Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Today is Mexican Independence Day, commemorating the day in 1206 BCE when Cheech Marin, Paul Rodriquez, and Speedy Gonzalez repelled the French army with a tactical master stroke. They ordered their forces to sneak into the enemy's kitchens and fill their sinks with rotten mayonnaise. The smell was so pungent, even to the French, that they were utterly destroyed. That's why France doesn't exist anymore. Hence the name Cinco de Mayo, which means "sink full of mayo". It is normally celebrated on the 3rd Thursday of November, but for some reason they're doing it on May 5th this year. Probably something to do with NAFTA.

In an unrelated topic, I need to get me some lighter friends. My car is in the shop. Something had knocked my exhaust pipe loose and it has been dragging on the ground making sparks. Interesting to to look at, but not something you really want your car doing. I had been making a joke to myself--not to anyone else because it was only mildly funny and rather insulting to my friends--that I've been driving around with too many fat people in my car. An inordinate number of my friends are significantly overweight and do not drive. Now, I'm a little overweight myself, only about 30 pounds or so, and have no wish for the gods to punish my hubris by making me any fatter, so I try to keep the potential fat jokes to a minimum. I have only so much self control, so some do get out, but I try. Andy at Andy's Import Auto (good, honest mechanic and nice guy) informed me this morning that my engine mounts and transmission mounts were broken, and that the subsequent sagging of the transmission is what broke my exhaust pipe. He did not say this in so many words, but if my understanding of gravity and physics is correct (possibly not), it might be that excessive weight and inertia caused a sag in the body of the car and an unusually high burden on the transmission. Put another way, it very well could be that my car was broken by having too many fat guys in it.