How I feel when people tell me politics aren't important and that they don't need to know about it.

Awkward times with the Sheriff and a knife.

It's a scarcely known fact that on some older models of cars, the ignition gets so worn down that you can use relatively anything to start it with. Other keys, can openers, and even pocket knives. My car is one such as that, and the pocket knife is my key of choice.

It was a normal, calm Friday morning, a little before 1 A.M. in downtown Tulsa. I was driving to go to my brothers house, from whence we would depart on a road trip to Texas. I glanced suspiciously over my shoulder to see if there was anyone behind me; I haven't had tail lights in my car for months and driving with your rear in the dark can make you nervous. I came to a stoplight and waited patiently for it to give me the green left arrow, when at the same time the Sheriff came to the same light on the opposite side, turning right.

"Come on buddy, turn on red. You can do it. Please don't get behind me."

No such luck. The light turned green. The Sheriff didn't budge. I took a deep breath and slowly accelerated, dreaming in the back of my mind that he wouldn't notice or simply wouldn't care about my blatant tail light violation. I passed under the bridge, and he followed close behind. I turned into the neighborhood I was headed to and he flipped on his lights.  I immediately thought of the joke "it's funny how red, white, and blue stand for freedom until they're flashing behind you." Pulling over, I starting fumbling around in the dark for my licence.

As he approached my vehicle I realized I didn't have a recent verification of insurance. "Fun stuff" I said with a wince. Upon my informing him of this, he went back to his cruiser and found my info on his computer.

"Alright son, I got you all checked out and..." He fell silent, mouth partially agape and eyes fixed on something in front of me. "Why do you have a knife sticking out of your ignition?"

"Uh... I'm just going to put that away." I put both my hands in clear view and slowly closed the knife and put it in my passenger seat. His gaze cut through the darkness and made my heart beat rapidly. I tried to explain that my car could be started with anything, but not without a good deal of stumbling over my own words. He stood there for awhile before handing me a warning for my tail lights.

"Use your keys. Fix your lights. Get your insurance verification."
"Yes sir, absolutely sir."
"Be careful out there."
"Yes sir, absolutely sir. Thank you sir, I will." I was thankful for him telling me to be careful, but  I was also pretty grateful that he didn't arrest me.

So remember kids, next time a cop pulls you over, make sure to at least try to make it look like you aren't driving a stolen car.

People.

There are billions of people in this world we call our own. I don't mean to bring the level of amazing of a lot of those people down, but I've had the divine pleasure of meeting some very incredible people in the short, yet oh-so-long 18 years of my life.

I've met the jocks; the guys who spend their lives in the gym and on the field, with their shirts off 90% of the time.
I've met the attention hogs; the people who would do anything to be adored by their peers.
I've met the geeks; the people who have a life that revolves around technology.
I've met the plebs; the people who want nothing more than to live an average life.
I've met the jokesters; the people who live to make you laugh.
I've met the thinkers; the people who make you reevaluate your life.
I've met the artists; the people who create the most beautiful work you've ever seen or heard.
I've met the downers; the people that, despite their dark disposition, divulge your desire for deep discussion and can help you release your inner emotions.
And I've met a few hipsters.

I've met a lot of people in my life. However, none of these unique, interesting individuals have proven to be as intriguing and awe inspiring as the ones who, despite their past mistakes and all the grievances against them, are still happy. Regardless of whether or not you're a jokester, a downer, or a geek, you have your own way of being happy. Life is hard and then you die, and despite how beautiful this world can be, the fact that not everything goes your way gets to some people so bad that they lose the joy of life.

When life spits in your face, kicks dirt at you, calls you names, abandons you, and stabs you in the back, you know how hard life can be. And when you make it through the day and still have a smile on your face and a reason to love, then you have earned my respect.

There are billions of people in this world we call our own, and you're one of them. None of them have any more potential to be amazing than you do. Smile, you're still alive.

Drowning in skin.

So basically, dust is gross. Most people know that dust is composed partially of dead, exfoliated skin cells that are just kind of floating around in the atmosphere. And since the thought of your ancestors blowing the breeze isn't gross enough, I'm going to try to gross you out even more, with science.

The average adult human has enough skin to cover up 2 square meters (if you skinned him and laid his hide out like a pelt), and that weighs approximately 20 pounds. Fun fact: you will exfoliate approximately 8 pounds of dead skin cells every year. By bypassing some simple mathematical, scientific, and common sense laws we can know that 8 pounds of skin would cover up about .8 square meters.

So the question here today is: how long would it take for there to be so much dead skin that it would cover up the whole surface of the world? To start off this discussion, I'd like to bring up the fact that after all this time we haven't started having to use snow plows to keep the streets clean of our little tiny dead cells that have been piling up. There are three reasons for this, two of which are pretty gross.

The first reason is dust mites. These little tiny creatures feed off of your dead flesh. There's really not a lot else I'd like to say about them, but really all you need to know is that they're tiny and disgusting. Also they look like this.

The second reason may or may not make you gag. You're constantly breathing in hundreds of thousands of deceased epidermis particles which are being destroyed inside of your body. You're eating yourself, and lots of other people in the world. Cannibal. Sick cannibal freak.

The third reason is all but too simple: since the exfoliated cells are dead, they will eventually decay.

Because of these facts, we will be working in theoretical boundaries. If everyone in the world held their breath, all the dust mites simultaneously expired Avengers style, and the skin cells that are already dead ceased to decay, how long would it take before the entire earth was coated in "dust"?

Earth is pretty dang big, sitting pretty at 510 million (510,000,000) square kilometers. Since one kilometer is one thousand meters, 510 million kilometers is 510 billion (510,000,000,000) square meters.

There are approximately 7 billion (7,000,000,000) people on earth. In a year, all of those 7 billion people would exfoliate 5.6 billion square meters of dead skin. (7 billion multiplied by .8.)

510 billion divided by 5.6 is 91.07142857142857. This number, which I'll just call 91, because it is basically 91 for all intents and purposes, is the number of years of exfoliation it would take by 7 billion individuals to cover the earth in dead skin cells.

Okay, we covered the earth. Now what?

Well there's a problem. Assuming a large portion of those cells didn't get sucked into the sea and they just kind of floated on top, we've only created a layer of dead skin about an eighth of an inch thick. I want people to be drowning in skin. I want there to be people pushing themselves around in canoes trying to get from place to place. How long would it take for there to be a layer of skin 7 feet deep?

To make an inch, it would take 91 years x 8 (assuming the coating of "dust" was 1/8th of an inch thick). 728 years.
To make it to a foot, it would take 728 years x 12. 8,736 years.
To make it to seven feet, it would be 8736 x 7. 61,152 years.

By the time 61,152 years passed, all of that skin would weigh in at 489,216 pounds, which is only slightly smaller than Tony Stark's ego.

I kind of wish I could say there was a point to this, but there really isn't. I just hope you're grossed out now after thinking about dead skin for that long. To be completely honest, it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable and dirty.

Until next time, kids!