Listen, society, we’ve had a good run, you and I. I know I’ve threatened to resign from society before. This time, though, it’s for real. I held off on posting for a couple of days. I’m a lot more fortunate than a lot of people in Las Vegas and didn’t want to take attention away from the issue.

I woke up Monday morning with my network calling me to send me to Nevada. I explained they’d better check with my newsroom in DFW because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t still be an employee by the time my flight landed. The station’s car never made it back from Hurricane Harvey, as you’ll recall.

A couple hours later, in fact, the station and I parted ways.

I had the right people around me when I needed them the most, though. For that, I’m grateful. Everyone rallied around me after that first crash a few years ago. Frequently, media companies get a bad reputation for dropping employees on a whim. That didn’t happen at WBAP. They stuck with me for three months when two wires in my brain were touching that shouldn’t have been, and I was, pardon my use of medical terminology, whacked out of my gourd.

Many of those people had moved on, though, and I had become a product of a bygone era. When I’d go into the newsroom, it had become more common to see someone I didn’t know. When my celebrity goat milking partner left after this year’s competition, I knew I’d become a piece of antiquity.

Someone else will have to milk that goat next year, and that’s okay.

Part of me is happy that I’m not having to wake up early and spend all day running from story to story. You’ll probably be less happy because I have more free time to whip you with blogs.

Perfect Strangers just showed up Hulu, however. The timing on that was impeccable; that’ll be a handsome tool to occupy some of my free time. Maybe I’ll recreate the iconic “U Can’t Touch This” scene. I’ll be holding an open casting call for the role of “Mypiot.”

The opening credits were also strangely reassuring:

“Sometimes the world looks perfect, nothing to rearrange
Sometimes you just get a feeling like you need some kind of change
No matter what the odds are this time
Nothin’s gonna stand in my way”

Nothin’!

I’m also glad to no longer have to shove a microphone in the face of people who’ve just been involuntarily pushed into a national news story. Reporters don’t like doing that anymore than the microphone-ee.

But listen, if anyone needs a reformed journalist who was declared the best in radio, I think you’ll find my fee quite affordable.

Then a couple hours later, Tom Petty dies, and I’m like, “Lord?!”