Archive - October 2012

Nightcap 10/30/12

You find yourself staring up at an enormous wall of board games. Sorry, Monopoly, Uncle Wiggly on and on. Around you, dozens are wailing, tearing at their clothes, chanting and rocking in silent prayer. You've used up all your vacation days and had to wash your feet in front of strangers. You don't talk with them. You're just here for the tournament. You stare up at all of it. You don't dare touch it.
You think, “There has to be more than this.”
The wall is silent.

Nightcap 10/29/12

Sometimes you have no choice but to make a mistake. Sometimes a trip to Meijer's is the best first date your tether will allow. Other times you have to swallow another Lego head to dislodge the first. So long as no one is looking, you can lick and replace each Funyun and still keep your diet.
Don't feel upset about this. You are human and only part of your genes come from mule.

Nightcap 10/28/12

Rebecca the neighbor lady cuts hair in the front yard. She does it as a challenge to the local Sanitary Board. She has no permit nor license and she never will. She leaves the cut hair on the grass to delight the mushroom people. Her favorite customers are the blind. People born without sight, those with a heavy prescription and local martyrs who've stabbed out their eyes during municipal passion fits. Rebecca takes a lot of pride in making them look respectable and drawing attention from their eye holes. She accepts their money but secretly safety pins it back onto their sweaters as they go. The county Barber Board (plenty of overlap with the Sanitary and Wiping boards) objects to all of this. They don't like Rebecca's lack of a ceiling. They don't like her cavalier...

Nightcap 10/27/12

According to an official letter delivered today from city hall, sometime in the next 72 hours all citizens will be issued a parachute and a handshake and be on their own when next Thursday comes and the municipality throws up its hands, turns off the power and reverts back, legally, to unclaimed Indian land. We can all agree, I think, that we've done our best but these arrangements aren't working out. We can't stand each other and there's really no use in pretending any longer.
Once the town water tower is emptied, I plan on moving into it with a raccoon family. If any of you are interested, I'll be pushing over my ladder for the final time after my first evening in the tower. Sell it for scrap, I've had enough.

Nightcap 10/26/12

Emergency meetings are such fun to call. The urgency, the sense of impending doom creates a great atmosphere. The mood reminds all involved of their importance. Everyone gets a fresh pad of paper and an excuse for not calling people back. Emergency meetings also give you a great excuse to mention ladders, to openly suggest their use. If there's enough dread you might even convince them to pay for a helicopter ride. The emergency meetings around here are wonderful examples of people Doing Something. We're actively Getting Things Under Control. Even though they are just talk, they aren't Just Talk. They're action! Or, better, the authorization of action. And they can be abruptly ended at any point. No commitment. At an emergency meeting, everyone gets to fold their arms. At...

Nightcap 10/25/12

Certain allowances have been made. Understandings have been reached. He can start his home stuffed animal factory but the turbines may only operate from sunrise to sunset. None of the resulting stuffed animals may be delivered by cannon. Animal selection must be diverse. Teddy bears and rabbits are fine, but we expect more. We hope to see children hugging stuffed rhinos and millipedes, headless snakes and salamanders this Christmas. The neighbors shall not be disturbed by odd smells or the sounds of the eyeball machine. He can market the stuffed animals under a hong kong label and sew on the wrong number of legs. That's up to him. But if he's going to use our river water and embarrass our grandfathers he'll have to give back.

Nightcap 10/24/12

Society cannot function without your brilliance? Pwssssssh! Straight into the volcano. Mass market wall poster designer. I've excelled in knowing when to employ a skull. I know where to get the best polar bear stock photography. I can get this drawing as close to a Rockwell without being sued while not reducing the requested teal/fuschia ratio. Hate Crime Coordinator. Organize and schedule beatings and street pursuits. Work with local religious leaders to concentrate and amplify division and isolation programs. Throw annual Christmas party at local bowling alley. Unlicensed Cake Decorator. I recreate, through frosting and sprinkles, images of popular cartoon and pop music singers from torn out magazine pages and blurry cell phone photos supplied by impatient step parents. Sometimes...