Precession to a Ritual.

 

In the days leading up to the Ritual of the Golden Paper, we seek to remain gently ballasted with the crimpings only observed on-spec when minor children are involved. If not, we go about our lives as if everything on the surface is subject to its own command. But deep in our collective marrow, where compliance suits compulsion to a radio-mounted 'T', we attempt to formulate the least common one-syllable question ever conceived. It begins in the way which is guaranteed to elicit little impetuosity and even less annoyance. Which is all to the good, since time is short, and, once the shooting starts, it's anyone's bargain as to who gets to stick around without causing undue alarm in a long forgotten depository.

Our friends are in the business of giving us 'moral support' if nothing else. And by that I mean we haven't seen them for months. This can't help but bring on uncalled for remarks when a date is finally set. Until then, no one is urged to remain patient, for in that lies the quickest route to  certain disappointment. I wouldn't want the person who will one day marry my infant daughter to have any misconceptions about where I stand with respect to the adisability of appearing well prepared for the occurrence of 'less-than-optimal' events, things, places and (most especially) people. Look, if anyone knows how tough it can get out there, it would be me. So, I can well understand that in your current mindset, there's not likely to be even a hair's breadth of daylight between your position and that of an at-large individual when it comes to sabotaging my career. Jealousy is a very jealous master, but so is something else.

This is where bargaining comes down to the wire and anyone who still insists on holding their own could get caught out with no flotation device in sight. In the event that you should find yourself lying down face-first in my foyer, here's what I want you to do: You should immediately make certain that I've received whatever diminutive tokens come to mind when I make a brief remark. Failing that, it could well be that I've reached a 'decision point' and all idle banter is a strictly 'no-go' program. I will be offering plasmic rebates to those whose footwear most closely coincides with prevailing industry standards. As my common-law husband Kevin Moffit is fond of saying, 'what is it that makes you think there's something I should know about?'. And, when he says that, what do you think I do? I'll tell you EXACTLY what I do: I leave speculation to all the invidious nincompoops out there and go straight to the heart of the matter. Which, for the most part, involves trying to convey an attitude of innocent circularity. This meshes well with some of our senior people, as they've already made it plain that I'm on the chopping block  for being kept around after everything 'goes dark'. And, if this sounds 'too good to be true', then you don't know the half of it, and probably never will. God. 

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Filamental Stability Agreement.

 

The stability of our modern filament is something most of us can agree upon, even if we've spent not a little time overseas. My wife seems to have a habit whereby she takes it upon herself, lengthwise as is her wont, but normally the longitudinal routine is one for the dumper. In my own way, I want to give our neighbors time to adjust to a novel configuration. With every fiber of my sheeting, I feel put out that no one was able to foresee our forced removal to a landlocked jurisdiction. The air in those parts has a well-described tendency to hasten a drying action in an aphasic skin condition. All of us were fooled, therefore there wasn't even one on-boarded person who took steps. Or took any of this seriously at all. And this was even before I collapsed on the sidewalk in front of the Courthouse. I had gone there to collect a statement from a Rabbi who moved too slowly for most of us. His very speech patterns betrayed his guilt to even the most stultified of us. I can only thank my God for failing to keep his word.

You asked about that. Yes, it was lit quite brightly. But my feet were already dangling dangerously close to an infant power structure. The cries that you could hear at night would make your blood crawl. And by that I don't mean to indicate any resistance to facing an ever changing situation. Even a stack of patterns in my crawlspace no longer gives us the courage we need to eviscerate a sullen witness. When his hands shake, all our cherished formulae reveal themselves as uncanny in their proflimancy. If you are unwilling to perform a mild act of heavy lifting, then we're afraid that any excuse you proffer may prove useless in the end. The end of what? Could we for once not 'go there'? But I'm afraid we must.

Look, this is for the good of ALL of our children. They will risk their daily protein allotment to secure even one or two more seconds of a churlish ballyhoo. I have supervised their role-playing condiments and continue to sacrifice what little I have left to see them enter a voluntary program. The brown-haired one is starting to ask questions. The other two prefer to be left in a shallow netherworld where likeminded sandbots are heard to hum a chalented frill. In any cave where you can still find yourself silenced, a world of fascinating crud awaits the discerning nincompoop. In their own way, they pout and squirm, and yet, in all that, they take no quarter. Why? Because it fits their notion of lovable bastards to a 'T'. And, you don't have to take my word for it. Just ask one of the people who you knew a long time ago. They aren't my type but I've heard you had some luck. Until recently, that is. More on that later. Scoop. 

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It goes without saying . . ....

 

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If anyone doubts the truthfulness of this account, they'll only have themselves to blame if [DELETED].

 

I'll be very straightforward about this. There's a woman I've been having difficulties with for the past three or four days. There's every indication that she is serious and I may have to move very slowly to avoid repercussions. Her hands are everywhere, but still, no one feels safe without first checking the floors, ceilings and walls and where they meet. The corner is never an effective location from which to launch a meandering tirade. Why? Because, silly, that's where she waits through the night for larger forces to enact impecunious deeds. On behalf of the Advisory Committee, I am empowered to reduce all resisters to temporary ash. The heaps you see in our freezer are proof that life can sometimes be less than a smooth ride through a 'magical' countryside. For all I know, you've decided to join them while I was on vacation. Any excuse to get out of lugging my stuff will suit you just fine, is that it?

The woman in question is thirty-four years old, has auburn hair, wears see-through contact lenses and, through all this, has maintained a steady focus on overcoming a mild odor problem. It is a well documented fact that her blood type is O negative. She feels not a little pride when she thinks of the progress she's made. Her husband, Jim Bifford, has been living a lie for lo these many years. He's been pretending since Day One that he wasn't Hispanic. Through DNA forensics, we've determined that his maternal grandmother grew up in Peru and was raised by an Austrian father and a Paraguayan mother.

The woman first came on to my radar when we were co-assigned to the Security Detail at the US consulate in Leningrad, USSR on June 12, 1967 at 10:47 AM. Later that same day it was discovered that she had stolen the remainder of my fabric softener from the utility locker that I shared with her as a matter of course. Of course the denial was equal parts fulsome and lunk-headed. I'd had enough. So I got in my car and drove down to the Jersey Shore. By the time I got there, it was after midnight and everyone was asleep. To say they were 'tuckered out' would be an understatement. I tried whistling, but that didn't do the trick. Then I set a few small fires to see if I could get a rise out of some of these jerks. The next day I submitted my papers and was granted a full let-down. In hindsight, it seems that some folks got the wrong idea. I knew she had it coming, I just didn't see how. Let's see if you have a clearer idea now, shall we?

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Pending Excavation: Report.

 

There's a pending excavation in my segment for which I can only feel a larger-than-life trepidation, even though I've been preparing for the prior three or four minutes. The blond woman, who everyone believes used to date my podiatrist, is passing out sheets from dog-eared hymnals bearing a single non-integral number. They seem to enjoy grabbing the sheets and using them for various fun and games, all the while knowing that someone has worked very hard to make sure that all contingencies have been provided for, taking into account each person's individual dietary needs and restrictions. When I enter one of the shelters, she sees me and immediately scrounges for a bit of dough that may have fallen by the wayside when no one was any the wiser. I think later that I'll give her a 'G' for trying. But first I have to get a hold of one of the guys who made her cry at bedtime the night before I flew in from the Coast.

When my older sister married one of the Helmer boys (the younger one, I think), I approached Barry Schiffman to see if he could arrange for a group of average looking young organ donors to put in an appearance at a guest shot I was making at the Hotel where the wedding would go on to be canceled. Before this could be seen for what it was, I named the tallest of the donors to my Honorary Commission on Judicial Ethics. When I made the move he was confined to a convalescent facility for naturalized immigrants. His wife was expecting their second child and had become impossible to deal with due to her position on gun control, abortion and homosexual agriculture. Now it was my turn to turn heads while I walked my dog in the rain on St Patrick's Day.

When I got back and spoke very softly into one of the improvised ears it had been my choice to embellish at cost, I noticed that a bland shade had been placed across my cubby hole and I no longer had access to a vat of accelerants I'd been saving for my upcoming spree. People had always doubted my dedication to duty even though personal hygiene was never an issue. In fact, the personal 'Best in Office' award had been mine for five years running. Some of us had caused a loop to become caught in a ratchet, much to the consternation of our local person. We didn't think twice since his hair was never anything to write home about, if you can catch my drift. Once he appeared in my den after midnight early Wednesday morning, I asked if I could help him settle into a better rhythm of give-and-take and come-and-go. He replied with a shrug and a muffled cry for help. I appealed to his person to be there in the morning after I broke my foot in a pick-up basketball game. He even sat near me later that Summer at the Stadium when my wife served me with papers. I dropped a pencil accidentally-on-purpose and now, wouldn't you know it, my chiropractor has suffered a nervous breakdown. It's his own fault if you ask me, not that you would,... but still. 

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Could there be ANYONE to the Left of me?

 

My political affiliations and proclivities have been called into serious question. This does not bode well for our movement.

Could there be anyone left who no longer appreciates the sensation which courses sublimely as most 'things' of value start to give way? 

We will each append our bids with a mixture of desuetude and macaransis. Only a tantalizing brunette is to be permitted access to an underwater hiding place should our previous owner decide to issue a faulty coupon in lieu of a sanitized beefing terp. The gate in the center of the window is scheduled to be adjusted to admit no solemn notes unless the inductee has pre-installed a fanning unit on a floor other than the one which he or she has abandoned before a likely person returns from the Airport with a fresh sensing apparatus, if that. It doesn't take much to creep through a hutch with a diamond blade and instruct a teenage bride in the hard truths of conjugal living. They could give you an insincere hug or possibly present you with a mug of warm, potable liquid. It'll be fun to see what happens.  As for me, I'll be downstairs monitoring your movements with a finely calibrated sense of outrage.

At the edge of combat, the most common complaint is that a colleague's footwear has left initialized nano-scaled prints on the lower part of a particle-board wall at the insistence of one who refuses all entreaties to silently observe patience-free protocols. It could be something as mundane as a lowly houseplant. If you take your good, sweet time at the entrance, we will have every right to band together during the evening hours and see to it that you are impelled to answer for my many deficits. Those on your team have had a hand in each and every instance of my Leader being led into unintentional perfidy until someone got the bright idea to call the State Police in Moline, Illinois. To say that some of us have a fondness for toast of all kinds could lessen racial tensions in the Nuclear Highway Administration [NHA] writ large. If anyone decides to use a 'gravelly' voice as per our instructions, they should also limit their reliance on any sort of mystification. It just makes for a more accurate dump site.

The goal of our entire table-setting scheme is to see to it that one or more of the tesseracts are found within a fortnight of a genuine birthing opportunity. A dream which prevails at the expense of a non-obvious tension-release formula is always preferable to the discovery of a pell-mell inscription on the leader-board of costly compliance procedures. You will know them by the way they slip into position with only the barest of movements. A bit of schmutz on a floorboard is never what gets one through a difficult apostomy. Their seats are in alignment. The coats are 'to die for'. And all their ringed patterns bring gypsum icons to a prestigious, if finicky, boil.  When we count down by threes from ten thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, this should give you enough time to enjoin a solipsistic nomad to fake an intuitive awareness of seasonal cropland referrals. Does this make me want to eat you? Yes, but . . ....

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This is what happens when aggrievement is righteously earned.

 

Jaran Pesmo felt genuinely aggrieved. All morning he'd been taking down small pieces of chalk and placing them in appropriately spaced Dixie cups which he'd bought just for this. And now the wife, whose name he'd only recently purchased in an online auction, took actions that perturbed him. Once his English had failed him, he sought a helping hand at a market near a River underneath a bridge. A bridge, I might add, in desperate need of emergency repairs. Yet everyone felt perfectly okay plowing on through as if someone else could be expected to bear the superlative brunt if worse came to worse. Jaran watched closely to avoid common mistakes. Also to blend in. Even the clothes he wore testified to this in spades. You get the picture. Not everyone does. Try me.

I managed to enroll the wife in a ring-toss intramural dispute while their kids were kept busy in the basement of one of our foremost Major Leabers. Each was designed to incorporate a spoonful of Special Liquid. They knew that if they could go the distance, then I would make sure the parents were awarded custody of a titanium interval desk. It would allow their competitive traits to bloom quite produndantly. We've all known people like that. They ask if you'd like one. You start to move your hand. They back up and try again. Rinse and repeat. All goes well if it starts with persons deciding to pretend to make a bold commitment to appearing effortful. We're glad when recalcitrant busybodies start to see it our way. It will go easier if you join them for a drink in our cellar.

Once Jaran had searched through all of his unbreakable line items, I felt it was time to look directly between his eyes and ask him if he really wanted to go through with this. Or even something vaguely similar. He replied that since the wife had taken to ducts like a floor to water, he'd had to rethink his plans and try to not come up wanting for air in all the wrong places. I knew that he had a chronic knee problem and his place in the Program was at serious risk. We decided to approve his removal to Hawthorne State where there were trained spatialists. Before he was transposed, his remaining underlings expressed the wish to see him in his own wagon. Unfortunately his number had been lost in the War, so we had to make do with an Ivan Cart with the wrong code on each side. It served everyone right. Each of the kids was given a jumper. The wife was gifted a Committee all her own. I took my sweet time before refilling the Delta. The house was sold to a Junior Minister. Despite what anyone might think they've forgotten, no one ever got caught. It was that kind of year. 

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