I live in the valley, at the bottom of a hill. Absolutely none of the property around my house is zoned for retail, so if either I or my brother want to buy snacks we have to hump it up the hill to the Husky station at the top of a pair of aging wooden stairs, flanked by crazy homeless people and other, more harmless but no less crazy homeless people.

My brother, Mac, was up there buying stuff yesterday when the cashier took a look at the name on his receipt.*

Cashier: McConnell? Are you related to Carson?
Mac: … She’s my sister.
Cashier: I still have the scar on my arm from when she hit me with a rake.

In my defense, I was seven.

*Mac never uses cash for anything. He will put three dollars on his debit card. It makes me crazy, which is probably why he still does it.

My thoughts on Transformers 2:

I didn’t know there was a hole in my life until it was filled by seeing Optimus Prime kick the shit out of three Decepticons at once.

Mack woke when the fire axe thunked into his headboard.

He kicked the covers into the air and ducked sideways, rolling out of the bed. The baseball bat slid smoothly from under his pillow, where Mack had been clutching it all night. His first haphazard swing neatly deflected the axe as it came down again.

It was calm, just for a moment. Mack stared the alarm clock down, watching the gears in its head spin away. Then with the ruthless optimism of a machine it advanced, brandishing the axe.

This time, when the axe splintered the floorboards where Mack had been standing a second ago, it stuck. Mack struck upward with the bat, slugging the clock viciously on the chin. It stumbled back, bolts tumbling from its mouth like broken teeth.

Mack swung from the shoulder. The clock’s head flew across the room and hit the wall, landing on the floor with a pathetic clang.

He used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his forehead and set about dragging the alarm clock into the closet.

The squeaky step on the stairs had been there for years, but Mack managed to step on it every time he walked downstairs. The sound carried clearly into the kitchen. He winced.

“Oh, good, you’re up. Breakfast is ready!”

My thoughts on Wolverine:

Shit dude, can Hugh Jackman pop the vein in his forehead at will?