Tag Archives: humor

An open letter to the new republican congress

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Java typed with determination and focus, as she was prone to do in these situations:

An open letter to the new republican congress – Dear new republican congress:

Your don’t know me, but I wanted to be one of the first to congratulate you on your retaking of the U.S. Senate and retaining control of the House! Congratulations! And while this may sound sarcastic, I have to tip my hat to you, well done. Really, very well done.

On the surface, I would attribute this turn of events to a small miracle or raging luck. But when one digs deeper, it’s easy to visualize how this is really the one thing you, as a group, have wanted bad and have worked hard on to actually accomplish since the tables upended for you in 2006. If we disregard divine intervention and pure luck (I’m not willing to go as far to say some souls weren’t sold for this outcome) one could surmise that your good fortune comes at the hand of three primary factors.

1. Bottomless financial resources and a singular focus

2. Clever maneuvering and positioning

3. The mindless collective called the voting public

To be brief, let’s again be honest with each other. You spent billions to get here. And not just for this race exclusively. You’ve been spending money hand over fist to reclaim what you feel is rightfully yours since ’06. And if you weren’t making money in a vast suburban basement operation somewhere in middle America, you certainly have some very wealthy benefactors with cash to spare who want you back in the driver’s seat. (Be careful. Those favors and promises are going to come faster than a fist full of Christmas bills in February). Reports appear to indicate that you outspent virtually every opponent in every race. So, like any winning sports team who can afford the best players…wait, sorry. That one doesn’t work. Even with the money spent – you don’t really have the best players. Ok – so, point one – money.

When we look at clever maneuvering and positioning, your manipulation of voting districts and voting laws really are to be admired. And the voting public, whom I’ll get to in a minute, really don’t seem to mind, or actually realize what’s going on around them. Let’s consider that they are so busy working to survive these days, that rezoning districts and such is just too much to bother with. The up here for you is that you developed a plan, you put it into place and it appears to have worked to your advantage. Cheers!

On this last point, I want it known that there are many people in the mindless collective called the voting public that I call good friends and family. Good people who get up every day to do the best they can to eek out a living on this earth and try to have some fun while doing it despite getting punched in the face everyday, just for trying. They carry the wealthy on their backs and seem happy to do it, if and when they get a little piece of the good life to make it all worth while. That said, collectively, the voting public is not very bright – and that is polite. They have no long-term memory. They have no real short-term memory. They are easily distracted by the shiny object and miss the big picture entirely. They are easily swayed by whomever has the biggest sign. More often than not, they just can’t be bothered.

Take my district as an example. We keep electing the same dunderheads over and over, but if you look at their records in congress, they have not successfully introduced or passed one major piece of functional legislation during their entire tenure. They make no waves. They vote the party line. Nobody knows who they are or what they do. The only thing they are really good at is getting re-elected and going to parades and mall openings. Because there is nothing to say they are doing a bad job, or to be more descriptive, any job at all, they are just good guys doing the right thing.

I do not blame you for taking advantage. People should be smart enough and dedicated enough to make informed voting decisions…and actually vote instead of naming each cheek and voting for the one that itches more.  So, the voting public absolutely gets what they deserve. As my grandfather use to say, ignorance is acceptance.

And this is not like the PTO. We can can’t count on a few dedicated people to be able to do the work of many for all. All to the point, you played it right. You swooped in during a lackluster mid-term election with your money and your big signs and your “don’t blame us, we haven’t done anything…really…nothing…in years,” script and got just enough of the right people to the voting place and here you are. Winners.

The big question now is, now what? Will you further deconstruct the middle class? Find a nice war to ramp up somewhere? Remove Obamacare from the face of the earth? Further reduce opportunities for women and the less fortunate? Your options are many, but I suspect your decisions are few…and have already been made. 1) Do nothing. Hey – who can criticize? It works. If you actually do nothing but spew rhetoric and get in the way of others, with patience, you get to win. But I suspect you have your eye on the bigger prize making 2) Take back the White House in 2016. Then you will control the planet and it will be so much easier for you to continue to do…nothing. But it won’t be your fault, or your problem. It’s what the people want right?

I wish you all the very best in the years to come. May all your wishes come true. And again, congratulations! Well played you crafty bastards. 🙂

Your Friend., Java

 

 

My Test Results

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Hey All:

My name is Jasper Radnits. I have just completed every single inane online Facebook, Pinterest, Yahoo, social media, email, whatever you can come up with “fun quiz” known to mankind. Every. Single. One.

Of course, some yutz out there, with more free time on his or her hands than should be legally allowed is probably churning up a whole new batch of meaningless, less than clever, not even mildly interesting drivel for the masses to waste even more time doing…and sharing. All with the veiled objective of sharing something about themselves, as if knowing what sort of root vegetable you are tells anyone anything about you. It’s gross.

And why, do you ask, would I take every single test available if I am so set against them?

To get it over with. To put aside the nagging and preposterous notion that I lack a sense of fun and playfulness that those who call themselves my associates think I need to have. To illustrate the absolute and vast nothing that the exercise accomplishes even with the most well intentioned set of questions meant to help us open up to and identify with those whom we call our friends. As if we, who are determined to be the same root vegetable, have a stronger link or association than those who are not.

But, in the interest of being an active player in the morass of social media noise and distraction, I offer you my friends, colleagues, lurkers, stalkers, passers-by and so on, a brief look inside the me I am, as defined by this long and unnecessary series of test results.

If you want to know me, know me as:

  • Root vegetable – Beet
  • Prince – Aladdin
  • Princess – Pocahontas
  • Mountain – Nanga Parbat
  • Mold spore – Aspergillus
  • Cereal – Frosted Flakes
  • Radial tire – Uniroyal
  • Classic figure from literature – Tartuffe
  • Famous symphony – Edvard Grieg Work: Symphony in C-minor, EG 119 (1864)
  • Ice cream – Rhubarb
  • Pie – Pumpkin-olive
  • Hobbit character – The Old Took
  • Matrix character – Dozer
  • Piece of construction equipment – nail gun
  • Titanic passenger name – Mr. R. L. Beckwith
  • I am 11 percent “girly”
  • I would last 84 minutes in a horror movie
  • European city I should live in – London
  • Kind of candy – Dots
  • Tattoo I should get – Full back art of Dirty Harry saying, “Do you feel lucky? Punk?”
  • Spirit animal – Vole
  • Mythical creature – Jibakurei
  • Boy Band – N’Sync
  • Type of chocolate – Carob
  • Under the bed lint shape – Washington crossing the Delaware
  • Kind of pizza – lemon pepperoni
  • I am 8 percent “cowboy”
  • I am 24 percent old fashioned
  • My patronus – Chipmunk
  • Indiana Jones character – Sallah
  • I do not practice proper etiquette
  • President – Millard Fillmore
  • Comic book hero – The Thing
  • I am 2 percent 70’s
  • My dog is well trained
  • I am not a cougar
  • Comfort food – Ring Dings
  • Popular soda – Ginger Ale
  • Classic TV Character – Lurch
  • Type of car I should drive – Camero
  • Horror monster – Jason Vorhees
  • I am 84 percent classy
  • State I should live in – Idaho
  • Favorite color – Burnt Sienna
  • I do not give a shit
  • I am 4 percent witty
  • I am very likely to regret this weekend
  • I Love Lucy Character – Ethel
  • Flintstone’s character – Mr. Slate
  • Jetson’s character – Elroy
  • Lost in Space character – robot
  • I’m more rubber duck than rubber chicken
  • I am more Ernie than Bert
  • I should have been born in the 40’s
  • Type of cookie – macaroon
  • I am the sad emoji
  • I have 12 screws loose
  • I am addicted to bacon
  • My celebrity mentor is Puff Daddy
  • Flower – Dandilion
  • My life is 42 percent awesome
  • I am left brained
  • I am more Sith than Jedi
  • International sandwich – Chip Butty
  • My dream job – Subway train operator
  • Type of beer – lager
  • I am 21 percent lovable
  • I will have 8 kids
  • Pro quarterback I should date – Andrew Luck
  • I am addicted to coffee
  • Late Night Host – Craig Ferguson
  • Word that describes me – buoyant
  • My nickname should be – Clarence
  • Number of people secretly ion love with me – 106
  • I am 28 percent nerdy
  • Wine I should be drinking right now – Champagne
  • My worst quality – I’m noble
  • Who will play me in the movie of my life – Wayne Knight
  • Kind of sea creature – King Crab
  • Language I should learn – Sanscrit
  • I was note a problem child
  • I dream of having two right feet
  • I am 74 percent chill
  • I am 53 percent cute
  • My dog is very awesome
  • Vacation I should take – Nebraska
  • I hate Justin Bieber
  • I should not be a nudist
  • I am a country bumpkin
  • Classic rock band – Average White Band
  • The ancient civilization that suits me best – Aztec
  • I am 0 percent Kardashian
  • Who I was in a past life – Elsworth J. Kimitz
  • Seriously, why are you still reading this?

Kilt – Part I

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Paul Kilt stumbled through the double glass doors of the emergency room, dizzy, no… light-headed, still moderately coherent…luckily, and clutching the plush towel over the end of his newly stumped left forearm. The lights, while flickering due to the growing storm outside, were still bright enough to make him squint as he took a deep breath and forged on toward the customer intake desk.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen steps to the welcomed support of the faux marble countertop and a certain measure of prevention from landing face first on the floor.

His counting steps was something he had done for as long as he could remember. His trying to keep his face from smacking the floor with any ferocity, and losing consciousness, was something he tried to keep from doing since college.

On sixteen, he hit the counter hard and leaned onto it with his full weight, puffing out  heavy bursts of air to match the effort. He let his head rest softly on the window as his breath splashed itself across the glass in small, temporary waves of condensation. His head swam. His arm throbbed. His legs quivered. He was sweating and shivering all at the same time as his resistance to giving into shock started to falter.

“Off the counter and on the line please.”

The voice was heavy, gritty, and colored by age, countless cigarettes, a measure of malt whiskey and fair amount of contempt for those she spent her eight-hour work shifts attending to.

“I’m sorry?” he muttered, still trying to catch his breath.

A burly hand reached across and slid the visitor window open with an air of authority.

“Incoming patients must stay off the glass, stay off the counter and stay on the line. We will get to you as soon as possible.” The hand then slid the glass pane shut.

Paul rolled his head along the glass to where he could see the floor, blurry, but still. “Ha!” he thought. There was a line of tape on the floor about a foot away from the counter. Go figure.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I would… love to step back to the line there…the one you have on the floor, really, I would. But I…”

The window slid open again, fast and loud. The business end of a clipboard emerged. “Due to the storm, our computer system is down. Complete the top portion of the information sheet remembering to add your full name, the name of your insurance carrier, insurance group number, family history, any allergies and what brings you to the emergency room tonight. Then have a seat and we will call you when we’re ready.”

He blinked hard to see the end of the clipboard that protruded from the glass partition. It hung in mid air, waiting for him to take it and his place among the others who had brought themselves here for an evening of gentle care and healing.

“Sir?” The floating clipboard jutted out a couple of times indicating a sense of urgency.

He looked down at the death grip his right hand had on the towel, grown damp now from the mix of rain and blood. His subtle laugh forced a tiny hiccup through his body which sent a fresh shiver of pain into his left arm. “Uh…,” he managed through the wince. “I can’t…I’m not really in a position to…”

The clipboard hung in the air for a moment longer and then, ever so slowly, receded back to disappear behind the glass.

“Name?” the gruff voice asked, but he heard it as “nay-MAH!”

“Paul”

“Middle initial?”

“T.”

“Last name.”

“Kilt.”

“Killed?”

“No, Kilt. K-I-L-T.”

“Like the dress.”

“No,” he shifted again, hoping to ease the throbbing coming from the wound. “And it’s not a dress. It’s a traditional garment worn by men dating back to the 16th century and originating in the Scottish Highlands.” He had explained his name so many times in response to the “dress” question that even in his debilitated state, it just rolled off his tongue.

The elongated pause that followed reflected what he was certain to be the deep soul-searching on the part of the emergency room representative as she considered whether or not she would take this any further because she, most assuredly, was not paid enough to “deal with this kinda shit.”

“Address,” complete with an exaggerated hiss of “sss.”

“67 North Algiers Drive, Cardington proper.”

“Phone number.”

His vision started to blur further, as his head grew heavy. The voice seemed to come from farther and farther away.

“Phone number,” the request came more stern this time.

“Three.”

“Excuse me? Ugh. Do you have your insurance card Mr. Kilt?”

“Forgot…to…grab it.”

Another pause allowed him to hear more clearly the pounding that was starting to build in his ears.”

“Reason for your visit this evening?”

This time, the pause was his. Not so much for payback as he was trying to stifle throwing up. “Bleeding…to…death,” he managed. “And…the allure…of…good company.”

“Cause of injury, Mr. Kilt.”

He tried hard not to laugh. It hurt too much. His eyes traced his surroundings back and forth as if he might never see anything ever again and he was taking it all in. He felt himself slipping away from the counter and into the nothingness that was both the air of the emergency room and the darkness of being unconscious. And in that very last moment of lucidity, he giggled, “dog bite.”

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Free Drinks

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“Ok,” Tuke said, rubbing his hands together, “What’s up for tonight?”

“I don’t know,” said Hipps. “I’m feeling kind of blue. I’m thinking I just lost my long time faithful companion and well loved family dog Jasper.”

“Seriously?” said Tuke. “That’s a drag. And, didn’t we kill Jasper off three months ago?”

“That was Whiskers,” said Hipps. “Family cat.”

“Still…what a downer.”

It was Free Drink Tuesday. Tuke and Hips sat in parking lot of the Carmalita Bar and Grill trying to invent their next story. It had to be real enough to elicit sympathy or celebration, there had to be just enough backstory for them to make it believable, but not so complex that they got lost in the details, it had to be something they didn’t have to prove and it had to be strong enough that they would ultimately score free drinks.

“Look,” Tuke said, “If you want to kill something, how about your beloved Uncle Tilk?”

“We killed him already.”

“Yeah, but that was months ago and don’t you remember how he loved to drink and tell jokes and…I loved Uncle Tilk.”

“He wasn’t real.”

“He was real to me,” Tuke said. “And I’ll never forget him. God rest his soul.”

“I’m just not feeling that up tonight,” Hipps said.

The two in invented Free Drink Tuesday about a year and a half ago as a way to have fun, stay edgy and ultimately…cut down on the amount of money they spent on drinks their monthly outings. They liked drinking.

The idea bubbled up between them one night as they worked their way through a number of Couldersville’s prime drinking establishments. It seemed bartenders and servers were generally happy to part with a few free drinks when someone was celebrating something, or trying to get over something.

They tried it themselves and found great success on their birthdays. The problem was they only had two birthdays between them and their birthdays that sat months apart from each other. It hardly provided a regular opportunity for them to score free drinks on a more frequent basis.

It wasn’t until a simple off the cuff remark from Tuke put them on the path to drink prosperity. The moment of realization was still fresh in his mind. Tanya, server extraordinaire at Barker’s Pub on route 33, tipped the scales in their favor.

Hipps was blue, again, and after grabbing their table, Tanya approached.

“Good evening gentlemen,” Tanya said while smiling and placing small napkins before them. “What are you all celebrating tonight?”

Tuke looked at Hipps who looked down at his napkin and wallowed in the eight seconds of silence that passed between them as Tanya looked on.

“He’s depressed,” Tuke said causing Hipps’s head to shoot up. “Yes, he depressed because his girlfriend…his long time girlfriend…his fiancé…of seven years just left him…to join the Marines.”

Another moment of silence passed as Tuke felt Hipps’s glare burn into him. The moment seemed an eternity until Tanya tilted her head to the side, stuck her lower lip out in a pout and said, “Well that is just about the saddest story I’ve heard all day. This first one is on the house.”

Ding! Free Drink Tuesday was born.

Since that moment, and every month since then, they have celebrated various life events well worthy of free drinks including such glorious moments as Tuke’s liberation from his capture by Somalian pirates, buddy colonoscopy, the passing of dear Uncle Tilk, the passing of Whiskers, buddy vasectomy, Tuke’s being stuck by lightning eight times and Hipps’s awakening from a coma that coincided with the passing of the comet Maltese on leap day.

Getting Some

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At the ripe old age of nine, Karen Whignett was convinced she had adults all figured out.

Karen lived in an apartment in a high-rise building in New York City. Because of her lifestyle, and more the lifestyle of her parents, her access to other children was limited outside of school. She considered Paisley Barnes, a classmate who lived six floors below to be her best friend. It was mostly a ceremonial title for when Karen’s mom thought the girl needed someone to play with, she called Paisley’s mom. If Paisley was available, and she was always very busy herself, the girls sat around Karen’s room drawing or playing with dolls as Paisley talked about how she was going to be famous. Karen mostly listened.

Karen was a good listener. It was one of the reasons adults didn’t mind having her around. She never said much and because she was quiet, the adults normally forgot about her. They would talk, she would listen, she would learn.

Based on what she heard, three basic things drove all adult problems, money, time and whether or not anyone was “getting any.” The last of the three was the most confusing. Karen understood money and how there was no such thing as having enough. She understood time and how, like money, it was a valuable and rare commodity. But the concept of getting any was vague and seemed to be not only the source of consternation, but also an odd way to forget about problems for a while.

She recalled several conversations between her mom and Aunt Petrina where the vagueness of “getting any” came to light. At first she thought it as a redundant reference to the notions of time and money, but it quickly became clear that it was something more unto itself.

“Ugh,” Aunt Petrina would say, “On top of all that, I’m not even getting any.” To which Karen’s mom might nod or agree or say nothing.

On the other hand Petrina has also said, “Things are in the dumps as usual, but at least I’m getting some.”

Karen could only guess that in the pursuit of all things, the better answer to the problem of getting any was that it was to be getting some.

She pondered the question a good long time.

Karen spent the early evenings after school and school days off with her Grandma Bets, who lived two floors up. They talked and laughed and had snacks. Grandma Bets was an adult, but not as much like an adult as the others she had access to. When Karen finally decided to ask Bets about the concept of getting any, Bets didn’t bat an eye. She just kept on doing what she was doing, in this case crocheting, and explained it as only she could.

“Honey,” which is what Bets called her. “It’s a lot like cookies. If you have a bad day and things seem to go off base here and there, a simple thing like a cookie can make all that feel like a little less of a burden. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“And if you have a bunch of bad days and you don’t have time for a cookie, or there aren’t any around, you don’t have anything to distract you from your troubles. So you just focus on them more and they just seem to get worse. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Well there you go then. It’s better to have cookies when you need them than none.”

“Can you ever have too much?” which to Karen, seemed like the next best question.

“Well, can you recall a time when you ate too many cookies?”

“Not really.”

“That’s right! I’ve heard people complain about not having any, and people are usually happy having some, but I have yet to hear too many people complain about having too much…of anything… but troubles.”

Trigger

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As he passed the cafeteria on his way to his next morning meeting, Miller caught a whiff of tomato soup and was instantly transported back to the days of his youth.

Tomato soup was at the top of the menu the day he ended up in principal Murphey’s office for the epic explosion that resulted from a single bad idea, an ill-timed execution of that idea, vast over-reactions everyone and then some and the unfortunate, and untimely demise of Mrs. Krenner’s 5th grade class mascots, the hamsters Jenny and Crouton. May they rest in peace.

He worked to block a lot of that day from his memory and after all this time some of the details were starting to get hazy, but the smell of that tomato soup brought it all crashing back.

He remembered the way he was escorted to Mrs. Murphey’s office surrounded by four of Kirkdale Elementary’s larger teachers as if he were enemy number one. He seems to recall they were all armed with yardsticks.

They had to pass the kitchen on the way, and he recalls time slowing up for a moment as they walked by the door. His brief sideways glance allowed him to catch a glimpse of the secret inner workings of the school lunchroom.

Two women were emptying large cans of tomato soup into what seemed like an enormous vat. The woman directing the activity, whom he will forever remember as Olga – even if that was not her name – stirred the cauldron with a gigantic spoon, slowly and deliberately. He remembered her catching his gaze between the orders she barked out to her minions and it was a stare he felt deep in his chest as if a cold hand was squeezing his heart.

Slow Learner

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It was hot, too hot.

And he knew that even before he put it in his mouth. It was burning his fingers, so clearly the next obvious step to avoid damage to his fingers was to get it in his mouth, which was the ultimate part of the plan to begin with.

He had all the time in the world. There was no reason for him not to wait for it all to cool down to something easy to handle and easy to consume. The only rationale was that there was no rationale. He had to get this hot molten thing in his mouth right now for fear that it might vanish, or that the flavor might evaporate or that someone will see him eating this thing while it was clearly too hot. The need was primal.

Now, there was nothing but hot consuming his mouth. Burning, not flavor and the roof of his mouth would punish him for days for doing such a stupid thing. Even the mouth knew it was too hot, but the mouth has never had the strength to fight the hands, especially when the fingers are in jeopardy.

Saliva rushed to the rescue filling any space not taken up by what the brain could only surmise was lava. It seeped a bit from his lips.

“HOT, HOT, HOT,” the brain screamed, “WARNING!”

He tried to push the glob to his teeth, but his tongue protested, “HOT!”

He stood there, sucking in air and feverishly waiving his hands in an effort to cool the thing, end the pain, and minimize the potential damage.

There was only one choice left. He tossed his head back moving the thing to the back of his teeth where he chewed maniacally, sucking in cooling air as fast as he could and hoping by breaking it down quickly and cooling it at the same time, the horrible ‘hot’ would go away.

He swallowed.

As if determined never to give up, the evil glob of hot fought for life all the way down, burning everything it could touch, before it ultimately vanished into the stomach.

He grabbed his glass and chugged it down, not even remembering what it was. The cooler liquid did little in the moment to provide relief and seemed to instead, highlight each spot the hot glob touched in its battle for survival. Each spot a tiny reminder of his silly and fruitless behavior.

He sighed.

He was sweating a little.

He looked over at the pan.

Maybe now it has all cooled down enough for another try.

Thud

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There was a loud thud, followed by silence.

Chince looked up from his book and gave the room a quick once over. Nothing drew his attention. He was alone in the room. Everything was as it was before the thud, but at the moment everything seemed just a touch quieter. He froze for a moment wondering if everything was all right or if he should investigate. Chester had been up in the attic for nearly an hour. It was a warm day, but it was always warmer in the attic.

Chince listened to the quiet, squinting a bit as if that would make him hear better.

A sudden scraping noise cut the silence followed by another profound thud. Then, an exuberant exclamation of the name of our lord and savior and the wish that he condemn all things to Hell rose into the air from above him.

Chince sat a bit longer. If Chester needed help, he would ask right? He closed his book and laid it softly on the end table. He listened to the returned quiet, squinting and moving his eyes back and forth a bit like a cartoon spy.

“Dammit to Hell!” came another roar from above.

Chince looked up. “Are you all right?” he called out.

Silence.

He sat up a bit and inched to the edge of his chair. “Chester?”

“WHAT?!” Chester’s voice, muffled a bit by the layers of the house, rained down upon him dripping with frustration. Another thud rang out to which Chester responded with an even more frustrated, “DAMMIT!”

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Chince called up to the ceiling.

Silence again.

THUD!

“CRAP!”

“Chester?”

“Wha…”

THUD

“SHI…

THUD

“I’M FINE!”

Claimed

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Billy pulled the bag from the freezer. As he looked down, his brow furrowed.

“What the hell,” he muttered to himself while inspecting the bag further.  He yelled out, “Jason?”

“What?” Jason bumbled down the stairs to the kitchen where Billy stood with a puzzled look plastered on his face and a bag of frozen hot dogs in his hands. “Those are mine.”

“Yeah,” I gathered Billy said. “Am I seeing these right? Do they all say, ‘Exclusive Property of Jason Schwartzman’ on them?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Each one individually?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Billy asked.

“They’re mine.”

“I get that. It’s clearly indicated on each and every hot dog that they’re yours. How did you do that?”

“With a Sharpie®. I started with a plain one, but then I switched to the fine point. That made it much easier?”

“Why?”

“Duh, the fine point is not as thick, so the letters look better.”

“Why did you use a Sharpie® at all?”

“Well, I figured they would work best, they‘re permanent and non-toxic.”

“No. Why did you feel the need to write on the hot dogs at all?”

“They’re mine.”

“Right, fine. They’re yours. I’ll get to that in a second, but wouldn’t it have been easier just to write on the bag?”

“Well…I didn’t want you to get confused.”

“What, in case some hot dogs I might have somewhere decide to infiltrate your bag somehow and we can’t tell them apart?”

“You don’t eat hot dogs.”

“Which makes this even more bizarre.”

“But yet, here you are in the kitchen hold my bag of hot dogs.”

“Do you really think I wanted to eat your hot dogs? I was looking for something else. I saw these and I clearly remember thinking, ‘What the hell?’”

“I don’t see how it’s so bizarre. You write your name on stuff so I don’t get confused. You have a carton of eggs in there you marked as yours.”

“Right, but you have your eggs and I didn’t go through and mark each one the “Exclusive Property of William Jennings Cooper.’”

“Of course, not.”

“You see my point then?”

“Yeah, you prefer ‘Billy.’”

Cut

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Tork hated the way his mind worked…sometimes.

The cut on his hand was an accident. Just a stupid accident. But it felt substantial and there was a lot of blood. He was afraid to look too close to better avoid the chance of throwing up. A cut with lots of blood was one thing. A cut with lots of blood while vomiting was a whole other thing. He tried to remember the last time he had a cut like this. Nothing came to mind. This felt really substantial.

He remembers pulling paper towels from the rack and wadding them up to staunch the wound, but the blood was aggressive and soaked through that fairly quickly. He reached for more paper towels and witnessed – almost in slow motion – the last 1, 2, 3, sheets pulling away from the tube and leaving the brown core to spin freely as if it were laughing at him.

Crap!

He stumbled down the hallway to the closet where he kept the extra rolls of paper towels. The door swung wide to reveal an unexpected vacancy where the paper towels usually stood in waiting.

Gah!

Maybe there were more in the basement. Treated like a small storage facility for the things he had too much of at any one moment, he took the stairs down and pushed his way through jars of peanut butter and dishwasher cleaning solutions to where he thought the paper towels must be. The 1, 2, 3, sheets he got from upstairs were taking on a healthy red coloring. There were cookies down here. Hm. He wondered if they had expired yet.

A brand new package of 6 rolls – which had the absorbency of 8 – stood before him. He grabbed the package and tried to puncture the plastic housing with one hand. Again, as if in slow motion, the 6 rolls with the absorbency of 8 all flew away from him. He noticed the room getting warm, or he was getting warm. Yes, he was sweating now and he watched the rolls rain to the ground and spill away from him.

He dropped to the ground and grabbed at the closest roll, spinning it in his hand looking for the starter sheet. It seemed impossible. How did they secure that first sheet he wondered. Then he wondered if it might not be better to insert a small tab on the first sheet to make it easier to access. It was certainly something worth contacting the company about. It was like a public service, making the sheets easier to access in emergencies such as spilled chocolate milk or blood…Right! The blood!

He tossed away the now dripping 1, 2, 3, sheets from upstairs away revealing the cut for longer than he had hoped. Ugh! A feeling gurgled in his stomach.

Unable to find the elusive first sheet, he crammed the whole roll onto the cut. He applied as much pressure as he could to stop the bleeding and rolled onto his back.

That felt good.

A nap might be nice now.

He lay there for a moment, holding his hand to the roll for dear life as the room swirled around him. He sensed this was a good plan. He made a mental note that the gutter on the left side of the house might be clogged. He needed to check that. Also, these paper towels felt nice. He should write a letter to tell the company telling them how pleasant they were. Oh, and why did he have so much peanut butter?

SOC 412

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All right…class…everybody? I’d like to get started.

Thank you.

Good morning and welcome. My name is Dr. Dane Cooper. Please check your schedules to make sure you are in the right place. This is Advanced Senior Sociology 412 or as I’ve seen it labelled on the Internet, “Extreme Soc.” If you do not have that on your schedule, you are in the wrong place. You will also be one of the first lessons for the rest of the class. We won’t be laughing at you. We will be laughing with you.

And that is the first lie I will be sharing with you. We will be laughing at you.

Because we will be spending a lot of time together, and I define a lot of time using scientific terms like, “probably more than you could ever be humanly comfortable with,” you may be inclined to begin addressing me in ways that represent a deeper familiarity. Coop, Cooper, Doc, Dane, D.C., D.D.C and so on. That would be a mistake on your part. We will not be as familiar as you feel. Dr. Cooper is the best way to address me and anything else provides me with the unique opportunity to adjust your grade in ways undesirable to you. If you feel that is unfair or makes me an “ass,” you should probably leave now. And that will provide the class with the second lesson of the day.

In addition to spending enormous amounts of time together, you will likely get dirty. Not so much in the physical sense, however that does occur during some of our offsite lessons, but no, I’m talking about your conscience. In order to study human behavior we often need to create circumstances that will generate actual, measurable human behavior. This sometimes crosses with some people’s definition of ethics. I assure you everything we do will be done with the highest respect to ethics and the high moral standard on which this school hangs its hat. We will however dance on that line like the cast of Riverdance performing a sold out show for the Queen and an international television audience while the signal is being beamed out to space for other universes to behold.

If that makes you uncomfortable, the door is there to your right. Please provide us with lesson three for the day.

No one?

Very good. I will now collect your waivers and we shall begin.

Pre-Internet

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“Look,” Brin said to the sulking Lara. “You kids are lucky. You just don’t realize it. I met your father ‘pre-Internet.’ Do you know what that means?”

Lara pulled the Seventeen magazine on the table to her and began flipping through the pages aggressively. It was a half-baked attempt to show she wasn’t listening, but Brin knew that if she really wasn’t listening, she would have left by now.

“Yes, pre-Internet. Clearly, when I met the man who was to become your father, I didn’t have access to all the information that you people have today. After I met him, I had to talk to him – in person – to get to know him and he was the only source of information I had. You can’t imagine that, because it’s not the world you grew up in.

Sure, he had friends, but they only told me what a ‘great guy he was.’

Had I been able to look him up on Facebook or pull together some kind of Google search, you know…I might have made some different decisions.”

“Ugh…Mom, are you serious?”

“Look, I love your father. I’m just saying pre-Internet people had a huge learning curve to overcome. There was no ‘wikipedia’ to tell me all about what kind of person he was, no electronic photo albums, no friends lists, no texts, no Skype, no unlimited minute phone calls, no Twitter to let me know where he was, what he was doing, what he thought about things…none of it. So all I can say is we did the best we could with the information we had.

You know, come to think of it, maybe I found out he got on the dean’s list once…maybe not, I’m not sure. I’ve blocked so much.

Anyhow, the point is, people today, once you meet each other, and sometimes you don’t even actually meet, you have access to a world of information in minutes that can help you figure out what you might like or not like before you get too invested.”

“You think Daddy feels the same way?”

“Look, pre-Internet or not, your father is very lucky the way things worked out for him. You should have seen him when I found him.”

Lara slid the magazine back across the table. Her phone uttered a short beep causing her to look down immediately. “It’s Phil.”

“You see? How long did that take? Eleven minutes? Don’t even get me started on how long it took to ‘resolve issues’ before the Internet. You kids don’t even know what a fight is anymore. What does he say?”

“He wants to meet…to talk.”

“Uh huh. Let me give you one more piece of advice. One thing we did learn pre-Internet is that when it came time to work things out, we were already pretty good at actual real live talking. Do yourself a favor. If you really want to work on things, put the phone down. Stop texting and go talk to him.

Then…you can text me and to let me know how things go!”

An Open letter to the new baby of Cambridge

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Java wrote with great determination and focus as she was prone to do in these circumstances.

An open letter to the new baby of Cambridge:

Dear new baby of Cambridge:

I don’t know you. Chances are I never will. The knowledge of your existence has been forced into my life, so I think it only fair that I throw a little back your way, although I have no delusions of your ever seeing this or grasping my intent.

First, know that I in no way hold you personally responsible for polluting the world with the news of your presence. From the moment of your conception, now and for the rest of your life you have been and will be news fodder. You will be followed, photographed, hounded, praised, besmirched, coddled, cheered, booed and more ad nauseam. Every detail of your life will be shared publicly and with very few filters. Ask your uncle about that some day. In that regard, I feel sorry for you. Learn to embrace the good days. Today you were being cheered.

According to fairly recent studies, you share your birth date with over 370,000 other babies around the world, but of all those, guess which one – one of nearly 400,000 – garnered worldwide media exposure? That’s you big man. They interrupted Judge Joe Brown just to share the news. The second coming of Jesus could have happened yesterday and nobody would know about it. Come to think of it, Jesus II would probably prefer it that way.

Unlike the others who share your day, your life will be immeasurably different. I can only scarcely imagine how. You were born into royalty, money and opportunity. The majority of your compatriots are likely not nearly as lucky. There are probably some who already face profound poverty, starvation and the scarcity of basic needs like clean water. Your polar opposites. While the world celebrates you and your arrival, the others seem forgotten. I feel bad for them.

It makes me sad that there are so many people who are so interested in you and your existence. Again, not your fault. It’s not that the time, energy, money and bandwidth are wasted, but they could certainly be channeled to something more constructive.

It may sound like I don’t care that you are here. Honestly, I probably don’t. But since you are, I hope you have a very happy, healthy and productive life. And I hope that one day you will do something great with the resources and opportunities at your disposal. I know it’s early yet, but try not to screw up.

If you ever need someone to listen, I’m here for you.

Your friend in the cosmos – Java

Petition

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He looked at her and hoped he wasn’t making a face.

She stood on his doorstep young and determined, maybe 19, maybe older, it was hard to tell at that age. She held tight to her clipboard as she quickly ran through her spiel – most of it memorized – before standing quietly and waiting for him to respond.

He hated opening his door for this exact reason.

Ninety-eight percent of the people who wanted him to sign something or join something rarely reflected his personal views. Instead of signing or buying he was often more inspired to give them a good piece of his mind – to help clarify the error of their ways. This time was no different, but he held himself to silence.

She spoke of outrage, but he didn’t see it. He read about the situation himself and at the time he found himself shaking his head, “This is what people are ‘outraged’ over?”

She was clearly moved to action, but it was an action that would result in disappointment for her. The ‘outrage’ was not going to change the magazine cover, or help keep prayer in school or whatever other trivial thing that seems to put a thorn in humanity’s paw for a hot second.

She was a clean cut suburban kid who may be having her first full taste of social outrage. There were so many more things more worthy of her efforts that should not only generate true rage, but make you physically ill once you really understood the depth of the problem. Yet here she was with her petition and her determination. The last true rage she felt was probably aimed at her parents. She’d likely have better luck with a petition about that.

Twins

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Passing himself off as twins was way easier than he thought. Of course he hadn’t planned on taking it to this extreme or doing it this long, but once he reconciled the inner ethical qualms of living in a world of blatant duplicity over relative honesty, it just felt right.

Really, what he was doing was just a more literal representation of how most people live their daily lives anyhow. Sometimes, they were worse. His friend Sal had at least four distinct personalities that she could switch to without a moment’s notice. Depending on her mood, you never knew which Sal you would get.

His circumstance required a bit more finesse. It was becoming art really. He knew at some point the game would be called and one twin would have to absorb the other, but until then, the individual lives of Kevin and Klark were in full bloom and the road ahead was filled with possibilities…two lives worth.