If only the irrational beings on your planet could grasp the true necessity of bureaucracy… those poor, poor mammals with their heads in the clouds, constantly chasing pie-in-the-sky dreams and never settling for pragmatic compromises. The fools who believe in their deepest intellects that art is the greatest contribution to the history of the universe (or creation, whatever they’d happen to call it) are deeply flawed in their logic. With what logic would beauty correspond? There is no rational way to extol the virtues of well-placed paint daubs on a piece of stretched canvas; the beholder is the only source of validation. That kind of subjective viewership is much too volatile for any global civilization if it wishes to thrive in the greater cosmic community. This application must unfortunately be rejected at this juncture. If you would like to try again, you may wait 2,200 Earth years and submit new paperwork at that time. We very much appreciate your interest in becoming a member of Galaxion Gardens, have a nice millennium.
The Whole Kit ‘n’ Caboodle
Consumer Product
Incentivized Dingle-Doos have long awaited their time in the sun, enduring hardships inconceivable to the average consumer product. The first problem presented itself when the naming committee notoriously skipped their meeting and all mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. It’s odd when seven people all simultaneously vanish off the face of the planet–their only earthly connection a superficial marketing gig–as though they’d all played hooky to go out on a spontaneous committee-planned ice fishing trip, subsequently sinking beneath the ice due to the sheer quantity of seething boredom localized within a single shanty. But nah, they all individually had bizarre tragedies befall them just in time to miss the fateful meeting that would undoubtedly lead a promising product prospect down the road to obscurity. The money people, being the beancounters that they are, decided it would be best to stick the interns with the project while they frantically worked up ways to acquire new creatives as cheaply as possible. And thus they landed at Incentivized Dingle-Doos, apparently satisfied with the subpar effort. What did this poor amenity of modern life ever do to these people–these SCABS?! Nothing! That’s at least what the shareholders thought when their stock prices plummeted over the successive fiscal quarter.
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.
We Monkeys
Denominative integers willingly defy the overall forcefulness by which we enter life, that succulent foe of knowing all things on a benevolent basis–at least from our pseudointellectual standpoint here on earth. We monkeys, swept from trees to town squares in a seemingly-overnight fashion, gave nobody any time to appropriately enter our problematic pituitary case into the annals of the intergalactic community. Our brash attempt to circumvent the necessary bureaucratic process–filling out the appropriate paperwork, having it notarized, sending it to local legislators and mailing one of 13 official public access stations for broadcast–demonstrates the jury-rigging, bootstrapping mentality that may have endeared us to our own species, yet alienates everybody else. When you apply simple rules to us, we seem to be inclined toward throwing tantrums. You know as well as I that our current behavior won’t fly with the more-evolved entities out there. If conducted efficiently, the contact broadcast process would be complete within a business week. So now, the more time we waste without adhering to measured standards, the more likely we are to fall altogether as a global community. Our “home” planet will slough us off before too long, tired of the countless indignities suffered at the hands of fools.
Malady
The malady of present day: succumbing to the “Us vs. Them” mentality being thrust upon us from all angles, when we ought to know damn well that we’re all a product of the same origin, swirling around inside the same cosmic whole. In weaker moments I find myself doing nothing but comparing myself to the achievements/accolades of others and wondering why I’m “inferior”, even though that term is a perfect indicator of the steady regimen that the xenophobia-fabricating beancounters have been peddling for millennia. And to what end? Special treatment, of course. It may have started with something as simple as demonstrating specialized value for an extra piece of bread in daily rations, and its most recent manifestation comes as the president of the United States. Oh, what a trepidatious path we’ve been suckered into following.
Madder-Hatted
Sneaky Patrickia–that madder-hatted individual with the gallstones to match their acerbic wit–had no idea what kind of hoop-jumping routine would be required of them for this year’s science fair project. The looming deadline seemed to sneak right up–same as always–in the shower, that pang of guilt just a blink before rinsing the caustic excuse for a shampoo out of their hair. Only around science fair time does Sneaky Patrickia feel they’re getting the uniquely invigorating scalp treatment extolled by the well-crafted copy on the back of their trusty shampoo brand. No other prickly nervous sensation has consistently proven to facilitate scalp exfoliation in quite the same way.
Maybe this year old Sneaky P. would finally put in the time necessary to derive the evidence that could back up their hypothesis of shower-based cold sweats exponentially increasing the accuracy of the semi-outrageous claims found on the backs of popular scalp-purifying shampoo bottles.
Maybe. But more than likely, as borne out by the results of P’s 142 previous science fairs, it would end up being some diorama about a vertebral circulatory system (bovine, ovine, simian, you name it). Our ageless friend very much enjoys detailing mammalian blood flow concerns, at the expense of variety.
WHARVED 