It’s a tough time for Captain America. Advances in military technology have made a jacked-up dude with discus skills all but obsolete on the battlefield, the current U.S. administration is one that ol’ Steve Rogers might not be too stoked to shill for, and his rumored cameo in the Louis Leterrier / Ed Norton Incredible Hulk film was cut. And he was also assassinated last year, which will put anyone out of sorts. So until the upcoming Avengers movie gives Cap something worthwhile to do, we’re just going to assume that he’s sitting around his apartment in his robe and Al Gore post-2004 election beard, swigging the fire water and staring longingly at a picture of the Red Skull in front of the TV.

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Donkey
Originally uploaded by Victoria Reay.

I love stories where things go completely off the rails — where events just pile up and pile up and the next thing you know, the newspaper is printing a sentence like this:

McCarney was found in the room wearing a latex suit and handcuffs, the key to which the donkey is believed to have swallowed.

You can find the rest of the story (found via BoingBoing) here, and it pretty much tells itself. On the one hand it’s a sad tale of a sick and lonely man with a very, very unfortunate hangup. His donkey’s not in much better shape, either. But on the other: holy crap.

Imagine the conversations the guy had to explain himself, the look on the night manager’s face when someone told him what was happening in all seriousness. I’d like to hear Mr. McCarney’s side of the story, a plain, ordinary explanation of how one man ends up in a hotel with a donkey.

You don’t really get anywhere without taking little baby steps, and I’d love to hear how he crossed that line. One person’s black and white line is another’s broad, grey field.

And in one way or another it happen to everyone, all the time: you linger too long on the far side of the playground, over near the dark woods. Then a twig snaps and you look up to see that it’s getting dark and everyone’s gone home for dinner — and the sky is flat and heavy, the color of dark charcoal.