A Simple Plan

Facebook chat between me and my sister:

[NOTE: TJ is my five year old nephew]

--------------------------------------------------------------

JENNY: Santa's coming Thursday night, and TJ is shitting his pants

ME: Idea for a Joke: Tell TJ that Santa was in a three car pileup on 495 and he's in a coma

JENNY: That would be funny, except that TJ would tell you Santa would be OK because he's magic

ME: Tell him that Santa's magic was in the glove compartment of the car which was taken to the auto graveyard and put in the crusher

JENNY: Don't be mean

ME: Tell him the only way to bring santa out of his coma is if he shovels the driveway

JENNY: We have a plow man for that

ME: The front walk, then

JENNY: We have a daddy for that

ME: It's a win-win: you get a cleared out walk, and TJ thinks he saved Christmas

JENNY: ha ha!

Whipped

"Iced venti mocha, no whip."

Stonehenge stare.

"Is that what you want?"

No, I think, I came into the fucking store, waited in line for six minutes just to tell you what I DON'T WANT. Cuz that's how I roll. I like to take the scenic route across the vast rolling plains of the Starbucks menu, stopping by all the other drinks before I arrive at my destination. Cuz getting there is half the fun, right?

"Uh, wha?--yeah," I reply, not sure why she's asking me such a dumb question. Not since my landlady called me up at work to tell me that the guy below me had water coming through his ceiling and asked, "Did you leave a faucet on?" have I heard such stupid shit drop from a person's mouth. Yes, I LEFT THE FAUCET ON. I ALWAYS LEAVE WATER RUNNING WHILE I'M AT WORK.

"So...iced venti mocha."

"No whip," I repeat.

"You don't have to say 'no whip.' Unless the person asks for it, we don't put whipped cream on."

"Okay. It's just, at every other Starbucks they ask me if I want whipped cream, and I'll say no, and then they shout out 'Iced venti no-whip mocha!' So..."

"Well, at this one you don't have to say that."

"Okay, that's one store out of twenty..."

"Iced venti mocha!" she calls back.

"NO WHIP!" I shout to the guy at the espresso station with friendly spite in my voice. I give Stonehenge a big smile. The corners of her mouth creak upward about one millimeter. For this woman, a Herculean feat of facial muscle command.

She gives me my change. I ask for the receipt.

"Thank you," she says. I hate you is what she means.

"Thanks," I say with a genuine smile and a chuckle, an attempt to ease the tension.

I hate you too is what I mean.

Redamame

Red Smith became diabetic recently, and he has to test his blood every day. There's a 50/50 chance he has to give himself an insulin injection. So I was eating edamame and thought he'd like that as a healthy snack. Sent him an email, subject line: SOY, told him to boil them up, etc.

Got this back a few days ago:

Mark i tried the soy beans.I can understand how u can lose weight eating the beans,by the time u open all the pods your ready for a nap. An they don't have a lot of flavor.

LOVE YA DAD

I figure "to each his own" and say nothing. Then last night I'm on the phone with my mother, she says "Wanna talk to your fah-thah?" (her voice is already fading away as she passes him the receiver). Red gets on, we chat for a few seconds, then: "I didn't like those soy beans."

His dull matter-of-fact tone echoed last summer when he uttered one of his most cryptic, Lear-like non sequiturs at the dinner table: "I went searching for the perfect knife....."

(....wait for it....)

(....waaait for it...)

(....comin at ya....)

"I didn't find it."

(...vacant gaze into the distance...)

Aaaand....SCENE.

Anyway: "I didn't like those soy beans."

ME: I'm not sure you were eating them right, it shouldn't be that much of a chore.

RED: Nah, I didn't like 'em. They were cold and bland. No flavor.
 
ME: Why'd you let them go cold? You should eat 'em while they're nice and warm.
 
RED: You cook 'em??
 
(a beat)
 
ME: Wait, you bought them RAW? You're supposed to boil them.
 
RED: OH! I didn't know that. I was eatin 'em RAW! (laughs)
 
ME: Well, listen. Next time just go to the frozen food section--
 
RED: Yah.
 
ME: They come in a bag.
 
RED: Yah, I know.
 
(another beat)
 
ME: You know?? Is that how you bought them before?
 
RED: Yah, I bought a frozen bag, took 'em home and ate 'em.
 
ME: You ate them FROZEN?
 
RED: What am I stupid? I put 'em in a bowl and let 'em defrost.
 
(long beat)
 
ME: Didn't you read the directions on the back?
 
RED: I didn't bother.
 
ME: Have you ever eaten a TV dinner? Whaddya pry out the salisbury steak and suck on it like a pudding pop?
 
RED: Wait, here's your mother.

Aaand.....SCENE.

Slaw and Order: UPDATE

I have not been caught with raspberries yet even though the operation is like a dance with danger requiring the stealth and cunning of a leopard on a gazelle hunt. It's a three-step process: 1) fill oaty-meal cup halfway, 2) move across the aisle to another buffet table and scoop up some sweet-ass raspberries (you are SO worth it, you little red devils), then move back the oaty-meal bucket and cover up the evidence. This is akin to a man crossing a flaming bridge to get ammo, but leaving his gun on the other side....

..........!!!..........

Of course it has JUST NOW occurred to me that I could eliminate a step simply by putting the raspberries on the BOTTOM of the empty cup, and THEN cover them with warm steel-cut oaty-meal. This is why I'm not a secret agent.

The Forty-Fifth Trimester Mel Gibson Nutcase Blues

Mel Gibson came to see me the other day about getting an abortion for his pregnant girlfriend. (At least I think it was Mel Gibson. I'm going to assume it was, otherwise this story has no legs.)

I said, "Mel Gibson, you're crazy! I can't perform an abortion on your hot skanky girlfriend. I'm only a PhD in archaeology from the University of Ravenhurst, I'm barely qualified to perform such a procedure!"

He said, in a very gravelly and intense voice, "LISTEN DOC, I'VE WORKED TOO DAMN HARD AND TOO DAMN LONG ON THIS MISSION TO HAVE IT GO SOUTH THANKS TO SOME PENCIL-PUSHING, RED-TAPE LOVING JEW-BOY LIKE YOU--"

"Mel Gibson, I'm Irish Catholic--"

"ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, DOC, I'M BRINGING MY MEN HOME. BRAVE MEN, MANLY MEN. THEY DESERVE THE BEST CUZ THEY ARE THE BEST. YOU HEAR ME, DOC?!!!?!?!?"

"Mel Gibson, you're screaming right into my face. Assuming my hearing is normal, there's no way I wouldn't be able to hear you from such a short distance."

"AYE, FIGHT AND YOU MAY DIE. RUN AND YOU'LL LIVE...AT LEAST A WHILE. AND DYING IN YOUR BEDS, MAY YEARS FROM NOW, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO TO TRADE ALL THE DAYS, FROM THIS DAY TO THAT, FOR JUST ONE CHANCE TO COME BACK HERE AND TELL OUR ENEMIES...THAT THEY MAY TAKE OUR LIVES, BUT THEY'LL NEVER TAKE...OUR FREEDOM!!"

"I'm pretty sure I'd NOT be willing to do that, Mel Gibson. If I'm on my deathbed it probably means I'm super tired and weary. I'm probably not gonna be thinking about you. More likely I'll be thinking of boobs and caramel and puppies and stuff. But, seriously, what does this have to do with your girlfriend's--"

"ALBA GU BRA!"

"Yeah, algebra! Wait, what? Why are you shouting out math branches?"

"ALBA GU BRA!!"

"Advanced topology!"

"ALBA GU BRA!!"

"Euclidian combinatorics!! This is fun, Mel Gibson!"

And then he got all pissed and left my office. That guy is WEIRD, I'm telling you.

Slaw and Order

I went into Whole Fuckers this morning to get my usual $46,500 salad and my $23,000 bowl of steel-cut oaty-meal. I always throw a few raspberries on it because plain oaty-meal tastes like liquid sandpaper and raspberries taste magically delicious, mm'kay? Now technically the raspberries are on another buffet where everything has to be weighed and shit, buuut no one ever says anything and I'm a shameless thief: the perfect storm.

Well, today Missy Caboodle at the register sees my raspberries resting on the top of my oaty-meal and goes, "Next time you have to weigh the raspberries separately." Whole Fuckers must be getting wise to all the Sneaky White People (SWP) stealing their precious raspberries, meanwhile I just sold my third kidney so I can buy a fucking cardboard box of edamame salad.

Anyway, I just looked at Missy Caboodle and sort of nodded and said, "Oh, okay" as if I barely understood what she meant, and tomorrow I'm gonna do what everybody else who hears her little warning is gonna do: those raspberries are getting buried in the middle of the oaty-meal, fuckers! Whoo-hooo!! Go, recession!!

Of course Whole Fuckers will eventually get wise to the fruit-smuggling scam and it will go one of two ways: either they'll take away the oaty-meal, which won't happen b/c they charge two dollars for a pint-sized cup and it costs them about two dollars for an entire truckload, so that's a cash cow that ain't getting slaughtered. What they'll most likely do is create a new position for the mentally leotarded/deranged: the Whole Fuckers Oatmeal Cop (WFOC). The WFOC will stand there in his white smock polishing the metal buffet with his wet rag, all the while keeping an eye out for SWPs who try to illegally stow magically delicious raspberries and other rare fruits like bananas and strawberries into their steel-cut oaty-meal. I await the day when I feel those cold, hard 100% organic handcuffs snapping around my wrist. WFOC will flash his hemp-badge and cart me into the back room. I'll be beaten with some bok choy, then stripped and pinned up against the wall spread-eagle. A Vegas jackpot of fruits and melons and unshelled legumes and possibly a bamboo cutting board will then tumble to the floor from the depths of my supple behind. For some lucky WFOC this is the French Connection bust of contraband oaty-meal toppings.

Now if this scenario does occur, I have a plan: I'll become indignant and shout at my captors, "Look what you made daddy do!" Not sure after that. Suggestions are welcome.

A list of dog names, Part 1

Maggie
Cocoriffic
Frankenberry
Juggernaut
Crackhead
Sweet Baby Jesus
Baconbits
Rolo Tomasi
Kaiser Sosze
Alvy Singer
Diaperwax
Colon Cancer
Galaxy Pup
Harvey Milk
Vacuum Face
Captain Stabbin
Disaster Dog
Anna Wintour
Cottonmouth
Stunkervundle
Foot Bandage
Sean O'Hanlon
Aerosmith
Woofpants
Swaggerbat
Blinky
Canada
Snarls McMuffin
Moo Goo Gai Pan
Murphybed
Polkagina
Noodles
Herpes Comet
Tardbucket
Johnny Cakes
Magnifico
Hurtin McFlurtin
Sneakers
Dr. Teeth
Frank Spain

Jane & Edward & Fitzy

INT. STABLES - DAY

Jane Eyre enters, disheveled and breathless after running through the woods in an earnest yet fruitless quest for the cure for her romantic obsession.

On the other end of the stable, near an inviting patch of hay, she sees the shirtless Mr. Rochester shoeing a muscular black mare. His shoulders are broad and his arms ropey with sinew. Jane becomes flushed and clasps her heaving bosom in a way that signals her desperate longing. He turns and sees her there.

"Oh."
"Hello, Edward."
"I didn't see you there."
"Yes."
"Oh."
"Well then."
"Did you see the sunrise?"
"I did."
"Oh."
"Yes."
"Indeed."
"Oh."
"Quite."
"Edward?"
"Jane?"
"Oh."
"What is it?"
"I feel I shan't ever..."

The mare stirs, a goose honks in the distance.

"Do you hear the geese, Edward?"
"Oh."

The sound of an approaching horse shatters the blistering sexual tension. A well-dressed man in a top hat rides up and dismounts somewhat smugly.

"Hello, Edward, you old rapscallion!"
"I say! Darcy!"

[tasteful literary threeway ensues]