Archive for December, 2005
Happy at the Thought of Food Delivery
Posted on December 28, 2005
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Going to lunch is a fun activity for all of us humans. Personally, I just love to shove foodstuffs down my gaping maw in order to keep this meat balloon of a body inflated.
I normally pack my lunch in an ascetic and threadbaren way in order to more completely emulate the Pennsylvania Dutch. Most specifically the Mennonites.
It was during my time as a wealthy Assistant Night Manager’s Helper at Cabeza Del Taco that I hired a Mennonite cocktail waitress to refresh my crew of two acne infested Brutmore High students. My crew, Sam Thompson and Tristan Bakersman, were filthy minded little curs when they got a few martinis* in them, and continually attempted to convert the poor girl to Episcopalianism (Church of England for you limey bastards out there). 
It never worked, but we did eventually add Bangers and Mash and various boiled and dry baked things to the menu.
Um…oh, yeah. Lunch. Anyway, occasionally I will be someplace or another at or around the noontime repast and someone will suggest that they may be willing to leave my presence and return with food.
”Hey, I’m running to Cabeza Del Taco!” they might carol out to me and anyone nearby, “Anyone want me to bring anything back?”
”Oh, YES,” I answer; breathlessly, more often than not.
I have a list in my head of my favorite dishes at most of the popular restaurants in the Detroit area.
- RamsHorn: Turkey burger with honey-mustard and side salad
- Big Boy: vegetarial stir fry with Tobasco sauce
- Taco Bell:Tostada Fresco Style and Bean Burrito Fresco style with Cinnamon Twists and Extra Napkins
- Cabeza Del Taco: Extraordinario Especial de la Cabeza Grande del Queso sin el Pato**
- Thai Peppers: Egg Plant Special
- etc, etc, etc,
Anyway, so then I give some moneys to the coworker/client/food courier and return to working. In a few moments it begins to hit me….food is on the way.
Am I alone in getting an extra spring in my step knowing that the food is coming?
Am I the only one who happily anticipates the arrival of lunch in an almost sexual way?
Am I the only one worked into a rampantly salivating frenzy, barely able to contain my nervous movements and involuntary verbal outburts?
Am I the only one who grabs their nearest office mate in a desperate hug, kisses them about the face and neck and urgently whispers in their ear***, “Food’s on it’s way, baby”?
Could I possibly be the only one who offers to remove the elastic from their undergarments in a celebratory act and then proceeds to do so even if the offer is refused?
I can’t be the only one.
* Mennonite martinis are actually comprised of a small part onion essence and some corn syrup. But not high-fructose corn syrup, because that would be sinful.
** Sometimes I get the Conquistador Special, but its a bit rough, what with the added risk of contracting Ghonorrea.
*** I like to brush their ear-lobe with my lower lip whilst whispering. Adds a little something to the whole experience that makes it worth remembering.
Merry Christmas pt 1
Posted on December 23, 2005
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I expose myself to the porcelain. To my satisfaction, it doesn’t spare me a second glance; and so it is with but a single awkward nod to the stranger I pass that I walk out, damp yet clean hands held away from my pants as is my wont. It would not do to show moisture in my fabrics, the child inside me advises, for otherwise you’ll have tacitly admitted to wetting yourself.
A lobby stretches before me, colorful patterns of carpet tracing faux stratagems for me to do battle with the crowds already in play; only a few notice I’ve added my efforts to the struggle. Their gaze slips away quickly; they’ve dismissed me as the obvious amateur I am.
A firm shrug settles my jacket around my shoulders more completely and I stride forth, head down, with apparent purpose.
Later: Aimless I, casting about for ideas. Aimless eyes find none for the moment. The thin plastic straps suspend my few purchases above the floor in a hammock of polyvinyl and cut into my hand uncomfortably. Fingers, you still there? Good. Let’s make the most of this.
I move to pass by a door, which opens to admit the arguing couple with their dirty faced child, who stomps the snow off her pretty little boots. The eyes of the child meet mine and I find kindred sentiment in our shared annoyance and low-level suffering. I nod, and her little eyes grow wide. She darts a glance up at mom, who notices neither me nor her child in favor of debating the father’s evident lack of parking prowess.
At that moment I miss my wife and daughter; all together we make the mirror opposite of this bickering duo and this quiet, resigned waif.
At that moment I decide I am done Christmas shopping, done with the aggravation and stress and the world’s insistence on playing Nat King Cole decades after he lost all relevance. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow? Shush, dead man.
I brush rudely past the little family, ignoring the father’s startled protest, and I charge into the relative freedom of the cold, gray parkinglot. Relatively free except for the mandatory tip for the mandatory valet man. Get my car, I’m going home.
Comment Board Added
Posted on December 22, 2005
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Look to the right, and scroll down if you must. There, see it? Good.
SafeTinspector, Arms Designer
Posted on December 20, 2005
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| SafeTinterceptor SafeTenterprises Inc. Our top engineer, SafeTinspector, is shown here putting the finishing touches on the latest model* of the incredible SafeTinterceptor fighting craft. |
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* Some Components 1989 Atari.
** Will fall when dropped from ANY height!
Besides the Robots….
Posted on December 18, 2005
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We all know from science fiction, movie and videogame culture that robots and computers, as soon as they get this whole thinking thing down, will inevitably decide to destroy all of mankind or possibly enslave it in some inefficient yet appropriately cruel manner.
That’s a fact we’ve all come to live with as we await the inevitable coming of our robot overlords.
I was driving betwixt bombed out winterscapes the other day, and my thoughts turned to all of the other things we surround ourselves with that are probably destined to rise up and destroy us. It’s inexcusably myopic to assume that, just because they are the sexiest and trendiest of our resentful creations, the computers are the only one of our children that seek our eventual destruction or servitude.
One of the latter and less famous Planet of the Apes movies predicted that hyper-intelligent apes will be the ones to reject their enslavement and rise to dethrone our kind. (Although the very last Planet of the Apes movie indicated that “Marky” Mark Wahlberg would eventually seduce and engage in dirty butt sex with the majority of the ape ruling class, breeding a new branch of interspecies Chlamydia)
In 1935, a science fictiony author kinda guy named Stephen Vincent Benét wrote a poem in which the decidedly non-computerized possessions of mankind become animated an a decidedly non-Max Fleischer sortof way.
Benét: “They must have planned it for years. . . . I guess they got tired of us and the whole smell of human hands.“
Harbingers of mankind’s doom, we’re constantly on the edge of pissing off something-or-other enough to provoke a labor action.
In order to stave off this inevitable fate, I’ve written up a number of very generous labor contracts and have submitted them to various factions within my household, and I suggest you do the same. I’ve guaranteed steady electrical current and frequent polishing to all my kitchen appliances and, in exchange, have extracted from them guarantees that they will not electrocute me or my family nor will they attempt to visciously strangle any of us with their cords.
Foodstuffs are a little trickier. We need to be able to consume them, which is usually the first prohibition they attempt to negotiate into any contract. How can I make a rump-roast happy when, at the end of the day, I’m intending to digest it? Until I’ve figured that out, I’ve padlocked the refridgerator and the downstairs pantry. Their haunted screaming howls of anger lull me to sleep each night as they throw themselves at the unyielding doors of their prisons. If I’m very lucky, the mustard will ‘accidentally’ coat some lunch meat, saving me the hassle later on.
Contracts are not without risk in and of themselves, however. What assurance do I have that the paper won’t seek to slit my throat or rig an elaborate garrote using pipe cleaners and an apple-corer?
Really, I get the feeling that no matter what I do to stave it off, I’ll probably end up in a garrote either way.
