I had this weird feeling this morning. All I could hear was deep bass. Duh-da. Duh-da. The hair on the back of my knees stood up like the needles of the startled porcupine. And then I saw it, the most vicious creature in the workplace: Whale Shark.
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The drug shed in the back corner of the area I’ve painstakingly cleared… A tenant, long gone to greener pastures, put it there. The years have not been kind to it. Once I found used syringes inside it, the impetus toward disposal only increased.
I gave people more than enough time to lock it, haul it away, or 4th-of-July the thing. (I carefully worded that due to FB’s ridiculous interpretation of jokes.)
This week, I accelerated the process of taking a few hundred screws out, fighting off an army of spiders, and compressing the supports and metal for disposal. I hope the neighbor doesn’t notice that the back of his pickup is full of discarded metal; or, if he does, that he can’t determine w-h-i-c-h butthead might have placed it there.
Reaching this point, I realized that I’ve managed to get to the level of ‘redneck gazebo.’ I’ll sell it as is for $5.67. Spiders included. At least the snakes have abandoned it.
If no offers are forthcoming, I’ll attempt to remove the top of it. It’s very heavy and though I’ve sprayed it repeatedly, the spiders seem to have gained superpowers by ingesting the professional-grade insecticides I’ve sprayed on them. I’m pretty sure one of the spiders was actually smoking a cigarette.
If you’re wondering if the chest in the picture holds anything valuable, the answer is ‘no.’ There were things of value in there. But the weather and people of dubious reputation ruined everything. This shed is an excellent example of entropy. And inattentive landlords.
I don’t know what day the urge to potentially crush myself under the rest will strike me. So act fast. I hope you like spiders.
X
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Dudes!
I tried to commit petty larceny…
But I was foiled in the attempt!
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“Boom cheese day parity.”
Even though I had my keyboard and talk to text set to Spanish, it insisted that’s what I said in Spanish and now I can’t get the phrase out of my head.
Also, if you spot the felonious miscreant who absconded with my hair, please contact the Fayetteville Police department.
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My friend Steve was at the hospital. He waited and waited. After about 20 minutes, a young doctor entered the room.
“Steve, it looks like your wife was hit by a truck.”
Steve said, “I know. I married her for her personality.”
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Cliché Reimagined
Potentially NSFW
Educational Portion Of Post: the unseen portion of an iceberg is called a bummock, while the visible portion is called a hummock. This is true, as preposterous as the words are.
“The tip of the iceberg” denotes that much is unseen, unmeasured, and unobservable.
I came up with a tangent phrase, one which denotes the same arc, except that it refers to some people: the tip of the dickberg. (“Dickberg” is now in my dictionary. 🙂 )
Whether it’s true or not, I think it’s clever.
“Geez, Steve is really a jerk,” Susan said.
“What he just did is the tip of the dickberg,” Susan.
On a meta-level, I would use it to express the fact that if there’s a little smoke, there’s probably a basement filled with fire.
And not the smores kind.
Stay tuned for more insights and lunacy.
Love, X
Against the serpentine and changing ocean shoreline, Bret curled his toes into the cool, textured sand. The sun disappeared over an hour ago, yet he still stood there, watching the lights of the beachside hotel and the occasional silhouette of a person moving in front of the lights. Elizabeth told him she’d be back in a few minutes so that they could take a walk along the shoreline.
He knew she was terrible with directions and often quickly lost her way. The hotel wasn’t THAT big, though. And it wasn’t THAT far away from the beach. As he turned and began walking towards the hotel, he could hear her voice calling.
Her voice was always a little higher than most. The modulation of the waves made her voice faintly waft toward him. He shook his head, wondering what mayhem her internal GPS had caused. He stopped and listened for her next shout. He heard her again when he walked around the building and the service area. A large block wall separated the parking lot. He laughed. Somehow, she had exited the hotel from the service exit and trapped herself between the walls.
“Hold on a second, Elizabeth!” he half-shouted.
“Bret? Get me out of here!” she shouted back, her voice going up another half-octave.
“Go back the way you came,” he offered. “I can’t see the opening. And quit laughing.” He laughed even harder.
“That’s what she said!” she added.
From the other side of the wall, she squealed with delight. “Heads up!”
Before he knew what was happening, a bucket flew over the wall.
Bret laughed again and shook his head.
“Sweetie, why did you just throw me a bucket?”
“Duh!” she replied incredulously. “So you can stand on it and climb over the wall to come get me, dumbass.”
Bret laughed hard. “Umm, you could have used the bucket to climb over the wall yourself, so who’s the dumbass now?”
“Damnit!” She yelled while giggling.
Bret grabbed the bucket and threw it over without any warning. He turned and walked fast around the corner, turning to gain access to the barrier. When Bret rounded the corner, Elizabeth was up against the high brick wall, turned sideways, reaching to get her fingers across the upper edge. He carefully walked up behind her and goosed on the back of her upper right thigh.
One leg kicked backward, pushing the bucket away while her knee jerked forward, hitting Bret in the nose and knocking him to the ground. Her crotch landed directly above his broken, bloody nose. He still managed to laugh and smile and say, “Nice landing!” which made her howl with laughter at the absurdity of the situation.
As Bret stood up, the blood ran down his chin. “Let’s go to the ocean,” he said and laughed.
Elizabeth knew he wasn’t joking, so they walked hand-in-hand around the wall and back toward the waves. Bret’s other hand gripped each side of his painful, oozing nose. They didn’t stop at the shoreline. They continued to step out into the gentle waves until the water was at their knees. Bret leaned over and washed his face as best as he could. They both could only imagine what someone watching might think. Neither cared. That was one of their superpowers. Bret stood up and circled his arm around her waist, pulling her close. They’d go back inside in a few minutes to see about Bret’s nose.
When they woke up the following day, Bret’s nose was very swollen, and he had two black eyes. Elizabeth took one look at him and began laughing uncontrollably.
“That bad, huh?” Bret asked.
“I’m sorry to be laughing so hard! I know that has to hurt! I was just thinking about all the stories we’ll be able to make up to tell people why you have black eyes in our wedding pictures!!!” Tears were running down her face because she was laughing so hard.
“We could have someone be a stand-in for the pictures!” Bret replied. “Is that hot guy from your favorite show available?” He laughed.
“No, I already called his agent. You’re stuck! Besides, you look kind of hot with those black eyes. Bad boy, even. It could be a knee-jerk reaction for me to say so, though,” she added wryly.
“Oh, I’ll give you a knee-jerk reaction, all right,” Bret replied as he rolled over on Elizabeth and gave her a quick kiss, mumbling, “a wee-nee jerk reaction!”
Elizabeth laughed. The weenie joke was one of her favorites, even though it was so stupid and old. It made her laugh every time they used it.
That evening during their beachside wedding ceremony, Elizabeth kept giggling. Bret thought she was tickled at the two witnesses he found that agreed to be there for their wedding. Witnesses that she did not even see before the ceremony. One dressed in an inflatable T-Rex costume, and the other was a clown. He wouldn’t put it past her to use a fake marriage officiant, either. The pastor laughed when Bret leaned in and whispered, “This is a legal marriage, isn’t it?” The clergy replied, “Lord help you if it isn’t.”
Elizabeth giggled out her vows and “I do.”
Bret knew the clown and dinosaur were funny, but not THAT funny. She had tears streaming down her eyes from holding back laughter.
After their first kiss as husband and wife, Elizabeth let out a massive howl of laughter and bent over at her waist to catch her breath. Bret had never seen her laugh that hard.
“Do I have a big booger on the end of my nose or something??” asked Bret.
Elizabeth waved her hands and shook her head no. She was still laughing too hard to speak. Finally, she pointed down.
Bret looked at the bottom of her dress.
She slowly raised it to reveal that she was wearing a ginormous pair of clown shoes and rainbow stockings under her elegant, white dress.
She had also hidden two clown noses in her bouquet for a few pictures after the ceremony.
“Something else that kept getting me tickled was that I noticed how the colors of the sunset matched the colors of your black eyes!!!!” as she roared with laughter again.
During their wedding dinner that night, which was Pizza Hut pizza-of course!-they hatched a plan.
They would send out their wedding picture as their Christmas card this year. Each card would have a different story explaining why Bret had black eyes and a swollen nose in the picture.
When December came around, their stories ranged from a seagull attack, that he wanted his eye shadow to match the colors of the sunset, and “This is what happens to Bret when he tries to use his hemorrhoid cream as a moisturizer.”
I think these two are going to be just fine.
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No life-affirming message to be had here…
“Hello. I’m Monday, that one day a week for some reason you dread. Don’t take me personally.”
While cleverly crossing out the “mo” in Monday to replace it with Funday, I inadvertently created the opposite message!
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“Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the dude wielding the saw! My arm is still sore from yesterday’s antics – so I channeled that into a declaration of sawing this morning.
I started by the street near Gregg, cutting away limbs that my neighbors and visitors need to fear as they park. X:1, Limbs:0. One dumb thing I did was to saw and saw at a hard vine. After about twenty seconds, I realized that it was an ancient WIRE hanging with the limbs and vines. Any credit I get is lessened by that and also serves as further proof that I am not the brightest bulb.
I awoke to a high school friend posting on my timeline. She was visiting from Minnesota and took the time to drive by and see my decorative craziness. My only regret is that I don’t have every square inch of everything covered with color and nonsense. When I looked it up online, I realized that Minnesotans are legally obligated to NOT be frivolous. They aren’t even allowed to put both mustard and ketchup on a hamburger on the off chance they might like it. Just kidding. I think.
When I was by the street cutting limbs over my neighbor’s vehicles, the ones that precariously hang and annoy them, my neighbor Tobey walked by with his pitbull. I chased that dog until he couldn’t frolic. As the excursion train neared, I asked Tobey if he’d stand by the curb and Gump wave with me. Shockingly, he declined, indicating he didn’t like the trains and the noise that accompany them. I have NO choice except to purchase a 12V air horn from Amazon now, one I can remotely trigger. I think I’ll place it artfully in the trees out there, the ones I climb sometimes. He will lose his mind wondering why the frequency of the trains has multiplied exponentially. Honestly, I’ve thought about it before. Now, it seems like a MUST. I will claim it is for security as a way to warn would-be miscreants and malefactors if I spot them. If they ever finish the house they are building next door, I calculate the horn would be less than five feet from some of their windows. That makes me laugh: “buyer’s remorse” in action.
I worked in the back this morning too, clearing out a huge section of fence and limbs. A truck can drive around now, whether it’s an electric service vehicle or ice cream truck is up to the universe. So far, the landlords have not removed any of the tons of limbs and fences I’ve piled back there. A bonfire seems to be more and more likely, especially if one of the neighbors who smoke tosses a butt in there one summer evening. I cleared out some more of the contents of what I refer to as the Drug Shed. That thing is definitely coming down at some point. I banged on it before going inside. Copperheads love the back corner of that thing. I’m not needlessly scared of snakes. (I work with middle managers every day.) I’d prefer to avoid snakebites, though, both at work and back in the Drug Shed. There are black snakes back there too, ones that probably miss the jungle-like atmosphere that existed prior to me turning my attention to clearing it.
When I needed a break, I sat at the bottom of the stairs and let another neighbor’s dog maul me with happiness. I was filthy already, so it didn’t seem to be an issue. The dog had no objections. My cat Güino, however, registered his disapproval loudly when I went inside and picked him up. His fur stood straighter than a sinner’s back in church. I was going to just burn my stinky clothes but then remembered that I have to pay for clothing or become a nudist. I tried that before and the screaming made it hard for me to relax in public.
My pictures are literal thirst (instead of thirst trap) pictures because it was already hotter than a rugby player’s nether regions. I don’t want anyone to think I’m posting to be provocative. Unless a cannibal sees them and thinks I’d be great grilled. If you don’t know what a thirst trap picture is, just imagine that one social media friend you have who shows more cleavage than a brassiere convention.
I made another table using discarded parts. Again, I controlled myself and didn’t paint any of it. I had to lie down for an hour to control my urge to do so. I ate a box of crayons and the feeling passed. Literally.
PS That’s tree corpse residue aka sawdust all over in a couple of the pictures, not dandruff. Legend has it that one must have hair to have dandruff. That’s a good thing because I’ve not used anything except bar soap to wash my head since I was 20ish. Yes, I purloin all my soap from bars. Lord knows that the typical bar patron doesn’t use soap, so it’s not missed.
PPS A joke a keep forgetting to post: you know your neighborhood is iffy if the ice cream doesn’t drive by and annoy you. To which I’d add: the cost of armor-plating ice cream trucks is cost-prohibitive. Also, this place is getting surrounded by new development on this side of Gregg. Displacement is inevitable. If you drive by and see a crater, you will know why.
PPPS The average password keeps people from accessing your accounts. In my experience, I’ve learned that it also keeps most of the actual account holders out of them, too.
PPPPS I heard something yesterday that I’ve heard before but it struck me as insightful this time: insurance is a reverse lottery because it pays only when you’ve already been unlucky. Bonus idea: If you have a foot fetish, sandals are lingerie.
A friend asked me to post the two unwritten rules for life.
Here they are:
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2.
You’re welcome!
Love, X
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P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 