I just saw a real, live tumbleweed.

And it wasn't on "The Simpsons."

I'd be lying if I said I dreamed of working for a salvage company as a kid. But hey, I've got a job. About 7.5% of my compatriots in this country can't say the same, and that number is rising fast. Seeing as I'm on a week-to-week basis as an "independent contractor" (I feel so grown up saying that), I might be part of that subset in the near future. But for now, I'm making bills, I'm living at home, I'm making sandwiches and I'm saving cash, biding my time.

Ah, the salvage business. It gets me out of a cubicle, at least. If I can't be traveling the world, I might as well be sifting through its damaged goods and meeting the diverse and interesting characters who own them. I just bought a pair of Dickies khakis that have a side pocket, specifically so that I can continue to carry around my trademark notebooks and still look professional. Golden writing material isn't confined just to the Balkans and East Africa, after all.

Illegal immigrants and chrome plated rims in Aldine, porno-watching truck drivers and oil refineries in Baytown, 72-year-old black Cajun dudes named "Good Time Charlie" and Persian rug stores in Baton Rouge, desperate housewife entrepreneurs and women's clothing boutiques in Conroe, and now, at this very moment, tumbleweeds and tobacco shops in Lubbock, Texas, home of Mike Leach and fire-and-brimstone talk radio.

This is my life. The life of a salvor. (Bet you never even knew that word existed, eh?)

(Interesting note: the guy I'm working with up here, fah fah away from Houston and still comfortably within the borders of the great state of Texas, once tackled Amani Toomer from behind in a high school football game and took him out of the game with an ankle injury. Or so he says. I desperately hope this is true. For me, and for him.)

Lubbock talk radio is the opposite of National Public Radio. It is all about Jesus and gays and the End of Days, delivered to you in the thickest of Southern accents. I was cruising around this morning on the flat, wind swept plains of northwest Texas, shortly after seeing a huge tumbleweed blow across the four lane highway ("If you don't watch out, those suckers'll put a big ole' dent in your truck," Amani Toomer's high school nemesis noted), with the radio on scan, when I heard something interesting that caused me to click scan again and listen for a bit. Here is what I heard, as best as I can recall:

Caller: "A national intelligence estimate recently released stated that American economic and military clout will diminish in the next two decades, while the instances of conflict, and proliferation of dangerous weapons will increase. Do you think that American power will decrease?"

Radio Host: "I do believe American power will decrease, and I think it has been decreasing for quite some time now. And I think it started in 1963, when they took prayer out of the schools..."

It was at this point that I erupted with laughter and clicked scan again. No time for this drivel, I thought. But then, remembering that there aren't many good radio stations in Lubbock, I clicked seek to go back. I wanted to hear this guy out. Writing material, remember? Sort of a "When in Lubbock" attitude.

Radio Host: "...when you take God out of the schools, that is when you begin to decline as a nation..."

(I could go on but I'd rather get to the part where the same caller describes the host's advice as "prophetic.")

Caller: "In your prophetic advice, what would you say about the U.S. auto industry?"

Radio Host: "On March 4th, 2005, you see, I received a dream. God sent me a dream. And in this dream, I foresaw that the U.S. auto industry would fail. I was standing on the brake in this dream. I mean, I was standin' on it! And I had both hands on the steering wheel, pushin' on the brake in this dream! And no matter what I did, no matter how hard I pushed down, the car just kept rollin' down the hill. And that is when I knew that the U.S. auto industry would fail."

Funny. Others had the same realization in their waking hours, but they deduced it from balance sheets, pension costs, quarterly figures, stuff like that.

Like I said, at least I'm not in a cubicle.