Studies Say THIS is Why Reading is Fundamental

Ms. Gemmae: Alright kids, hope you had a good lunch in the cafeteria. I hear that the lunch ladies were serving mashed chicken and broccoli jam sandwiches on pickled rye toast today. With a side of deep-fried lettuce and glasses of baked water? Sounds both nutritious and delicious!

And I hope you were successful with burning off excess energy at recess with games of Five Square, Calvinball, Sinless Stone-Casting and the like? Excellent! Well, as you know, since this is Wednesday afternoon, it’s time for our weekly book presentations! Who will go first? Esuriit?

Esuriit: My book today is Elements, by the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, the father of Euclidean Geometry, and the guy Euclid Street is named after, the street that no matter where you live, you can buy a dimebag at 2 am (after midnight) from a sketchy black car with smoke pouring out the windows. 

I found this book to be both interesting and insightful and the fact that I can read Greek at the tender age of 10, made comprehension quite easy. Euclidian Geometry is the study of the circumference of the hole inside a donut vis-à-vis the circumference of a donut in its entirety. It was mastery of this field of math that allowed our hungry forefathers to create steam- and water-powered donuts, thereby staving off the Great Flour Famine of 187 A.D. (Absent Donut).

If you’re into math, or baked goods, I suggest checking this book out. The section on frostings alone will boggle your mind.

Ms. Gemmae: Thank you Esuriit, that was very insightful. Now Meditati, you’re up!

Meditati: Hey everybody. My book this week is a collection of poems from the venerable Asian poet Su Xiaoxiao. Su Xiaoxiao was a famous poet and courtesan in the Southern Qi Dynasty. She lived 479-501 A.D. (Always Denim). She originally hailed from Qiantang City, later renamed Hangzhou once it became the capital of the Zhejiang Province. Other famous poets from this city include Bai Juyi and Su Shi*, though they came centuries later.

So, “Little Su” (her street name) was known for the images of beauty and love that her poetry evoked. She felt that it was her duty to spread the idea of seeing beauty in the world around us, if only we can imagine it. In fact, before she died at 19 from a terminal disease, she saw her illness as a gift, since it allowed her to leave her mark on Chinese history and culture.

She was also a ninja. The end.

Ms. Gemmae: Alright Meditati, thank you for that. I enjoyed the twist at the end there. Didn’t see that coming.

Well, it looks like we’re almost out of time. Damn these 15-minute long class periods! But what can I say? You kids gotta get back to work down into the goulash mines, you know the paprika reserves a quite diminished.

So, last up for today is Timor. Timor, show us what you got.

Timor: Greetings fellow pupils of Miss Gemmae’s fifth grade class. I am pleased to present my book for your naïve indulgence. For I hold no ordinary volume in my hands, but one of the rarest, most potent texts ever transcribed by man: The Magnum Necronomicon.

The Necronomicon was written in 725 A.D. (Anti Deity) by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred, a Yemenite who worshiped the Outer and Elder Gods Yog-Sothoth and Cthulu. Originally titled Al Azif, (roughly translated as “The Sounds of the Insects at Night, Bringing Evil”, or “Terror by Night”) Alhazred wrote the horrifying grimoire after a sojourn to the ruins of Babylon, in the Nameless Quarter of Arabia. Therein, he discovered the “Nameless City Below” where he was given the words, invocations, enchantments, spells, incantations, portends, symbols and more of the eldritch languages used within the mythos of Mlandoth, Mril Torion and Azathoth, otherwise known as The Domain of the Dreamlands. A place beyond of madness and human comprehension.

The book was renamed The Necronomicon in 950, which is Greek and has several meanings, including “The Book of the Law of the Dead” “The Book of the Words of the Dead” and “A Book to Categorize the Dead.” Of course, due to its occult nature, the book and its worshipers have been banned, cast-out, tortured, burned and destroyed by countless pseudo-religions, would-be-gods, egotistical “holy men” and so-called kings and lords. And yet the mythos endures. Those who practice these unholy rites and rituals in the dark, under the nocturnal blessings of the Yellow King can never truly be vanquished.

Today, you undeserving younglings are blessed, for I have the original inscription of The Necronomicon. Written in Alhazred’s own blood, mixed with ichor from the various demons who whispered these malicious words into his demented head, and bound in the putrid, stinking flesh of a hundred unwilling sacrificial martyrs. This very tome has caused more wars, plagues and violence in the name of evil than any Brett Ratner movie.

And now I will recite a passage, to summon a vile entity.

Ms. Gemmae: Timor, that’s quite an imagination you have, but I think it’s about time to wrap things…

Timor: Silence, you pathetic excuse for a scholar. I begin:

Optha, on’knvyn swuthir d’jhzix flef
slmooith tlaxin dwiq!
ibc’blin lttzim, zaren vrin’soq hrota
ich bin ein Berliner!

Congratulations, you are all now jelly donuts. You’re welcome.

Esuriit: Yes!

*Not a joke, dude’s name was Su Shi and he was a renowned poet and governor of the province around 1089 A.D. (Apple Dumpling). Irony: He was allergic to fish.

Dante Is A Fish

Dante is a fish. I hope the title didn’t ruin it for you. He’s a Betta, to be exact. To be more colloquial, he’s an ass-kicking Siamese Fighting Fish. I can only assume he can kick ass; I haven’t trained him. I figure there was some kind of aquatic Mr. Miyagi at the pet store to handle the kung-fu aspect of his crazy lifestyle.

I didn’t name him Dante. My sister did when she gave him to me. Somewhat as a gag gift I imagine. Perhaps a social experiment to see if I was worthy to take care of another living thing, (besides that patch of mold I’ve been growing in my dirty clothes bin for the last 18 months. His name is Gary.) You see, I don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to stuff like that. With both animals and plants. Maybe it’s my natural ability to be extremely self-absorbed and my astounding lack of empathy for others. Who can say?

Every plant I’ve owned, up until the last five years or so, has been a cactus. My logic being that cacti live in the desert; they barely get water. So I only make the least amount of effort to keep the plant alive and it’ll do fine. It does its cactus thing, I do my human thing, we both exist in the same room, it’s all gravy. His name is Arthur. Arthur the Cactus.

That logic is what led me to have at least four Arthurs in my life, (Why bother coming up with a new name? My time is too valuable to be naming all the green things in my life. Cartoons aren’t gonna watch themselves.) I’m not entirely sure of the various ways in which my Arthurs died, but I did learn one valuable lesson in my capacity as a plant owner: don’t water them with bong water; there’s no such thing as a cactus/weed hybrid.

I currently have a hanging ivy plant named Porthos, after the fat, bon-vivant Musketeer. He has a name because I actually put effort into keeping him alive. He was given as a consolation present (is that a thing, by the way?) when my father died. Which means Porthos is over three years old. Not bad. I guess I’m growing more responsible in my old age.*

Dante is my first pet. As in, my own personal pet. My family had a cat when my sister and I were growing up. Don’t ask me what kind of cat, I don’t know from cats. All I know is she was black with orange splotches and she disliked everybody but me. Her name was Prickles, just like Gumby’s yellow dragon friend. We almost named her Pickles, but I’m glad we didn’t. Isn’t that what Doug named his dog?

My sister is to pets what I am to plants. She’s like a real-life Elmyra from Tiny Toons. Stephen King could have written three sequels to Pet Sematary based off our backyard alone. It was a regular Noah’s Ark of Death back there. She has no pets now and each summer, the plants in her garden commit seppuku rather than suffer under her care.

Dante is about one-year old. He spends his days and his nights alone, in a fish tank, about 8”x6”x8”. Not very big, but then again, he’s not a big fish. Every morning, I feed him flakes of food that include fish as one of the ingredients. That means Dante is a cannibal. This pleases me. He wakes up when I wake up. Our schedules are as synced as two ladies sharing the same cycle for their menses. I assume he wakes when I do because it’s the only time he interacts with anybody or anything.

Once a week, (give or take) I clean out Dante’s tank. Not a complicated process. Probably like giving a dog or cat a bath but, oddly enough, with less water going all over the place. In the end, I give Dante some blood worms and let him go back to doing whatever the hell he does all day. I’m sure, like me, much of it involves napping.

Sometimes, I just look at Dante in his little tank. All he has is some pebbles at the bottom, along with a tiny pineapple house in the corner. Seems more like a gauche Christmas ornament than a tank decoration, but what do I know? Maybe Dante really loves SpongeBob. But anyway, that’s all he has in his tank. No other fish are allowed in there, because he’d try to beat them down or something. Maybe eat their corpses in victory? That’s what the pamphlet said, at least. And who am I to question the words of a pamphlet? Same thing applies when I read The Watchtower.

So I wonder what he does all day. All by himself. In a tiny tank. Does he miss his parents? His bros? The lady fish? The Incredible Mr. Limpet? As he swims around the same miniscule area he’s gotten to know over the last several months, I ponder: what does he think about? Does he discover anything new? Does he stare at me and my room the way I stare at him? Does he wonder what I think?

I coulda invented a story to tell through his eyes, I’m good at that. But I decided not to. I’m not sure I could imagine what goes on through his ridiculously small fishy head. Maybe nothing. Maybe he’s content. No goals to achieve. No mortgage or rent to pay. No career to suck his life away. Nobody to break his heart. No concern about what the fuck is going on with Kanye these days. All he does is chill out and eat…and poop.

I like that. The simplicity, (Not the pooping part. Although, I could be persuaded. Who hasn’t fantasized of sitting in front of a tv, watching The Six Million Dollar Man while defecating in their soiled sweatpants from a sports team that hasn’t existed since the 70s?** It’s the goddamn American dream!) Anyway, maybe there’s a lesson to be learned from Dante the fish.

Nahhh…

*I.E. feeding a plant beer is just alcohol abuse. Beer doesn’t grow on trees people! 

** Wow that’s an extremely specific scenario.

Guess We Do Die Alone After All

(Sorry for there being more spelling errors than usual. This was a rush job this morning. Please to be grain-of-salting this thing I wrote in 30 mins.)

As many of you, some of you, none of you know, I (Josh) like to keep abreast of the daily goings-on in the world. From political debacles in Latveria, to the latest lotto winner in Thalidomide, AK., I stay in the know by watching and reading the news on an almost daily basis. So imagine my surprise, sadness and befuddlement when I read this news story last night.  

It seems that the body of a Navy vet was discovered in his apartment in the quaint, and oft-overlooked town of DeSoto Tx. (Motto: Where am I on a map again?) He was dead, and had been for a while. How long you ask? Oh, I dunno, how about

THREE YEARS!

Wrap your head around that. I want you to go sit in a corner, facing the wall, put on some noise-cancelling headphones, ignore your surroundings including your boss Mr. Wormface telling you to get back to your cubicle, and try to comprehend the situation I have just laid out before you. Do you know how many factors had to be in play for this to happen?

It seems that he had his rent paid automatically through his income. Although, unless he specialized as being a corpse in episodes of Law & Order, I have no clue what his income would be. But whatever, he had enough in his bank account to take care of rent. But that still doesn’t make sense.

I’m a man of the world, I’ve lived in houses, apartments, yurts, dorms, tents, barracks, crawlspaces and mystical caverns. I have yet to live in an apartment complex that didn’t raise the rent yearly. But that’s fine, let’s say that either his brand-new (more on that later) apartment was rent controlled, or he had enough in the bank to cover any rate hikes, there’s still the fact that he needs to sign contracts to stay or leave the apartment after a certain amount of time. That’s just how the faceless, heartless companies that run apartment complexes work. It’s all about the paper, both money and legally-binding contracts.

But ok, ignore that. Also, let’s ignore utilities. I’m not aware of an apartment complex that covers all utilities, but maybe I’ve just drawn the short end of the straw with that and there are places that do cover every utility. That’s good, more power to the people who live in those complexes, I’m jelly. However, what about his cable or satellite bills? Surely those weren’t covered by his rent. Then again, maybe his service provider just cut off service and sent angry letters about his account. But if that’s true, that brings me to my next point: what was the deal with his mailbox?

I once lived in an apartment where I literally stopped opening my mailbox and checking my mail, because I mostly had junk mail and flyers and shit. One day I opened the box to discover a note from the mailman saying that they quit delivering my mail (something about no more space in my mailbox) and I could go pick it up at the post office. To which I replied with my own note that as soon as he stopped delivering junk mail, I’d start picking up my mail.* It got to the point where they started returning letters to people who sent them to me. I find it surprising that the post office in DeSoto didn’t do something similar.

And what about packages that UPS or FedEx shipped? Wouldn’t they have put sticky notes on the door? And every building has that one nosy tenant (I’m talking about you Mrs. Snodgrass!) who would say something to management about all the stickers, or the pile of newspapers in front of the door. None of it makes sense!

Hey, you’re wondering, what about the smell? And you’re right. Once a guy died in my father’s apartment building and nobody noticed for two weeks until the smell became too much. Same thing happened a few months ago to a college student in Europe. He’d been dead in his dorm room for a month before the smell finally made people notice something was wrong (by the way, how much do crime scene cleaners get paid? It’s not enough). The cop who arrived on the scene said he “noticed that the decomposition was advanced.” I know that eventually once all the liquids dry and the gases dissipate, that the smell lessens, but still. Did he live in a building full of noseless people? The news article said that the windows in his brand-new apartment were still sealed shut and airtight with plastic. I didn’t know apartments came that way, but it’s still confusing as to why he didn’t remove the plastic and get some air in there. It was Texas after all.

He was discovered by maintenance guys checking apartments where occupants weren’t using water. That also seems bewildering to me. Usually maintenance workers always have to install some kind of new filters for your AC or whatever, or do yearly pest sweeps or something. I just don’t understand how everybody could have ignored him for YEARS.

What about his family? Well, that’s the kicker. He was 51. His mother had no idea where he even lived. She called him once for his birthday in 2017. He didn’t answer. And that’s pretty much it. She couldn’t afford private investigators, and cops said that since he was naval and tended to travel, that he was just out gallivanting or something. She just gave up and sat there crying every holiday, wondering why her son was never there to be with her.

He lived alone. He died alone. But at least he died as he lived: Face down, Ass up.

*It didn’t work. Never fight the post office kids. They are a powerful lot.

Sometimes These Things Happen II

Mark made it into the kitchen before Travis, still screaming bloody murder. Their father was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in one hand, a pen in the other and the latest issue of Ranger Rick in front of him on the table. He liked doing the puzzles.

This mother was at the sink, trying to clean the family’s legally purchased and licensed AR-15, with soapy water. It wasn’t going very well. And she constantly cursed the weapon under her breath. Meanwhile, the radio next to her kept talking about that Dow Jones guy and his obsession with bulls and bears.

“Mom! Travis is a freak!” Mark managed to say between gasps of air. “There’s something wrong with his but!! Look!” he said, pointing a quivering finger toward his be-toweled brother.

“What is your brother talking about Travis?” asked his father. “Is there something wrong with your butt, or has Mark gotten into the airplane glue again?”

With that, Travis realized that the cat(tail) was out of the bag, to be honest, he was surprised that he managed to keep it a secret as long as he had. His head dropped and he turned around to reveal his tail (and unfortunately, his ass cheeks as well) to his family.

The gasps from his family were so in unison, you’d think they’d practiced ahead of time.

“What the hell is that?!” His father bellowed, spilling his coffee all over his magazine, jumpimg up in surprise.

His mom just screamed, doing her best Laurie Strode impression.

“It’s my tail, obviously,” Travis replied.

“Why do you have a tail? How long have you had a tail?” His dad queried. “And why the hell do you have a tail?!?! Jesus Jewels, I told you that your cravings for Monsanto corn during pregnancy was going to come back to haunt us!”

“I don’t know why I have a tail. It just showed up one morning, like a Christmas present from David Cronenberg. I’ve had it for a little over a month. But look, it’s not useless!” Travis said excitedly.

He then walked over to the kitchen table, turned 90 degrees and, with his tail, he picked up his father’s dropped pen and circled “coccyx” in the word search in the magazine. He then drew a mustache on Ranger Rick’s face, which seemed kind of pointless since Rick was already a furry raccoon.

“See? I can do stuff with the tail! It’s like a third arm.” Travis said.

“Yeah, well, get that shit out of my sight. Honey?” Travis’ dad said turning to his wife. “Is the saw still in the work shed?”

“Of course, Rufus. Where else would it be? It’s not like it’s under our mattress because I agonize all the time about which night will be the night I actually go through with it and separate your loathsome head from your miserable excuse for a human shell,” came the reply.

“Great! I’ll go get it. Jewels, Mark, hold him down on the table, I’ll be right back.” And with that, Rufus went out the kitchen back door and walked over to the work shed.

You will be spared the gory details (mostly). Travis was held down on his stomach, a dish towel shoved down his throat to keep him from screaming and something for his teeth to clench onto. After all, there was no anesthesia for this DIY surgery.

Travis, bucked and struggled. His mother and brother were surprisingly strong. He couldn’t break free from their grips. He could only cry, his voice muffled by the towel, his tears falling silently down his face, unnoticed by anybody. His tail, as if it had a mind of its own, swung this way and that. Trying to avoid Rufus’ attempts to hold it down. But it was a game the tail was going to lose, and it did.

Eventually Rufus got a firm grasp on the tail and slammed it down on the oak surface of the kitchen table. With the hack saw in his other hand, he brought it down and began a steady back and forth motion. The fur and the flesh beneath were easy enough, though a bit slippery because of all the blood. The bones were a little harder. Since a cat tail can have anywhere from 19-23 caudal bones in its tail, it was hard for Rufus to find a gap between bones to take advantage of.

After the longest ten minutes of Travis’ life, Rufus dropped the bloody saw to the floor, picked up the tail and walked around to where Travis could see him. He knelt down until he was at eye-level with his son. Travis’ eyes were squeezed shut and there were rivers of snot coming out of his nose, to be absorbed by the dish towel. He was immobilized with pain.

Rufus slapped him hard in the face. When Travis opened his eyes, his father shoved the bloody tail, still spasmodically swaying, in his face.

“You see this bullshit?! DO YOU SEE IT!” Rufus bellowed. “I will not have shit like this in my house. What the hell is wrong with you? Who goes around town with a goddamn tail? It’s disgusting! If some crap like this happens again, it won’t be the offending appendage that gets removed, capice?”

Travis nodded weakly. Even if he had something to say, it was impossible with the towel still down his throat.

“Now get that stump bandaged up and go to your room until I say you can leave. And that’s going to be a long time. Meals will be delivered to you. You may only leave to go to the bathroom. Now get the fuck outta here.”

With much straining and exertion, Travis slowly, agonizingly, got up, stood on two wobbly feet and gradually limped his way up the stairs to the bathroom where this whole horrible event had originated. He grabbed another towel and wetted it. He also took some gauze and Neosporin, staggered to his room and shut the door behind him.

                                                                   

       

***

Four months had passed. Travis was taken out of school. His friends stopped coming by to check on him. He was sure Hana had concocted some kind of elaborate fiction about what happened to him, for the other kids to gobble up. Maybe he had been kidnapped and eventually eaten by a serial killer. Or he had run away to the circus, or to join up with a band of gypsies. Or, and Travis really hoped that this rumor was actually going around, Travis had become a kind of Typhoid Mary. He had contracted an extremely contagious and fatal disease that gave people fins and gills or whatever, but he could only give it to others, it didn’t affect him at all. And the government made him live in an underground bunker in Area 51 for the rest of his life.

Of course, none of that was the case. He was simply a prisoner in his own house until his father deemed otherwise. So Travis just lay there, (on his stomach, it still hurt if he laid on his back) every day. Resigned to his miserable life. A captive, a hostage in his own room. No happy memories to be had. No escape possible. When he wasn’t lying in bed, Travis looked out his window at the world around him that he used to be a part of, but not anymore. He was no longer a participant, just a spectator. He missed the wind, the smells, kicking around the frisbee with his boys, or going to the soccer court. He missed the greater world around him, all that was NOT his prison cell. He longed to be free.

When Travis was 16, he grew wings.

During one of his mother’s daily checks of Travis in his room, to see just how broken his spirit was and if he deserved to be let out, she came upon a surprise.  He wasn’t in his room. There was no trace of Travis. Just an open window. His family never saw him again.

Sometimes These Things Happen I

When Travis was 15, he grew a tail.

It wasn’t a cool tail, like a monkey's. It wasn’t extra-furry or shaggy like a dog’s. It wasn’t short and stupid, like a pig’s and it wasn’t beautiful and functional like a peacock’s. If anything, it was like a cat’s or some kind of feline. It was about two feet long and covered with yellow fur, with a small tuft of red fur at the end.

And it grew overnight. Travis went to bed one night a normal teen and woke up a be-tailed freak.

A person’s natural reaction to waking up to a mutated, Kafka-esque nightmare, would be to scream and freak out, and Travis was no exception. Upon the discovery, in the mirror, of his tail, he screamed for about 10 seconds before he passed out on the floor at the foot of his bed.

Waking seven minutes later, Travis felt recovered enough to take a shower and get dressed. He discovered that he had sufficient control over his tail to wrap it around his leg a few times and as long as his pants were baggy enough, he wouldn’t look like John Holmes on steroids.

Walking proved to be a bit difficult and sitting even more so. He had to spend a good fifteen minutes walking in a circle around his room before he felt comfortable enough to go out into the world. He wasn’t too sure what a day of sitting in the world’s most uncomfortable desks would feel like, but he figured he’d learn soon enough.

At breakfast, his mother didn’t notice his fidgeting as he downed his regular breakfast of a bacon, egg and pop tart sandwich. She was too caught up in her own universe where the only things that mattered were stocks, quotas, portfolios and some guy named Dow. Her eyes were glued to the financial section of the paper and her ears were deaf to anything but her own thoughts of trends, investments and money.

Likewise, on the bus, it didn’t seem like anybody else noticed him shift from one cheek to the other as they headed to school. At least, that’s what he thought, until he noticed Hana, across the aisle, staring at him from the corner of her eye.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What’re you talking about?” Travis responded.

“It looks like you’ve got hemorrhoids or something! Why do you keep moving like that?”

Travis knew Hana was one of the biggest gossips in the school. Entire reputations had been built and destroyed simply by one casually thrown-away statement into the right (or wrong) ear. If he didn’t want to end up a social pariah, he would have to play this off carefully. Throw her off the scent and lead her to think something else. The best way to do that would be to tell her something slightly embarrassing, but not as bad as the truth.

“Yeah, how’d you know? I usually have one of those donut cushions, but I had to let my grandpa borrow it today,” he said.

“Ewwww! You need to keep that info to yourself!” she said, with obvious disgust before returning to her conversation with a girl in the seat in front of her.

A few giggles and surreptitious glances from Hana and her friend let Travis know that the rumor had been spread. Luckily, she accepted the story, so his secret was safe. On the other hand, all 1,400 students at Rocky Mount High School would soon be making fun of him for having hemorrhoids. Embarrassing, but not as bad as it could be.

Travis found that as long as he didn’t think too hard about the fact that he had a tail, he was able to get through the day with a semblance of normality. He may have looked awkward while sitting through the eight periods of the school day, but he didn’t attract too much gawking.

When he got home after school, he was able to concentrate on his homework, enjoy dinner and watch tv until it was time for bed. He rarely thought about his new appendage.

The next morning, Travis discovered that he didn’t even care that he had a tail. It was starting to feel natural, a part of his body.

After a week, he felt like he’d always had a tail, he couldn’t remember what it felt like to not have one.

After a month he even forgot he had a tail.

That’s probably why he got careless about hiding it, and how his brother, Mark, was able to discover Travis’ secret. 

                                                                ***

One Saturday morning, while Travis was taking a shower, his younger brother decided to play a trick on him. He snuck into the bathroom and stole Travis’ clothes with a loud, high-throated guffaw. Travis opened the shower curtain and saw Mark running down the hallway with an armful of clothing. In anger, Travis quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist and immediately gave chase.

Travis chased his brother all around the upstairs hallway, through their parents’ master bedroom and bathroom. Mark was small and was as impossible to get a good grasp on as those eels who secrete slime and tie themselves into knots so you can’t catch them. Gross.

The chase made its way downstairs and into the living room. The whole time, Mark kept looking back at his older brother and laughing in that maniacal way that only little kids can get away with.

Suddenly, Mark looked back and stopped dead in his tracks. Travis’ clothes falling from his arms, forgotten. His eyes grew as wide as Betty Boop’s as he stared just behind Travis. He was speechless. This left Travis confused, so he turned to look over his right shoulder to see what shocked his brother so much. And that’s when he saw his tail, swaying left and right in the slight house breeze, the red tuft bobbing to and fro, like a lazy person batting at a pesky fly.

After a moment, Mark’s paralysis broke and he screamed at the top of his lungs

“Mooooooom!!!! Daaaad!!!!” he yelled before turning and running at full speed into the kitchen. Travis followed.

How to Nail Every Job Interview

Dr. Brooks: Hello Mr. McFlaudius. I hope the day finds you well?

Claudius: Yes sir. I just want to thank you for this opportunity to hopefully work for Raimi Co. I’ve always been a big fan of the products made by this company, from the submarine screen doors to the remote-controlled ice cream ovens.

Dr. Brooks: Ha ha ha! No need to thank us Mr. McFlaudius, we feel that you’d make a great fit to our company. You did very well in the initial interview, the obstacle course and the lightning speed dating round. All that’s left now is this final assessment of your mental acumen. This is a chance for us to explore your creativity, imagination, mental reflexes and dexterity. All responses will be compiled and reviewed by our expert Prof. Fluffy. So don’t worry, your answers will be kept classified and in the best hands. Prof. Fluffy is a good boy!

Claudius: …Okay? You can call me Claudius if you want, by the way. Mr. McFlaudius seems a bit formal.

Dr. Brooks: No.
Alright, let’s begin. Question 1: You are a chimney sweep in the Queen’s Chapel area of London in Victorian times. One night, as you’re taking your usual lunch break with one of Mrs. Lovett’s delicious meat pies, you hear a scream coming from a nearby alley. Jumping to your feet you run across rooftops until you wind up just above where you heard the screams. Getting down on your belly, you creep to the edge, until your eyes can just make out movement in the alley below. Squinting and trying to make the best of the available light, you discover a ghastly scene. It seems that you have caught Jack the Ripper in the middle of one of his horrendous murders. This is your chance to put an end to the mystery and stop the palpable fear rolling over the streets of London like a wave of blood. Now is the time to act. It is now or never. Only one question remains: what color are your socks?

Claudius: …

Dr. Brooks: I’m waiting Mr. McFlaudius.

Claudius: What color are my socks? Ummm, black, from all the soot?

Dr. Brooks: Incorrect. They were red because you were in a jovial mood when you woke up that morning because you had played a few excellent hands of Chemin de Fer the previous night and could finally afford a bottle of the good stuff and not the swill you usually buy.

Question 2: You wake up on a typical Wednesday morning and get ready to go to your job as a living crash test dummy for Raimi Co. As you look in the mirror, you discover that your hair has turned into a polka-dotted mix of orange with blue spots. Instead of being horrified, you decide to embrace the look. You lean into it and strut into your workplace. The reaction is immediate. All the women want you and all the men want to be you. Your boss calls you into his office and gives you a promotion and raise on the spot. You are now Vice-President in Charge of Nipple Clamps. You’re getting a company car, a new company penthouse and your own A-10 Warthog, for no good goddamn reason. It seems that with your new hair style everything is going your way in life. What is the atomic number of Unobtanium?

Claudius: I really don’t…

Dr. Brooks: Clock’s ticking Mr. McFlaudius.

Claudius: What is 42?

Dr. Brooks: This is not Jeopardy, Mr. McFlaudius. No need to answer in the form of a question. And also, incorrect. The correct answer is that the atomic number of Unobtanium is 187, as any elementary school student from Compton could tell you.

Claudius: Drat. I should have known that one.

Dr. Brooks: Indeed. Here’s your last question, let’s see how you do here.

Question 3: It’s Friturday, Octobuary the eleventeenth. You’ve just put your Snogglewomper to bed for the night after the usual ritual to Ba’al and the sacrifice of the virginal toilet plunger. You tuck your womper into the trash compactor, where it bundles itself into a chrysalis to digest and absorb the nutrients of its dinner of toenail clippings. As you float toward the ceiling and to your ebony cocoon hibernation chamber for the evening, you notice that the Gravshling has gotten loose from its bonds. With a head shake of frustration, you begin swimming through the fetid air to find the Gravshling and return it to its habitat before too many neighborhood T.hropsteins go missing. Who are you?

Claudius: I’m Batman.

Dr. Brooks: You’re hired!

What to Do When Your Birthday Celebrates the Dead

Some people are fortunate/unfortunate enough to be born around, or on holidays. It usually tends to be a disadvantage for those people. For example, if you’re born around Christmas, you’re screwed for life. Ain’t nobody, no matter how related to you they are, no matter how many bullets you took for them, gonna shell out two presents for one person. Merry Birthday and Happy Christmas, now get the hell out of here!

Some people have wacky birthdays. I have a friend who was born on February 29^th, so even though he’s a grown ass man with a family, and a career and probably a mortgage and a receding hairline*, he doesn’t turn ten years old until 2020.

And even though it’s not actually a holiday, more like a cosmic event you can set your watch to, we all know that Mark Twain was born in 1835, just a couple of weeks after Hailey’s Comet flew through the heavens. The comet gave Twain the powers of SUPER RACISM!, in that not only did he not get in trouble for throwing the N-Word around like so many dollar bills at Good Guys Nite Club, but the more times he used racial slurs in his work, the more his books became American classics and were forcibly shoved into the eyeballs and evolving brains of United States youth.

Then Twain died in 1910, the next time Hailey’s Comet gave us a quick stop-by. Although after that whole racism thing, that seems a lot less interesting.

Also, you’ve got people like me whose birthdays coincide with holidays, though perhaps not very well-known holidays in these great states of ours.

Depending on your religious proclivities, or geographical location, or race, or if you prefer smooth peanut butter over crunchy, I was born on All Souls’ Day, or Dia de Muertos, or Dia de los Muertos, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. In other words, the Day of the Dead.

First off, lemme give a quick shout out to my fellow Deadites. We have the best birthday you could ever want. It’s tits! The only thing that sucks is that growing up, all my birthday parties tended to be two days prior to my birthday and involved a lot of trick-or-treating. I guess two birds with one stone or some shit for my lazy parents.  

The Day of the Dead, is actually a third of three-day observance, especially in certain Christian denominations, (such as Catholicism,) especially in the western parts of the world. Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day usher in the season of Allhallowstide. And while the name may sound ominous or macabre, it’s actually a celebration of the life of the departed.

In ancient American history, the Aztecs used to hold celebrations at the beginning of summer to the goddess Mictecacihuatl, (and if you can say that five times fast, I’ll give you my first-born son.) Her name translates to Lady of the Dead, which is odd, because I thought that was my ex-girlfriend’s nickname in bed. Mictec’s was the queen of the underworld and her job was to look over the bones of the dead, usher in the dead to the underworld (probably with coupons for the jaguar buffet) and kinda just be there for all the festivals in her honor. It was a pretty good gig.

These festivals were mostly observed in southern Mexico until the 16 century, when those wacky Christians came on over and tried to explain to the indigenous people in the New World how they were praying to their gods incorrectly, and while they were at it, had the indigenous people considered praying to a different god altogether? This other god was white, therefore much better!

And in this fashion, the Latin American festivals honoring the life and times of their deceased friends and ancestors, got mixed up with eastern religious observances, which is why it was moved from the beginning of summer to the end of October.

By the rockin 20^th century, Dia de Muertos moved upward to encompass more of northern Mexico and eventually became a national holiday. During this period there are festivals, parades, makeshift altars, called ofrendas are built at the gravesites of ancestors. It’s the one time of year cemeteries are poppin off. People wear skull masks and vibrant clothes and often, James Bond comes through to kick a bunch of dudes out of a helicopter and blow shit up or whatever.

South and Central America and the traditions and beliefs contained therein, are not the only locations on this great big ball of stupidity we call Earth take place. Many Eastern disciplines, beliefs and ways of life involve ancestor worship. The idea of traveling to the burial sites of those who have come before us to make the world a better place for us, just as we strive to do for the next generation,** is both proper and expected in these cultures. Of course, much of that changed in the past century as the stifling grip of socialism has taken over many Eastern Asian countries and their observances, such as ancestor worship have all but been stamped out under the guise of it being a superstition And therefore not allowed.

But in the end, you don’t really need a specific day of the year, or religious belief to remember the ones who have passed. Pick up a photo album, google your own family name (weirdo), do a 23 and Me, or hang out with Doc Brown for a bit. Those are all acceptable ways to remember our forefathers and mothers. Or, if you’re hanging with Doc Brown, it’s a good way to get that Oedipus Complex off of your chest once and for all!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I may not be dead, but I got some celebrating to do.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME SUCKAS!

*Only guessing here Tom, nothing personal!

**Unless you’re Trump, in which case your motto is: “Get the Money and Let God Sort the Rest Out.”