Archive - September 2011

In the back yard sits a solid, 1.5′ cube of cement. It was here when I moved in and will be there when I move out. (I don’t like to touch cement, the texture reminds me of dry chicken salad.)
At the end of the week, sitting next to the cube of cement is a delicious, freshly-baked fruit pie. Sometimes a biscuit tray. Never any sauces, nor or any desired.
Neighbors suspected an elf family lived inside the cube. But county workmen and their steroscopes concluded that it’s solid all the way through.
Between you and me, though, I don’t like to eat the pies anymore. They all taste like purple ink.

“I’m calling about the Halloween Magic Show,” the voice in the phone said. “It sounds like a great time.” It was our Mayor, Mayor Williamson, waking me up at 4:30 this morning with his grating excitement. “Are there gonna be spiders? I like spiders.” “Mayor, I’m not having a Halloween Magic Show.” “When we’re done will I be magic? I want to cast magic spells on people, but only if I know how.” “I don’t believe in magic, Mayor.” “Will this year’s Magic Show be better than last year’s? Last year’s had a Mummy!” “Mayor. I was convicted of computer hacking in 1997. As part of my probation, I’m not allowed to be in the same room as Mummies or Werewolves or...

V sleeps out on the driveway, under the car, all the way through December 23. His body heat keeps the car warm. Makes it easier to start and his breathing scares off rodents looking to eat tire rubber.
It’s not clear, though, why V chooses to lay face down when under the car. His skin is sensitive and the cement is unforgiving.
“Leave me alone,” explains V.

Decorative pillows, stuffed animals, custom photo-printed quilts and tapestries, couches with second cushion layers. TV top doilies stacked like pancakes, themselves pancaked with dust. Extra socks inside slipper socks inside slippers inside house boots all wrapped with clear packing tape and plastic sheeting. Little strings around each finger tied to strings wrapped around fingers on the other hand tied around the neck. Cotton balls under the tongue. Life-sized Raggedy Andy doll velcro-ed to your back. Piles and piles of paper towel – two ply! – unraveled from the tube and carefully stacked around the house and stuffed into your sweater. Unopened cases of work socks from the warehouse store. And the Beanie Babies. We stuffed them into four hundred garbage bags and used them...

We will no longer be accepting Competitor’s Coupons for Gravy or Gravy-Related products. Adjust your holiday plans accordingly.

Deciding which candy-flavored shell coating to be dipped into, head-to-toe, while screaming, can be difficult. Do you wish to be sweet tasting all over? Do you want bugs and feathers and gravel to stick to your every surface in a magnetic fashion? Do you want simply not to feel as though you are burning in liquid green flame during your final 15 minutes on earth? There’s a lot to consider. Not least of which are the mood and financial resources of the mob that’s finally putting a stop to your wicked endeavors. How many of them are committed to your destruction? Do they feel personally wronged or are they simply “along for the ride” due to boredom and the high unemployment rate? Did they use up the club’s entire purse just getting the giant cauldron? How are...

Time to marry off all the rats.

With Autumn underway and the harvests wrapping up it’s time once again to take stock of local vegetable gigantism. I’m talking a really in-depth look at obscene vegetable growth. Enormous tomatoes, giant pumpkins, exceptionally heavy peas, that sort of thing. Backyard garden deformities are on the rise here and for reasons you wouldn’t readily expect. Our investigation won’t focus on the methods, although those are shot through with an inventive beautiful ugliness common to southeast Michigan. Instead we’ll look at the Why. What compels people of otherwise bland existence to draw attention to themselves this way? Is a branch of parsley the size of a man’s arm really the best expression of one’s muted hopelessness? Can the excessive fertility of a...