Elly-vators

The elevator door opened and I started in, only to stop and step aside when I saw someone exiting. I smiled and nodded, as is my custom, but they did not return my silent salutation. I thought nothing of it and proceeded into the elevator.

When I stepped inside, I realized why the previous traveler had ignored me and also knew it was going to be a long trip to the second floor. The place reeked like a steamy night aboard a fish trawler. The odor was so strong that the varnish had been stripped from the wood interior and sections of the paneling were warping outward, dislodging screws and the remains of ancient spiders.

Glancing down at my arm, I was startled to observe the hair slowly turn a toxic shade of green. Just then, my nostrils closed and my lungs began to constrict. Assuming the fetal position, I dropped to the floor of the elevator in search of a single breath of oxygen.

I heard the “ding” of the floor indicator and rose to anxiously await the rush of fresh air that would accompany the opening of the doors. Open they did and I made a mad dash for freedom, only to pass a woman who was obviously on her way to a modeling session.

I glanced back as the elevator doors closed to see her fixing me with an expression probably reserved for phlegm and the residue found on boots after a hike through a dairy farm. I raised my hands with an attitude of innocence. Unwisely, she sniffed in disdain. And promptly passed out.

* * *

Has this ever happened to you, Blogsters? The preceding story is true, in a general, false sort of way, and it only cemented my aversion to elevators. There is always the danger of what I just mentioned (you already forgot?), but there are many other hazards of elevator travel. With this in mind, I thought it would be wise to go prepared the next time you have occasion to use one and found this list on the Innernet that might help toward that goal.

How to Annoy People on Elevators

• Announce in a demonic voice: “I must find a more suitable host body.”
• Ask each passenger getting on if you can push the button for them. Press the wrong ones.
• Attempt to hypnotize the other passengers.
• Bring a camera, take pictures of everybody in the elevator.
• Bring a chair along.
• Call out, “Group hug!” and enforce it.
• Carry a blanket and clutch it protectively.
• Challenge people to games of hide-and-seek.
• Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask: “Got enough air in there?”
• Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers that this is your “personal space.”
• Drop a pen and wait until someone reaches to help pick it up, then scream, “That’s mine!”
• Give each passenger a round of applause as they enter or leave.
• Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.
• Guard the button panel so no one can touch it. Growl and bite at anyone’s fingers who attempt to cross you.
• Hug yourself.
• Hum the theme from Mission Impossible with your eyes darting around the elevator.
• If anyone brushes against you, recoil and holler, "Bad touch!"
• Introduce yourself as Ochenga-Wangaa the Great Chief and begin telling stories of your native island.
• Lean over to another passenger and whisper: “Noogie patrol coming!”
• Lick gummy bears and stick them to things (the walls, the buttons, the passengers, etc.)
• Meow occasionally.
• Offer a bite of your fresh tangerine to everyone coming on board.
• Offer hitman services.
• Perform the Hamlet soliloquy. When a new passenger enters, start over again.
• Place police tape (CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS) on the inside of the doors.
• Preach about the end of the world.
• Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock.
• Read a book upside down.
• Say "Ding!" at each floor.
• Say, while holding a paper with OUT OF ORDER written on it, “I wonder why this was glued on the door when I came in.”
• Scribble furiously on a notepad while looking at each passenger. When they try to look, hide the pad.
• Stand really close to someone, sniffing them occasionally.
• Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
• Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce “You’re one of THEM!” and move to the far corner of the elevator.
• Stare at your thumb and say, "I think it's getting larger."
• Stare, grinning, at another passenger for a while, and then announce “I’ve got new socks on!”
• Tell the passengers not to worry. The bomb won't go off for at least another two minutes.
• Try to purchase an article of clothing from the person next to you.
• Walk in circles. Change directions when you hit a passenger.
• Walk on with a cooler that says “human head” on the side.
• Wave hands wildly at invisible flies buzzing around your head.
• Wear a puppet on your hand and talk to other passengers "through" it.
• Wear a ski mask and carry an axe.
• When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.
• When the elevator doors close, announce to the others, “It’s okay, don’t panic, they’ll open again.”
• When the elevator is silent, look around and ask, "Is that your beeper?"
• When the elevator reaches another passenger’s floor, scream and collapse in front of the door.
• When there’s only one other person on the elevator, tap them on the shoulder and pretend it wasn’t you.
• While the doors are opening, hurriedly whisper, “hide it...quick!” then whistle innocently.
• Whistle the first seven notes of “It’s a Small World” incessantly.

The Act

If you're anything like me, time-wasters, you've developed a very sophisticated and complex act to disguise the fact that, really, you're basically a basement shut-in hiding under a tarpaulin of fabricated social skills. You've learned these skills by watching people at restaurants and by listening closely to old men. You've been forced to the conclusion that you'll likely stay an outsider because you still don't understand the appeal of cell phone text-messaging.

So what do you do when your tarpaulin falls off or catches fire? Without the warm confines of your deceptive little facade, you're exposed to the world, and if you can't find some way of stitching the thing back together, you're going to have to take to lurking in the basment again.

You don't want that.

So here are some tips for those of us out there who lack instinctual social grace, and find ourselves suddenly robbed of our coping strategy:

• Obtain a cold or a flu of some description. This enables you to keep your mouth shut most of the time, and as a bonus, you get to spread germs. Serves all those smarmy "confident" people right, too. Eating candy you find on the floor of movie theaters or prancing in the rain are good ways to get started.
  
• Tell stories about your cats. If you don't have cats, make some up. It's not that hard, as most cats generally follow your standard "cat" mold pretty closely. "Yeah! Toasty got up on the counter today! Really! And then he just sat there and engaged in foot maintainance! Seriously! Holy crap!" Pretend to brush cat hair off your shirt and chuckle slyly at your crafty little bit of bamboozlement.
• Hide under the table and try to disappear.
• Bring your laptop with you wherever you go. Duck behind the screen and adopt an expression of strained concentration. "Constipated news anchor" is the look you're going for. If you're lucky, people will think that you're either a powerful businessman in the midst of making a lot of money and being powerful, or a deep and insightful writer who has been struck repeatedly about the face and head by inspiration. If you're unlucky, they'll think you need hospitalization. Half a game of "Battleship" can make a convincing laptop if painted properly.
• Hide under the table and make rocket noises with your mouth. This won't really help you much in social settings, but it's an awful lot of fun.
• Make up an impressive job title, and say it a lot. For example, I sort books for the library system. This is unimpressive. Add polish and lies, and you get: Multimedia Materials Relocation and Organization Specialist. Impressive. If you've got the time, you might consider making yourself a shiny nametag out of pop cans and bike parts.

I hope this has helped some of you out, time-wasters! These methods are FooDaddy Tested and Approved, I can guarantee you. In fact, I'm using the laptop method right now. I'm waiting for the fellas at the car dealership to change my oil, and in order to maintain an air of competence, I'm writing this post! So it's really a win-win coping strategy, folks. It's providing you out there in Not-FooDaddyLand with some entertainment, while over here in FooDaddyLand, I get to pretend to be useful.

I realize I may be sharing too much with you, and I'd apologize, except that I lack that kind of social grace.

Heh. This is good floor candy.

Cell Phones-N-Me

If earth is ever attacked by life from another planet, there will be no need to panic. The space creatures won’t be staying long. Why? The answer is two words: cell phones. Believe me, if I had a space craft handy, there are many times I would be very tempted to hop on board and light-year my way outta Dodge.

It isn’t that I have a moral objection against cell phones; I’d like one and have considered getting one. My beef is with the people using the cell phones. Why do people feel they need to be in touch with the outside world 24/7 and then complain constantly that they can’t get away “for even a minute?” It makes me want to shake these people and yell,

“Turn it off, you mindless wombat! Turn it off!”

Just a couple of days ago, I was standing in line at the grocery store (one of my least favorite locations), when this man standing behind me, and obviously possessing the IQ of a boiled peanut, answered his cell phone.

“Oh, yeah!” said the mentally-deficient legume. “I’m just standin’ in line at the grocery store.”

Is this really vital information? Does anyone’s extended family or friends need to know your location at every passing moment?

People carry their cell phones with them everywhere and leave them on, programmed with some asinine ditty that plays every thirty seconds or so when someone calls. And these conversations don’t necessarily last long, suggesting that the reason for the actual call was non-existent in the first place:

*inane carnival ditty*
“Yup? Hi. Nope. Just hangin’. ‘K, see ya’ later. Yup. Bye.”
*hang up*
*inane carnival ditty*
“Yup? Be home around five. Yup.”
*hang up*
*inane carnival ditty*
“Yup? Nope. Yup. Nope. Yeah. Bye.”
*hang up*

This drives me to the point of distraction and nearly causes me to lose all self-control. If people are going to carry on endless conversations, at least put it on speaker phone so I can hear the other side or, better yet, don’t use the phone at all in public, unless it’s an emergency:

*inane carnival ditty*
“Yup? No! You gotta be kiddin’! Her entire head? Just gone?!”
*hang up*
*inane carnival ditty*
“Yup? Okay. Tell me when the police cruiser leaves and I’ll sneak out the back.”
*hang up*
*inane carnival ditty*
“Yup? Listen carefully, Vinny, I’m only gonna tell yous once. Jimmy Hoffa’s buried at…”
*hang up*

You get the idea.

Really, if people would just be a bit more discerning, I’d have no problem with cell phones, but they practice no common sense. The technological little monsters are forever going off in restaurants, libraries, concert halls, check-out lines…am I alone on this? Or is anyone even paying attention? Hey! Get off that phone and read this!

Germs and Cheese Doodles

One of my fellow bloggers, the one who isn’t ashamed to be in the same state with me, has a cold. He was absent from work yesterday, and came in today sounding like a primordial amoeba choking on rotten peanut brittle.

I felt very sorry for him and attempted to lighten his spirits by regaling him with stories from my childhood, knowing he would enjoy the narrative. Soon, however, his cold appeared to turn into stomach flu and I was forced to suspend the verbal bio and retreat to safer quarters.

Later, he coughed as he passed by and, although he attempted to stifle the sudden output of germs by covering his mouth, a couple of the little blighters escaped and alighted upon a shelf near my left ear. The first germ, a confused looking creature with wide, staring eyes looked around worriedly.

“So, what’dya think, Pete?”

“Aw, relax, Balthazar,” said the partner, adjusting a dapper beanie cap. “All is well. Let’s just sneak into this guy’s ear and give him an ear infection. What sport, eh?”

I fixed the two little troublemakers with a disapproving frown. “Excuse me?”

They both jumped in alarm and emitted high, tiny, pitiful shrieks. “He sees us!” they screamed. “What are the odds?”

“About the same as that I’d be sitting here at work having a somewhat lame conversation with two microbes,” I said.

“Oh, think you’re too good for us, eh?”

I said nothing.

“Tryin’ to spoil our fun, what?”

“I just overheard you two coldly plotting to inflict me with pain and anguish. I resent the implication that I’m not capable of causing myself enough grief on my own.”

Pete looked at Balthazar with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “Oooooh, he resents it!”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “And if you take another step toward me, I shall immediately fortify my immune system with vitamin C, echinacea, and hefty portions of cheese doodles.”

The two germs gasped in unison. “Cheese doodles! The bane of bacteria everywhere!” They burst into hysterical laughter. Once their chortling had subsided, Pete leaned toward me with a less than jocular glint in his eye.

“Don’t threaten us, human scum. We have the ability to make you very sick, indeed.”

“Ah, but you don’t! You forget that my body is defended by armies of stalwart defenders who are only too willing to lay down their lives in the line of duty.”

“You mean those wimpy little leukocytes?”
“White blood cells, yes. They will tear you to shreds.”
“We’re quaking in our Nikes,” Pete said.
“If we were wearing Nikes,” Balthazar added. “I personally prefer Skechers.”

I had to admit, if only to myself, that I was becoming a bit nervous. What if these two villains did manage to invade my body and slip past the defenders? I could be sick within 24 hours and my weekend would be ruined.

Glancing to the shelf just above the germs, I saw a bottle of cleaning spray left by the cleaning woman, who had been interrupted in her duties by a loud and insistent call from nature. Could I grab the spray and exterminate Pete and Balthazar before they deciphered my plan and attacked? My hand began moving slowly toward the bottle.

“Hold it!”

I went for it. Just as my hand closed around the bottle neck, I felt Pete and Balthazar land on my nose, the rubber soles of their Nikes and Skechers making little squeaking sounds on the skin as they sprinting for my nostrils. I let go of the spray and grabbed my nose, but it was too late. I could feel the invaders clambering up inside. I tried to sneeze, but couldn’t, and knew there was just one thing to do. Leaping for the snack table, I ripped open a package of cheese doodles and violently shoved one into each nostril.

I collapsed onto the floor, exhausted, and listened in satisfaction as two tiny screams faded into nothingness.

“Craig?”

Looking up, I saw my boss standing over me, looking down as I lay on the floor with two baked snack items protruding from my nostrils. Smiling weakly, I struggled to my feet and backed toward the door.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was attacked by microbes.”
“And you responded by shoving cheesy junk food up your nose?”
“Well, they might be a little lame, but…oh, you mean really cheesy! Ahem. Long week. I should be going.”

My boss nodded slowly. “I agree.” She turned to go, but paused long enough to say, “Don’t forget to pay for those.” Then she was gone, leaving me to remove the cheese doodles from my proboscis and drop some change into the money jar. I was really looking forward to this weekend.

The Maroon Character

I read Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter in high school, and was given vocabulary tests based on all the goofy words therein. Don't get me wrong! I liked the book, especially the character Chillingworth because he was such a sneaky bastard.

But nobody much talks like the people in Letter because in today's society, using any word more complex than "microwave" will earn you a punch in the gut.

In other words...

Putting to use any locution bearing greater intrinsic multiplicity than that of "microwave" will result in the user receiving a concentrated impact delivered by the listener via a clenching of the fist and its acceleration along a vector teriminating at the user's solar plexus.

That sentence would get you shot if you used it in a chat room, and it's a testament to my smug complacency that I'd even dare to use it on the Internet, period.

Anyway. A parody! Enjoy!

The huge, featureless monolith stood on the corner of 28th and Byron Center, framed by a forsaken gray sky devoid of life. The school building, with its flagpole rusted and bent, looked to have never seen the light of day and seemed preternaturally ancient. It exuded an air of malignance, and the Kid sensed this. He looked upon the edifice with a physiognomy soaked with disdain. Taking a deep draught of the horrid, chill morning air that went hand in hand with the middle of the week, he trod inexorably toward the grim portal. Upon reaching the threshold, a sudden and intense fear regarding the completion of his homework the evening past gripped his mind, the icy touch forcing him to stop abruptly. Had this assigned task been completed according to its meticulous instruction? An inspection of the vast array of folders and loose paper in his backpack proved that, alas, this was not the case.

“Blast!” said he.

The Kid gathered his materials and, significantly lower in spirit, began his trek down the wide and straight Road to Doom, the school’s main corridor. Along the way, he tried to fathom the unspeakable retribution that he would certainly be dealt on account of his iniquity. “Mayhap if I were to grovel a bit, the castigation I suffer will be less deleterious,” he thought. The Kid stopped at his locker—a dank, narrow fissure—and began introducing into it the texts bearing no necessity for the first round of torture. He was just about to shut the door, when a dark shadow enveloped his soul, and he felt the propinquity of the school beadle.

“I trow this morn to be an appropriate one for thee and the rest of the undergraduates to immerse thine minds in the wonderful ambiance of Trigonometry, or any other subject pertaining to theorems and the like! What think ye, young sir?” he asked with a chuckle. The Kid turned to face the antagonist.

“Math stinketh! Nay, it causeth mine mind to writhe in the malaise that is its utter crapulence!” With this, the Kid flashed forth one of his trademark haughty grins.

Duly angered, the beadle responded, his voice dripping with crustiness. “Ah! Thou hath demonstrated thy contempt for the number-subject! Art I to conclude that thou hath no comprehension of the great potential for joy lodged within its depths? For thy sake I earnestly hope not! I doth take pity upon the foo who refuseth to take for himself opportunity in broadening his mathematical horizons!” Having said his piece, the beadle wrapped his cloak about him, and vanished into the throng of students like a fart on the wind.

“What a creepy personage,” thought the Kid.


I hope you enjoyed that, time wasters! Now, if you could please not tell the Internet that I've been "spelling" and using "words" and stuff.

Duelling Cliff Notes

Hey, if the Stupid Blogger can write Cliff Notes on old classics, then so can I.

In fact, the Old Classics were once my only forlorn hope of getting a date. For some reason, I thought that being intelligent and sensitive was a pretty solid strategy for competing with more athletic types. Turned out that my target audience was much smaller than originally projected. Well, actually, the target audience (all of unmarried womankind) remained the same, I just realized that there was a pretty small percentage of them who thought that listening to me talk about The Old Classics was a better deal than watching some lanky stud slam dunk a basketball.

Anywho...here's my first Cliff. By the way, Stupid, stuff this in yer pipe. I'll bet this was your next Notes. Actually, I shouldn't do this one because it's such a short book already. If you are such a lazy jock that you can't read the full-length version, then I don't want to even know your name.

The Old Man and The Sea
by Ernest "I. Write. Short Sentences" Hemingway

Sunrise came early. The old man put his paper down and looked at the young boy. Strong.

A day for fishing. The old man had not caught a fish for many weeks. The village was laughing at him. His girlfriend from somewhere in New Jersey was thinking of going back to her truck driver husband.

Out at sea. The fish swam. It leaped above the water and the sun shone on its tall dorsal fin like a full sail of polished bronze.

The Old Man looked at the boy again. Insolent. He looked like he'd rather be disfiguring a public monument with South Pacific gang symbols.

The Old Man decided, "What the heck? I can take this brat out fishing. If I get bored, I'll drown his sorry, pimpled butt."

(Cliff Notes footnote: it's also not out of the question that the Old Man was an unregistered sex offender who was violating the terms of his parole by even making eye contact with the boy)

So, the old man goes out to do battle with his own fears of mortality and incompetence (incontinence?) in the form of a big fish.

He and the boy crawl into his 36' Criss Craft Cabin Cruiser with twin diesel 310 hp motors, GPS, digital sonar fishfinder, a built-in Jacuzzi, and multiple downriggers. Hardly seems fair to the Fish, actually.

(Cliff Notes footnote: Foo Daddy, you should be writing this one. feel free to do a re-write. I couldn't bring myself to try to make the Old Man talk like your emerging classic character.)

The odd pair cranks up the huge boat and cruise out in complete comfort. The old man keeps muttering and swallowing multi-colored pills. He also swills cheap tequila and screams querulous orders at the boy, who flips him the double bird alot.

Well, as the day wears on, the Old Man falls asleep on the deck with his gray-haired belly sticking up into the tropical sun. The young boy takes digital pictures of this undignified situation, doctors them with Photoshop and then uploads them to questionable amateur websites using the yacht's satellite phone at enormous cost.

After hours at sea, the old man wakes up with second degree burns on his bloated abdomen. The young boy had become so bored that he actually dropped a line into the water. The old man watches him for about an hour and only rolls onto his feet when the boy yells out, "Senor! A fish. On the line!".

"Probably nuthin'," says the old man, but he still staggers down and tests the line.

"Well, mebbe sumthin'", he allows.

(Cliff Notes footnote: OK, this is almost as long as the real book, so we're going to wrap it up pretty quickish now)

The old man lets the boy fool with the fish for awhile so he can take a whiz off the side of the boat. A little later, he elbows the boy aside and yanks on the line.

Of course, in his semi-drunken state, he miscalculates and pulls too hard. This breaks the fishing line. The old man curses the boy roundly and crawls back up to the forward deck where he writes a longish lie about his struggle with a great fish.

As the sun goes down, they putter back into the village--but not before they stopped another boat and paid a ridiculous price for one of their fish.

The village people hail him as a hero because his sunburn is so great that it's obvious he struggled mightily to break his long losing streak.

The old man also bribes the boy handsomely and gets ripped on the cheapest possible tequila later at the saloon.

The End.

A Tale of Two Cities

One of my fella Bloggers put a post on here a while back, referencing “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernie Hemingway. After reading this, I thought it’d be fun to write a series of blog-appropriate Cliff Notes versions of different classics. This is the first.

A Tale of Two Cities

by Charles "What-the" Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and if you can’t figure that sentence out, then you’re a bigger idiot than Sydney Carton, who somehow manages to get himself beheaded in the original story.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England. This, of course, has no bearing on the subject whatsoever, but I thought I’d throw it in so I’d look sophisticated.

This is the story of two cities, probably why the book is named thus, and tells of their mighty struggle in the inexorable march of time as they go forward through the darkness and wildly raging storms of turbulence, which threatened to rip the very fabric of civilization asunder. Okay….where was I? Ah, yes.

“'ark!” says the Cockney carriage driver, his breath misting about in the late night air. “Which one o’ you blighters ‘as a breath mint? Me breath is mistin’ about in the late night air.”

“Shut up, Joe,” shouts the passenger, Mr. Jarvis Lorry. “I’m sick of your blasted rattling…say, you’re right! You do need a breath mint! Why don’t you whip into this conveniently located Amoco station and grab a pack of peppermint Mentos?”

Once the errand is completed, the carriage continues its journey, but gets lost in the fog and drives down a very deep well.

“Blimey!” says Joe. “’Tis dark down ‘ere!”

Mr. Lorry coughs delicately. “Have another Mentos.”

Meanwhile, the French Revolution is in full swing and an army of revolutionaries storms the Bastille (pronounced Bar-chilly-omnibus), and begins randomly slaughtering the young and innocent. Three years later, the revolutionaries are in control of France and are killing anyone they view as an enemy.

These events matter little to Joe and Mr. Lorry, of course, because they are still languishing in the bottom of the well and, by this time, having finished off the Mentos, are getting extremely hungry.

Noticing a gleam in Joe’s eyes, Mr. Lorry casually mentions that he has been a life-long junk food addict, and therefore very fatty and unpalatable. Joe becomes thoughtful.

Back in France, the aforementioned Sydney Carton, who is in love with Lucie Manette, is going to the guillotine (pronounced galoshes) in order to save the life of a rival suitor, Charles Darnay. Darnay has been arrested by the revolutionaries and is scheduled for execution, but Carton sneaks into his cell, changes clothes with him, and allows Darnay to leave under his name.

Historians and literary critics have long puzzled over Carton’s mysterious actions. Why would he allow a rival for Lucie’s heart to escape from prison, knowing he himself would be executed in his stead? Many believe that Carton loved Lucie so much that he was willing to step aside, since he knew Lucie loved Darnay more than he. Yeah, right. My personal opinion is that the man was a complete and utter moron.

To back up this claim, I have recently uncovered an old journal in a Nashville antique shop, written by none other than Mr. Charles Darnay himself. I shall relate the last chilling entry.

1792, October 15th

Moo-hahahahahaaaaaa. Chortle, chortle, snicker! *cough* I fooled that idiot Carton into switching clothes and allowing me to leave the cell. He was under the impression that I would return within the hour, bearing Big Macs and large fries. The fool! As soon as I was out of the gates, I took the girl and fled.

This is an unsettling discovery, to say the least. Well, that’s my little “Tale of Two Cities” (see how neatly I tied that in?). Oh, and if you’re ever walking by a certain well in England, why not drop down a few Mentos?

Home

Home is a powerful word.

Okay, lemme try that again because that sounds stupid.

Home is a powerful idea. It's the embodiment of security, warmth and cat debris. It is the place where you go when you've got nowhere else to turn. It's that little house button on your browser.

It's also, if you're lucky, the place where you put your computer. I'm not on my computer. Which is a good indication that I'm not home. And to keep the suspense from killing some of our more sensitive readers, I'mma admit right away that I'm using The Girlfriend's computer. I've squirrelled myself away in her basement and commandeered her computer.

There is a collection of interesting things here on the desk. A piece of yella paper here that has a list of things on it in tiny handwriting, for example. Number 4 says "indulgences" while another says "printing press". This is evidently some kind of world-domination checklist. Makes me nervous.

There's a pair of glasses that give me an instant headache. A receipt for something called a "MoneyGram," which I take to be some kind of delicious legal cracker.

To close this post, I've come up with a really stupid way of saying that somebody in your vicinity isn't meeting the full intelligence expectations: "(name of person)'s been eating too many frogs!"

I know, I know. I blame the coffee.

The Old Man needs a wife

Ha!

you probably thought that this was another of those quickly-becoming-cult-classics about The Old Man. Sorry to disappoint. Firstly, I am not the creative genius (or was is genii?) behind the, ...er, birth (?), of this old dude. I wish I were. I laugh at his antics--but even more at his syntax and vernacular.

Secondly, I think it's a mistake to jump in and try to keep writing along just as if one IS capable of adding more to the already quality body of work. Kind of like the poor wretch who tried to write some more Nero Wolfe novels after Rex Stout had gone on to his Platinum Typewriter in the sky. Let's just say it didn't work.

Thirdly, ... there probably should be a thirdly for some good grammatical or structural reason, but I'm done with this particular chain of irrefutable logic.

OK, so, I was watching Jay Leno the other night and he played an episode of Ask The Fruitcake Lady. Maybe you've seen her. She's old. She's proper (well, some of the time). She vocalizes her opinions trenchantly. And, she's completely, brilliantly insane.

I thought that she and Old Man ought to get acquainted. Because of their individual irascibility, it's not a lock that they'd get hitched, but I'll bet their first and second dates might make for some interesting reading.

Check out this link and tell me I'm a blazin' idiot!

http://www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/fruitcake_lady/


Oh, also, guys...I checked out Capitalistic Swinery and I love it. I am quite unabashedly of the rich oinker mindset, so I think it's great that you are trying to make a profit. People have gotten rich (with all of the delicious, sinful kinds of stuff that goes along) in much stupider kinds of ways, ...I think.