Religion has directed societies throughout history to honor and even to obey parents. This worked remarkably well; ill-advised tattoos, self-destructive romantic trysts and objectionable music and friends were all effectively prevented for the betterment of mankind.
    But as humanity marched forward it grew single minded in its worship of speed and efficiency; it was found that honoring Mom and Dad every day was too much of a hassle. The overhead involved in the requisite record keeping, arbitration processes and the third party audits necessary to ensure proper honoring and obeyance of parents became a burden society could no longer bear. Some estimates put the cost to American culture in the billions of dollars. “Only lawyers,” went the popular addage, “love the 5th commandment.*”
    In 1964, with funding from the IBM and Gerber Foods lobbies, Spiro Agnew penned the Mother’s Day Act of 1964 and, through the efforts of his long time lover and confidant Strom Thurmond, the law quickly made its way through both houses of congress.
    In an elaborate congressional signing ceremony on the steps of the capitol, Strom Thurmond–himself an animatronic Abe Lincoln on loan from the Walt Disney imagineering department–waved his rigid arms menacingly at the gathering crowd and proclaimed, “ERROR! ERROR! DESEGREGATE OVER MY INACTIVE CHASSIS!”
    In a few short days president Carter signed the legislation into law with the foppish flourish of a Southern dandy. From then on the need to honor and obey parents was statutorially limited to two separate days a year, with one dedicated to mothers and the other dedicated to fathers. All filing requirements were permanently abolished, third party audits became a thing of the past, and GDP increased an estimated %75 over the first three years alone.

    So as you feed your Mothers breakfast in bed and scale back the daily verbal abuse to a tolerable three bitch and two whore maximum**, remember the forethought and wisdom of Spiro Agnew, animatronic Abe Lincoln (Strom Thurmond mk1) and Jimmy Carter, who brought you this relatively painless way to fulfill the tenets of your ancient religious code of conduct.
    Tomorrow you may go back to beating your mother. Optionally, you can scream “KNOW YOUR PLACE, WOMAN!”***

* If you’re Catholic you know it as the 4th commandment. And you are going to hell, filthy papist.
** Its in the law. Mothers Day Act of 1964, part 5, subsection az, paragraph iii, “acceptable maternal verbal abuse quotients, ways and means”.
*** Keep in mind that you will need to file form 758a and 758b if you choose to exercise this option.
**** Seriously, happy mother’s day. My Mom is halfway across the US, helping my baby sister move to Omaha with her husband. So my wife gets ALL the Mom’s Day lovin.

    I’m still getting smaller; when I was bigger I filled the room from the doorway, mail in hand. So many credit offers are there, and I’m tempted by the pretty colors and the great big “0%” festooned on the envelopes. But those envelopes are getting bigger, and I’m scared of the big naught-percentage mark. Watch me pace the circumference and fret.

    I’m still getting smaller; it is hard to reach the keys now. The brine shrimp gathered herabouts have strikingly poor taste in music, and they have the only radio in my immediate proximity. I’m a pulp-lovin’ orange juice drinker, I plan to drink them down with no regard to sodium content. In one textured gulp I’ll have their radio!

Somewhat inspired by a post of L>T’s.

I’m getting smaller…

Do you remember Universal Mall of Doom? It was a post I made last October, before my great dearthening. I haven’t really thought about it in awhile, until yesterday when Blogger dutifully notified me of a new comment to this old post. You can go read the thing in its entirety (I’ll not delete it for now, its fairly amusing) but here are the best excerpts. I’m so excited! My first hate mail!

Though I find your pathetic and simple minded comments half way as interesting as an easy bowel movement you should really get a few things straight.

Dr. Phobias: Have you been there? No
Have you read any reviews for it?:No
In Fact you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about when you have to bash a local business.

    While I am glad to know how high I rate compared to defecation as long as constipation is not taken into account, I think I was “bashing” Universal Mall; in actuality, I sort of revel in its squalor. Sure, I said that it is fun to imagine the haunted house staffed by homeless folk who live in the old Mervyns, but that was obviously absurd. Homeless people are only scary to middle-class white people, and probably don’t hit the target demographic of Dr. Phobia squarely enough.

The fact that you can click away your day on you stupid little camera means nothing except for your a goddamn loser. Get a job, I don’t know anywhere where dumb expletive deleted losers, and half wit retards work. Maybe a Mcjob somewhere.

    Why speculate on my occupation? You could just ask. I could go for the obvious punchline, that I know where ‘dumb expletive deleted losers, and half wit retards work’–the haunted house at Universal Mall! But that would be pretty cheap. Anyway, the writer hit pretty close to home; after all, since my recent promotion I am the assistant night manager’s helper.*

Jesus you are lame. You have an Ugly Baby too.

    Er… Riley is rubber, you are glue?

    After such an effective outreach statement, the writer follows it up with this request:

So Sally Sue. May 3rd. 12 noon. Bring your little camera. And tell us we don’t run a good haunt.

    Wait, ‘Sally Sue’? Never mind. I won’t tell you that you don’t run “a good haunt”, but I won’t be visiting, either. That whole vinegar/honey/flies thing, you know? I can’t say this comment didn’t do much to change my opinion of Dr. Phobia’s haunted house because, after all, I really didn’t have an opinion about it to begin with. Other than the fact that it makes a pretty strange anchor-store for a shopping mall. And that the old Mervyn’s should really be made into a flop house as a fine complement to Wards having been made a haunted house.

    This does make me wonder, though: is it possible there’s an entire haunted house sub-culture out there? Have I offended to haunted house community? Should I offer to have them come over for dinner and a relaxing bit of reaching-into-a-box-with-grapes-in? Or squeezing a bowl cold Spaghetti in the dark?

* I used to be the assistant night manager’s helper’s assistant helper. The hierarchy at your local fast food restaurant is very regimented, and surprisingly layered.