This tree doesn’t know what it’s doing. All the other trees around it already have their leaves; this one is seriously lagging behind. Maybe if I talk soothingly to it, I can help facilitate leaf growth. I’ll come back here soon with some friends and a picnic basket, play some Vivaldi, engage in stimulating conversation and occasionally hug its trunk with loving care, cooing sweet nothings into the knothole that could easily be interpreted as an ear.
The Whole Kit ‘n’ Caboodle
Blimp
A blimp (we’ll call it Harold) holds steady at 2,000 feet, the people within its underside capturing aerial video of a baseball game. Harold is so used to this kind of gig that it often takes its mind off the mundane goings-on. Right now it’s wondering if it can learn to play the sax, or, more accurately, if a sax can be made to accommodate the average blimp. Harold surmises, as usual, that no human will pick up on its desire to be a jazz musician. Harold has once again reached the conclusion that blimps and people simply operate on different wavelengths.
Yapping
A little dog is yapping after its owner decided to leave it alone on this coffee shop’s patio, irritating all the people outside and even some of us indoors (that yapping is quite loud and obnoxious). This situation has led us patrons to wonder about the sanctity of the dog-owner relationship, and how many times such a bond is tested throughout the course of an average day.
Oh thank God, she’s back. Now we only have to worry about our own problems once again, at least until something else (a crying baby, a coffee spill, a delivery guy struggling to simultaneously open the door and hold onto his parcels) distracts us.
Croissant
“Is there any chance I can get butter on the side?”
“This croissant is already loaded with butter.”
“Yes, but that butter only went into the composition of the croissant. I need surface butter that I can bite into, you understand.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have pads of butter available.”
“You could have just said that when I first asked, instead of insinuating that I don’t know how much butter goes into baking a croissant.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve been having a bad day.”
“Not to worry, I’ve decided that I don’t want butter with my croissant after all.”
“Hooray!”
“Was that a sarcastic hooray?”
“Maybe. Sorry.”
Light Conversation
Consider a squadron of like-minded pencil pushers coming together for what appears to be a normal business lunch. No dice, compadre. They’re really meeting so they can compare shoe sizes (a way of establishing pecking order). Performance in the workplace aside, these guys need a system for gauging who is inherently superior, and, therefore, who shall be judged inferior.
——
The women of the group (of whom there are two) choose to opt out of this amateurish measuring contest in favor of light conversation. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to travel faster than the speed of light?”
“What’s faster than light?”
“I’ve heard that intentions travel much faster than light, like when a child is injured and a mother instantly feels sympathy pain, even if the two of them are miles apart.”
“So the first experiments will involve mothers and children, got it.”
“Yeah, and we somehow have to conduct the tests without harming any of them.”
“What, so if there’s a movie loosely adapted from it, they can say ‘no women, children or animals were harmed in the making of this film’? Okay, I can see it.”
——
The men have decided that Carl is alpha, and Jacob is omega. All the rest of them feel somewhat secure, as they haven’t been singled out. Next time they have a business lunch, they’ll have to find a new variable to rank dominance (like the number of credit cards they own or how many TVs they have in their homes).
Just Like Bacon
Don’t be greedy once you’ve tasted a bit of success (even if that success tasted just like bacon). You can’t force a reproduction of such greatness on a whim, or you’ll disrupt the natural order of things. If success visits you for even a second, consider yourself luckier than a pig avoiding the slaughter and becoming the farmer’s house pet, like the plot to so many movies we know and love (well, at least one).
Wobble
Flawed as it is, I can’t get rid of this picture frame. Sure, I could just go out and get a new one for a reasonable price (praise the free market economy), but this one was free with my subscription to TV Escort magazine, an upstanding publication. It will take more than a little warping for me to give up on this frame. Sure, it wobbles when I stand it on a table, but isn’t that endearing? Who among us hasn’t wobbled from time to time? This frame and I are meant to coexist, no matter how much that wobbling ticks me off (Oh for Christ’s sake, just sit there like the inanimate object you are!).
WHARVED 