As a former crash test dummy, believe me - I know a lot about automobiles. You could say that I know every bend and contour of their frame, in fact. Once you've wrapped one of their steel bodies around your plastic skin, you tend to know a little about their design, structure, and safety.

The other day I was listening to the Dave Ramsey show podcast from MyTMMO. This dude called into the show, up to his corneas in debt. Even though he owed more money than my adoptive dad after a night of blackjack, he had resolved to keep his grubby mitts on his brand new, $600/month, mortgage-on-wheels. The credit cards could go, but the hot wheels were somehow "necessary."

I mean, what's the deal with some people? Does the car make the man? Or does the car break the man?

Of course, Dave told him to sell the freakin' car with a capital NOW! Who knows if the dude took his advice? He seemed a little hesitant to give up his crutch of coolness.

It's people like this that make me glad to just be a dummy, and not a moron.

Okay, Okay...so I haven't been the most consistent blogger recently. I do have an excuse though, if you have a minute to listen to my attempt at explaining the mess that is my so-called life.

So, a couple of weeks ago my mom came down with the flu. This wasn't an ordinary flu though. When she gets sick, it's the real deal. Birds migrate South early. Leaves fall off trees out of season. Bears wake up during the winter. In other words, her sickness is so catastrophic (at least in her mind) that all of nature goes out of whack.

On the third day of life-altering disease, mom figured that I was the source of her ailments! (Yes, me - the plastic dummy!) So, I was placed in "quarantine" for the remainder of psychosomatic pain. Since we live in a double-wide trailer though, "quarantine" isn't a separate place that is free from germs. It's a broom closet where I was wrapped completely in generic-brand plastic wrap!

Thus, typing my daily blog has been a little problematic while I was bound like a plastic mummy. Thankfully, my mom was miraculously healed through a telethon, so now I have been freed and am able to resume my diligent blogging again!

Yes, I know. I need a life. Please don't hold that against me.

This blog idea didn't arise from a crazy story I read online. It came from the sad reality of life with my adoptive parents.

Last week Bobbi (my human "mother") decided she was going to balance the checkbook. Let me tell you, watching my parents balance the checkbook is like watching a cow try to fit through one of those doggie doors in the back of houses. You know it's not going to work, yet you can't look away for some reason.

Needless to say, Bobbi gave up after trying to record their 18th credit card expenditures in her register. It didn't look like they had tracked anything in months, so I imagine it was as frustrating as the metal pole in my thigh that holds me upright!

Let me just say, it would've been a lot easier for her had they had an actual plan. Some people call it a "budget"; I call it "duh - common sense"! In my job working for DUNCE, I have to devise a reasonable budget for our expenses. It's not stinkin' rocket science people! You make money. You make a plan for money. You stick to the plan. You get to live like a king later!

I'm not sure it's so easy that even a caveman could do it, but it's no problem for a dummy.

My adoptive, human parents, Bob and Bobbi, are like a living, breathing version of "you might be a redneck if..." In fact, reading a book of those jokes is like reading an extensive biography of them.

Repugnant old couch on the front porch...check.

So many cats that have you have to count them in 'legions'...check.

Neck-high weeds that have buried broken-down cars last seen in 1980...check.

Some days I wonder whether my car factory captivity was really as tortuous as life in Bob and Bobbi's double wide. The two room "house on wheels" is like the world's tackiest shrine to Elvis, outside of Graceland itself of course. There are posters and paintings and album covers and dish towels and dog food bowls and toilet seat covers, all emblazoned with the smirking face of "The King." (The toilet seat cover even has Elvis telling you "thank you, thank you very much.") There's enough memorabilia in the 800 square feet to make even a lifeless dummy gag from cheese overload.

To top off the madness, I discovered in my teens that the moron twins actually bought me with their Elvis platinum credit card! Although I cost less than their matching Elvis bathrobes, it took them two whole years to pay me off, as I came with a whoppin' 30% interest rate, that would've made even The King pass out on the "Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog" doggy rug!

I may be made of plastic, but I wasn't assembled yesterday.

I know a dummy when I see one.

My big dummy's got a charge card burning a hole in his bank account...and he's headin' for Heartbreak Hotel.

Little did this dummy know that the "wave" (you know, that silly thing that humans do at sporting events where they take turns rising up and waving their arms in the air) is actually older than I am.

In fact, on October 15th, the wave actually turned twenty-five. Aaaghh...the memories. Let's take a moment to remember how much it has brought to our lives. Hmmm...okay, I'm done.

Whereas the common wave fan might believe that it began at a Washington Huskies football game, the true wave historian knows that it actually began two weeks earlier at the decisive, AL championship game between the A's and Yankees in New York. And, get this, the originator of the wave is a guy called Krazy George Henderson. Crazy with a "K"? Now that really is KRAZY, man!

Seriously, where would we be without the wave? I guess, technically, we'd be in our seats actually watching the game. The point is that the wave has allowed humans to do what they do best...finding fun out of something that makes them look ridiculous while unapologetically ignoring the purpose for which they came. (Now that I put it that way, I think my adoptive dad Bob is on the verge of a major, cheer breakthrough!)

Just when you think you've heard everything, modern vanity reaches a higher (or is it lower?) level. I knew it was bad when I was modeling the latest, chic, winter ascots at a high society event, and the "people" there looked more plastic than me!

Now it seems that the latest cosmetic surgery craze is eyelash transplant surgery. I can hear it now - "Nurse, I need those tweezers! Stat! We're losing them...."

Come on, does the lash really make the man or woman? What possesses one to spend money on this? I can understand if the surgery's done for reparative purposes, for a burn or an injury. However, if it's only for beauty, then why stop there; you evidently think that beauty is only skin deep!

If I had money, I'd make sure and save, save, save for the future. Most people blow their cash (or worse...credit!) on things that will be here today and gone tomorrow. Let's just hope those kickin', new eyelashes come with an Emergency Fund for when the inevitable rainy day hits!

When you can't speak or move like me, you tend to spend all of your time watching and reading. Dummy life can be fairly boring, so I usually read the funny papers and watch game shows. I've become a Jeopardy master, but mainly because I've seen every episode now. I may be a dummy, but I think I could make Ken Jennings look like Paris Hilton without both brain cells if I had the chance.

The thing I've noticed on the idiot box recently is that people are obsessed with celebrities. Why?!!! Most of them are the most uninteresting and self-absorbed humans on the planet. They're more artificial than my cousin DL3000!

In particular, I'm tired of all the press concerning Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. So, the dude likes to jump on couches, kiss in public, change his mind about women, and be the media police for glibness and antidepressants. Seriously, do we really need to sift through the debris from the train wreck any more? Don't people have better things to do with their time and money than pay attention to this?

If I had mobility and a voice, you better believe I'd be embarking on an adventure of my own, not wrapped up in someone else's life!