The un-hijack-able thread is here. Just have what you post have some connection to something in a previous post, and, if you can do it, explain how those connections worked for you.
So often I won’t be able to contribute directly or on point to things said, but something about what’s said will make me want to post some mini-hijack. You’d be amazed at how often I manage to restrain myself.
If you haven’t already thought of something, try this:
falling leaves fall
pile up
rain beats on rain
This makes me think of a psych experiment I was in last year, where I had to write down what I was thinking of every time the machine beeped. My record of thoughts ended up looking very strange, with no logical connection between any of the entries. Thoughts can be damn hard to put into words - and it was particularly tricky to try to write down my reflections about what an inaccurate record it was because my thoughts were often composed of a jumble of images and memories and feelings, and trying to compress them into a short sentence was misrepresenting them.
That makes me think of an idea I have had in recent times that memories are records of moments and images and snippets of sound or taste or smell. We may have several of such things stored and even linked to each other, but memories of events and spans of time are things we reconstruct from those little things. I wonder if there’s any scientific theory supporting what I have merely suspected.
It’s amazing to me that whenever I smell diesel exhaust, I think of my high-school boyfriend. No, he wasn’t a truck driver. His family had a 1967 diesel Mercedes Benz which I witnessed the odometer turning over to 300,000 (I think. It was a lot.)
So, the smell which sickens a lot of people makes me think of jumping into his car to go out in a swirl of exhaust fumes, and being a happy teenage girl.
With all due respect to Ellen Cherry, this has essentially nothing to do with her comments, but rather than start another inane thread to put this in and watch for nothing to happen for another span of time, I’ll risk it here.
Several years ago, for Thanksgiving dinner at my wife’s mother’s house, after discussing how the whole turkey and fixings concept was so pushy and forced, we opted for a picnic meal with pimiento cheese sandwiches and chips and some other picnicky things. As we were sitting down at the table, my MIL brought a big bowl and poured in a couple boxes of Chex Mix.
My bother-in-law, ever the wit, said, “Oh, goody. Vegetables.” We all laughed for minutes and off-and-on for the rest of the day.
Clean-up was a snap and we got into the TV fare without dozing off from Why Thanksgiving Dinner Makes You So Sleepy
The “Oh, goody. Vegetables.” came to mind just now as I opened a box of Triscuit. Thought I’d share the thrill.
There ought to be something in this that makes somebody think of something else. Right?
And this makes me think of two psych experiments i had in college:
I had to go around asking for hugs from strangers to see how many people would go for it. I could not tell them it was an experiment until afterwards. I could tell them I was feeling lonely or sad or whatever, and then afterwards I could explain. Surprisingly, the one who was best at it was a guy, with big puppy dog blue eyes.
I had to record all of my dreams in a book. It’s funny, I don’t wake up after my dreams, but you can train yourself to do so. I kept a notebook and a light on my nightstand, and many nights I awoke to scribble some things in the book. i still have it somewhere.
Oh, and the comment from Ellen Cherry about diesel gas brings back a memory for me, too - India, and being in India. Same thing, I was a lonely, sad little teenager, but the four trips to India were the best times of my life. I loved being in the dirt and the traffic and everything else because there I was loved unconditionally, and the smell of diesel still takes me back.
One time, one, I had a vivid dream wherein I discovered some secret of the Universe, Life itself, that was so absolutely persuasive that I managed to waken myself and grab a pencil and something to write on and, without being fully conscious, to jot down the key ingredients. I went back to sleep immediately and, as best I can recall at this stage, right back into that amazing dream.
When I awoke for good some hours later, I remembered to find the note I had left. It was so indecipherable and jumbled that I couldn’t make out anything from it. Needless to say, I didn’t have a good day that day. 
Yeah, I’ve done that, for story ideas (I write short stories as a hobby). But when I come back and look at the notes, I can read them but they go something like this:
Cheese
Carnival ride???
Lotto
And I’m left to go WTF???
Speaking of the universe, I saw the coolest shows about the Big Bang and galaxies. I’m such a geek for that kind of stuff.
Whenever I think about the “Big Bang”, I always wonder what was going on a minute or two beforehand. And then I hope that there wasn’t already a perfectly good universe just sitting around, with its inhabitants enjoying their beverages of choice or what not, who were all just vaporized and replaced by an entirely new universe.
You have to be channeling Steven Wright, eh? 
…or Jack Handey
Now that you mention it, that is a pretty Wrightian or Handian thing to think.
That makes me think of Mitch Hedberg. His death gives me the sad.
No, I can’t say I’ve ever had SAD.
This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where he wakes up in the middle of the night and writes down a joke, and then the next day he can’t figure out what he wrote.
“FLAMING GLOBES OF SIGMUND!”
Freud had to be conviced to flee Austria, he eventually settled in Londaon, dying soon thereafter.
More like Douglas Adams.
Gimmie some of that Ol’ Janx Spirit
Yes, but everybody in the restaurant survives the end of the universe (every night at around 1:00 a.m., if I recall correctly). What keeps me up at night, though, is the fear that the universe just ends all of a sudden, in a blip, without the last remnant of humanity having been gathered together festively in an outside-of-time outer space tavern.
At least when we die, we leave our histories, our graves, our descendants, those who remember us – our marks on the world. If the universe should end and be replaced by another Big Bang, all we are is fungible plasma in the cosmic wind.
Some time ago, when he was able to do so, Paul Harvey had a fake broadcast saying that a monster asteroid or planetoid was on a collision path with Earth and that the collision would eradicate all human life. Even though he quickly clarified the story and emphasized that it was a War of the Worlds type hoax, the significance of the event put me in a funk that lasted for days, and which I still feel intently. For the reasons you say. My own demise is not that big a deal, but for all traces of our species to vanish and never be available for scrutiny by some other species, is worse than terrible, as I see it.
YMMV 
Makes me think of several simplified non-traditional Thanskgivings we’ve had. Always more fun & memorable than a big family event and a turkey. Although traditonal T-days are fine too. Some folks have a hate on for 'em, but we like 'em too.
I’m also reminded of a Thanksgiving-themed Peanuts TV show special from the '70s. Snoopy & his little bird pals are going to prepare a T-day feast when they realize their culinary skills aren’t up to it, and having a bird as the main course would be sorta cannibalistic. So much hilarity ensues and they end up with popcorn and toast.
So now whenever somebody around here proposes a big complex meal, the rejoinder is “Sounds too hard … How about popcorn and toast?”
That reminds me of someone I know who is of Arabic descent. Her family’s Thanksgiving consists of traditional middle-eastern foods, but out of respect for US tradition they also roast a turkey. To make it more authentic they stuff a few slices of Wonder Bread into the cavity. No one ever eats it, as it’s pretty terrible.
It wasn’t until my friend had real bread stuffing at her husband’s family’s celebration that she understood that it was delicious food, not just some weird tradition.