I may be a temperamental weirdo, but at least I don’t refuse to bathe for fear of shortening my lifespan. I don’t profess to have an alter ego, and I most certainly don’t carry a blank-loaded revolver with me to scare off adoring fans. Then again, I don’t need to worry about fanatical admirers breaking down my door to get an autograph (or even just a good look at me), so perhaps I’m taking my relative anonymity for granted here. In my heart of hearts, I suppose I’d like to achieve at least a modicum of notability for my extended creative efforts, but if that daydream actually came to fruition, I’d need to come up with a nutty character quirk to demonstrate to the masses that I’m a one-of-a-kind talent. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here, but maybe I could carry a straw and small scraps of easily-moistenable paper with me, to ward off rabid devourers of my work. I could develop the habit of high-pitched yelping, you know, to emulate the sound of a wounded woodland mammal. Or I could carry around a “pet” with me that I talk to all the time, like a bottle cap or wooden bowl. All of those ideas are crap, I know, but if I hit on a good one, I’m pretty much guaranteed to go down in history as one of those “oddball eccentrics” that the normies can have fun chuckling about at their potluck dinners.
Category: Idiomatic
First Things First
Nobody will tell you that religion is simply an iteration of our innate human ability to question and ascribe meaning to the phenomena we encounter in our immediate surroundings. Being able to alter our environment with the level of skill we’ve come to develop over the past few millennia, how many of us ever stop to wonder about the first moment our species graduated from nature’s master class in manipulation? Let’s not forget, we were once as defenseless as all the other beings to inhabit this planet, but we took great measures to ensure survival at all costs, to the chagrin of the very globe that fostered our greedy development.
Now here we are, coughing up smog and trying to figure out how best to colonize our moon (Mars is still a pipe dream). Hopefully we can find a way to bring our religion to other regions of our solar system, and perhaps even to the rest of the universe. As chosen (not brainwashed) people of God (not a fictional authority figure fabricated to alleviate the guilt that forms when we commit genocide and snatch unsuspecting people’s land), it is our divine duty to carry out HIS WORD. The wool has been removed from over our eyes (with the rug soon to be pulled out from under our feet), and there’s a whole universe of sinners who need the salvation of the LORD!
Now first things first, does anybody here know how to build a rocket ship?
Taking a Bath
You scuff up one iota of my shortbread icon brittlemaker and I swear to god I’ll puke all over the place with rage. That may seem a tad impassioned, but I’ve always been bad at hiding how I feel about futuristic kitchen appliances. Anyway, here’s the kicker on this thing: it makes all kinds of brittles! Myself, I enjoy the wellspring of nostalgic feelings that crop up with each new batch of shortbread icon brittle. Images of Lorna Doone and Shirley Temple flash across my personal confectionery concoction hatch when this baby gets whirring.
I really do get worked up about this marvel of modern technology, and perhaps I need to cool my jets a bit here. I mean, it cost me four grand to get the custom brittle module, so I’m entitled to a little rooftop-shouting, right? Pretty much any flavor combination imaginable can go into the preparation of your brittles. I found my favorite combo and stuck with it because I’m really not that creative. But I swear, you could have hours upon hours of entertainment just from thinking up unconventional themes. Once you’ve made your selection, the whisper-quiet mechanism takes care of all the rest. This thing is perfect for you and the family, your office, an open house, wedding, funeral, holiday party, National Phlebotomists Day… the list goes on.
Sorry, I’ll bet you think I’m coming off like a used car salesman. The god’s honest truth is I’ve been trying to unload it, but nobody’s biting. A mere $2,750 is all I’m asking for it. I mean, it’s a steal at that price! All the components are in pristine condition (I’ve only used it twice). Come on, you know you want to give it a whirl. I guarantee that if you’re not satisfied with your first five batches of custom brittle, I’ll refund all of your hard-earned dollars. Don’t you see I’m taking a bath here, people?! You’d be stupid NOT to take me up on this!
Notch
This here is something new now;
you can set your watch to it, buddy boy.
I have a guaranteed method
for extracting blood from a stone, though
I’d prefer not to if I didn’t have to.
What are you to do when
your life is perpetual lie, led by
any number of personalities at any given time?
You can get more prepared
for the next time you may need assistance,
or you can develop a plan for attack,
take charge of your own blueprints for once!
Go north, young man! Where? To where the air
breathes thinner and you don’t have to
pack your SCUBA gear everywhere you go.
“To the brink of extinction we go,” I tell myself
on the eve of each weekend’s wet dream.
Supernintendo Chalmers can hold a candle
to me bumming around
with the aristocratic whodunnits and whosaidits, see.
Because what else can be said
about this heroic figure
at the end of the day, other than
“he led a sedentary life, not unlike that of a sloth
or lesser carnivorous apeworm”?
I have the change purse emoji all queued up
for my perusal, making no bones
about my time as a brown stork
being misconstrued as an attempt to curry favor
in the minds of our largest benefactors.
I tend to lose my bearings around those of whom
most able to make or break a person’s entire life,
and the scale of such a project
goes into the hundreds or even
thousands of individuals at a time,
unscrupulous, unmanipulated. Pure, cold destruction
of well being for the purpose of adding
a notch or two to the ol’ portfolio.
WHARVED 