Emotional Inventory Suggestions.

 

It's not a mistake if some of you get a not-so-funny feeling that those of us on the other side enjoy nothing so much as whiling away the hours, days and weeks all by our lonesome in Room 9. It's in that Room (and that Room ONLY!) where envoys from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations take the time to make their feelings known, understood and—finally!—absorbed like so much 'mother's milk'. Once we've parlayed our advantages, root and branch, and had a go at a bit of tragic epistrophy, we feel like nothing so much as a smallish container of warmed-over Insta-Ade. With a winning smile and a trunkfull of 'collectors' edition' soiled doilies, it's our distinct pleasure to run the numbers and hide some snails in a bigwig's oven mitt. Not to worry, because he'll never know about the time I hosted your parents in a freeze-frame extravaganza which existed, it that's the right word, for all of a second or two before anyone got the bright idea to contact Senior Justice Department officials. I always wondered, like, what if I got a nosebleed or something? Would people realize that I'd been missing for years? Does this thing even work?

Now that I've entered the third and last pavilion on the Motorway, it seems increasingly obvious that no one in my shelving party will be able to go the distance without even the tiny trace of help that I might be persuaded to provide at cost, if that. But, that's only on the off-chance that an oily residue won't gum up the works something awful. What is it that anyone has to lose anyway? Would they still exhibit such profoundly disturbing characteristics if I was honest about their chance to forestall a troubling absence in the time it takes to paint a crescent Moon on your average dust flap? I don't know about you, but I'm the last person you should tell about a feeding problem in your troubled infancy. Because, even before you put down your pen, I'm on the phone with one of the top people in the business. He'll set you straight on exactly how much I need and in what colors, denominations and hair lengths. After that, we could go for drinks at the club. If that doesn't suit your fancy, why not come clean about your role in the Helen Weiskaupf affair? It'll only hurt when I start to apply direct pressure to your anterior weemus. That's okay. Don't mention it, I'm sure.

There's just no telling if the ponticle parked in my bar court has seen better days or if I'm off my game like a windshear in a shell-shocked bentilope. If these trends continue unabated, it's a virtual certainty that one of my least trustworthy associates will be due for a major looking-at before anyone decides to get down and dirty with an isotrophic plaything or two. Now that I've tunneled my way through to the inner recesses of a reformed ice-pokey juggernaut, what do you suppose it would take to have my granite-faced accomplice installed in a well-oiled mechanism second-to-none? Because, if not, I'm just not having any, thank you very much. And besides, is it really anyone's business where I get my hair done? It's only those who play fast and loose with a trust fund who spark my pride in ever vigilant coprophagiacs. No one on this floor thinks that will get you very far. In fact, the only time you've ever gotten stuck on the business side of a punk register-show will be the very LAST instance when you can count on our direct involvement going forward. Without even winking, you'll know it was us all along. And then what will you do? Go cry on your widdle wommy? Yeah, right. Sure. 

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Any Delay is Fade Critical: Manko

 

The copper fitting has run to mould, but sell we will without a moment to spare. I have been given scraps to stow but the bracing stand I'd normally use is wet from dis-use, and now there's even a paired dispenser underneath the side dish. More than anyone would think, we brush away the plaints and proceed as if all our years have yielded to a mild compression. As I call my assistant in from the patio, it appears that he's squatted on his portion, so we'll have to begin again. Against everyone's better judgment, we hold him until the Highway Patrol arrives to retrieve samples from his mistress's duodenum. I prepare by sitting them down in a prayerful pose so that I will be undisturbed while reciting a litany of overbroad characterizations. Some might be inclined to question this tactic, but it gets the job done, and then some! Once the day recedes into an infant's memory, I take tooth to comb and compose a voluble solution-based enconium to a martyred co-mentor of the fifth design. Smoothness is not for the least willing but camping in a sand-lot could get you cited.

The chain bears a striking embankment to our linch-pin in more sunny climes than one. By the way the easement is enforced, you'd think that all of our ingrained foibules have plum split the show in two. But I'll tell you what really set them off: It was the time my wife returned from a short jaunt to see her overbearing sister. She (the wife) carried in her pocket nary a particle of a rather common element. At the crossing she was stopped and scolded and made to stand without reinforcements until an unknown forecaster let it slip that he'd once positioned her to take the heat for an unfortunate incident on one of our Nation's Highways. The Highway will go unnamed, but something else won't. Go unnamed, that is. Now that you've settled into your new digs, could we ask you to refrain from fantasizing about life in an underwater civilization of the future? We find that it disrupts the memeplex which we've worked very hard to effectuate over the last three seasons of unforgiveable retards. Thanks in advance for being 'a good sport'. You'll need all the help you can get.

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A Situation of Concern.

 

With all that stood between her and the game I was reduced to, you'd think there wouldn't be more than a handful of rotational foundations to which our lives could be pinned without a secret addition being imperiled. I'd always loved the way her hair seemed so well starched, especially for a morning person. When she thought better about fixing up our space in time for the Dutch New Year collaboration, I took her straight to the Department of Surgical Interventions at Mass General. There I was greeted by Lois Parnell and her assistant Hyman Lurfshpatzel. Through a set of pre-determined hand signals, Hyman made it known to me that Lois was in the middle of a very concerning situation on the home front. Her son and husband had been implicated in a botched hush money scheme which had spilled into a local watering hole putting several Olympic swimteam hopefuls' lives at risk.

By the time I arrived at Josh Swenson International Airport (Terminal 2) at roughly 3:98 in the wee hours, all I could see was a clearly upset Okinawan dental hygienist who seemingly never knew what hit her. And, to be fair, we've been wracking our brains for months now trying to figure out if, in fact, she was ever actually 'hit' at all. You see, when you play the game as long as I have, certain telltale features will leap out at you like a sore thumb at an anti-clerical  Rumba Contest. Other than that, I'm not the first to admit that there's no age limit on people who might feel the need from time to time to lean against whatever wall or other support structure might present itself. The person I dream of, night after night for going on a year or two, if that, is of medium height, with salty eyes and generally favors tan formfitting apparel. He—or she, it's never clear which!—continues to drum their fingers on a level-high synthetic table while I politely ask when I can expect to hear my name on one of the local shows. Other than that, there's an urban stickiness which I just cannot shake.

Now that my Pastor, Dr Dan Stimfler, has heard the full story, he's asked that I submit to a full battery of specimen contours under the direction of a bonded Service Agent who hails from the Four Corners region in the Sebna area. He (the Service Agent) has been keeping a lot of stress bottled up deep underneath. So much so, that when he was apprehended leaking caustic substances from the upper tier of Veterans Stadium, all we could do was to laugh out loud and thank the Lord for small miracles. To think that I was about to entrust my wife's mother to a solo camping event to be overseen by a pre-psychotic scoutmaster, gives more than a few of us chills and a runny nose. Sometimes even our tummies get uncomfortable. Which makes it difficult to bank our fair share of shut-eye. The Task Force has seen the contamination up close and personal. They'd also like to counsel at-risk youth during their time in-country. There's still the language barrier though. Plus, of course, they're deaf. Which might mean that we'll have trouble getting our sheets in before the cut-off. Just do the math. You might not like what you come up with, is all I'm trying to say.

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Washington Merry-Go-Round!

 

One of us was stopped while transiting an exit lounge. The other decided to be too polite by half, and before you know it, everyone and his brother was raving about the exclusive nature of the appointments on display. I must confess, I endured a distinctly comatose palaver while the hosts subjected my plates—even the silent ones!—to the kind of treatment which you'd go a long way to expect, even in your everyday funding crisis. But still, I hitched up my brioche, had a Nigerian Prince ask for my number and then took in some of the local riff-raff on the condition that they enroll in a work-study tragedy on the Southern Coast. Being an Oakie myself, I never for one minute had any doubt that a person of means derives his or her stability from an increasingly tenuous grip on fatuous results-oriented partnershits the world over. By whatever means at their disposal, the 'graceless four' insisted that I follow their lead in advocating for the rights of those of a fictitious tendency. I know they meant well, but still. Does this sound like something you'd be interested in? Because if so, there's a little-used Oriental cup-case which could ease your way into a confab of the remaining principals.

Only a half day under the can, I could tell that the burn near her left shoulder wasn't something she was particularly proud of, despite all the hollering she did when it looked like I'd lost the vision in my left eye. When I returned at two minutes past three, she'd managed to free her forehead and one of her knees. I wasn't about to help her since I had my own fish to fry, so to speak. But now, when I think back to how she'd regained my confidence using only standard, if currently unavailable, household items, if that, I'm forced to conclude that she was right all along. There's a voice in my head which tells me, over and over and over, that there's something which I must not forget. But the day is long past when that kind of thing could get any traction with me. I'm not the functional type, is all I'm trying to say. So, after we got dressed, went out in the parking lot for a quick smoke and made a solemn vow to never be taken alive, I couldn't help wondering just what her name was anyway. And did it sound like something which I heard on one of the shows that time?

There's a period of time, near the conclusion of your standard training protocol, when some of your most obviously inchoate participants can't decide for the life of them if any of my extended family could reasonably be expected to expand coverage to all fifty states. I try to single out the leader(s) of the claque and make it known, in no uncertain terms, that their concerns are nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, if they were to see what I see when I so much as gaze longingly through the window of a defunct armchair emporium, they'd be within their rights to read me the riot act and then go peacefully into that good night. Unfortunately, things are rarely that easy. In fact, if anyone has any questions, a major announcement is expected within the hour. Until then, it's recommended that all concerned adjourn to a makeshift temporary shelter and have a go at some dimwitted dummies brought in just for that eventuality. I know it might sound abysmally insensitive, but you could do a lot worse than to score a dirt bomb on an isolated tree ferber. And you can take that to the blank!

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