I think a funny thing is a plastic bag in the wind. I don't mean that stupid scene in American Beauty either. I just mean, a random bag blowing around. It makes people react. It's hard to not react to a plastic bag flying through the air. I tried to ignore a plastic bag once, but my eyes were inexplicably drawn to its crazy, floating motions anyway. Also, if you ignore a plastic bag for long enough it could lead to cancer. Check it out immediately.

My personal favorite is when a plastic bag is blowing around on a busy street. The way cars slow down to avoid the bag; the swerving into different lanes, the hitting the brakes. Why are we so terrified of hitting the bag? Plastic bags are one of the world's softest things. It isn't going to screw up your bitchin' paint job, or dent your bumper. If it hits your windshield, blink and it's gone again, you big baby. And it's not like we can accurately predict where the wind will take the bag anyway, so there's really little point in trying to compensate as you are driving close to the bag's airspace. Wind is unpredictable. Bags in the wind are unpredictable. If everyone would accept that, I know we'd have a nicer world.

I drove right damn straight into a wayward bag the other day as I drove home from work. There was a lot of traffic, and I had nowhere to swerve to and with the tailgating that was going on back there in my car's nether regions, there was no way in hell I was going to hit the brake. And I hit that bag with all the 45 mph force that I could. It felt so cool. I wasn't letting a bag control me. "Fuck you, Bag!" I screamed from the safety of my closed windows. Yet...I found myself checking the rearview mirror to see where the bag ended up after my collision with it.

It could have been:
*Stuck to the front of my car from the impact and force of my speed
*Stuck underneath my car, where it could get stuck to my muffler and melt there and the smells would make my car stink
*Plastered over the tailgater's windshield
*Fluttering along behind me with a tenacious "I'm gonna git you sucka" attitude
*Perhaps carried by the wind out of harms way and into the yard of a happy little child with Kool-Aid mouth
*Gone!

This particular bag happened to make it past my car and was barreling low to the ground right into the tailgater's car. And I saw that guy swerve a little. I was worried for a second he would hit me, or someone in the next lane over, and cause a massive pileup. That didn't happen though. And where the bag went from there is a total mystery. I don't think that bag is around these parts anymore. I think it headed east. Whichever way the wind blows. Like a guy who travels the land, freely and without washing. A ramblin' bag.

A plastic bag, stuck to the bush at the side of the road--especially if it is the big, black, bags we use to gather cut grass, hedge clippings and old clothes for Goodwill-- can look like a person if the light is bad. Like if you are walking your dog at night, and you happen to walk past it and the wind flaps it just a little so it looks like an arm, weakly waving to you for help because it's just been mugged and left to bleed in the bushes at the side of the road. And you jump and do that gaspy thing and it makes the dog go "ARRRR!" and you get even more scared and your heart pounds and then you realize OH YOU MORON, it's a bag, not a dead guy. Still, kick it either way. And shrug and go home.

The other funny thing is when people try to catch flying plastic bags with their bare hands. Anyone who tries to do that will always look like a retard. There is no cool way to catch a bag in the wind. It's all flailing limbs and little jumps-forward and leaps and hair in your eyes. Good luck, fucker. Just let it go. No one wants to have sex with a wanna-be bag catcher. Remember that next time.