck with a trailer hauling a bail of hay. The truck portion of the hauler barely misses this huge turtle on the blacktop and then, for some reason, swerves. The trailer hits the turtle dead center, spraying turtle goo all over the place. I swerve to miss it and the last thing I see is this cracked shell with the turtle's head sticking straight up as if he were screaming at the sky. I feel a nightmare coming on.
As if that weren't enough, I have a buttload of e-mail to go through from my week's vacation, cuz I may be dedicated, but there ain't no effin way I am going to even think about work when I ain't there, let alone do something proactive like check my e-mail from home. Uh-uh, no freaking way. Well buried about halfway into the inbox is a short note from my boss telling everyone that the soda vendor has been changed. All the Diet Coke machines will soon be replaced by shiny new Pepsi machines.
Did I mention that the only thing I can think of when I hear Pepsi is Jeff Gordon? (In case you are not up on your Nascar history, he drives the #24 Dupont Paint car but Pepsi is a major sponsor of his.) Did I also mention that I hate Jeff Gordon with a passion that would do Charles Manson justice? Did I perhaps in an aside state the fact that I hate Pepsi even more than Jeff Gordon ... if that's possible. I need a drink, y'all. A nice rum and Diet Coke perhaps, but with my luck, I'll find a dead rat in the rum and all my Diet Coke will be flat. I'll let you know later when I wake up from my nightmare and the SPCA gets through with me. Have a great one!
TG
edit: I just looked out my rear window and my cat, along with another neighborhood cat, have a lizard or frog trapped between them playing "rip the reptile." It just gets better and better.