Once again, more about my shitting habits than you ever wanted to know.
Sometimes the prose flows as if from a hose, or falls like snows on Himalayan floes. Other times I have the no-prose woes. The muse just goes, my frustration grows, my synapses close as I pick my nose and consider leaving the writing to the pros.
All of which is my way of saying "this is my third blog entry in a month??? I suck."
And so, in the interest of not sucking quite so much, I now present you with what passes for a blog entry when the muse departs: A couple of unrelated things from my brain.
Unrelated thing from my brain #1:
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator will always be a very special book in my life. For those of you who don't know, it is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's a pretty good book if you are in that "smart middle-school kid with no friends and no prospects of dating in the next 7 years" demographic. In fact I'll go as far as to say it's a better book than the one that precedes it. But that's not why it's special to me. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator will forever be enshrined in the Wombat Hall of Fame because it is (so far) the only book I have ever read cover to cover in one sitting on the toilet.
Ever since I was a wee lad I understood that rule #3 of being a guy is "No shitting shall occur without the presence of reading materials." (For those of you who are curious, Rule #1 is "If you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it," and Rule #2 is "By all means, shake it more than twice. As often as possible.") I know that a few of you out there are speed-shitters. You crap like it's some sort of timed Olympic event. If you take an extra half a second on the wipe or the dismount, it's like you've let your whole country down. You probably spend hours sitting at your desks, obsessing over how sphincter control training could shave seconds off your TEBV (Total Elapsed Bathroom Visit).
I'm exactly the opposite. I approach the bathroom like it's a sunlit clearing in a peaceful forest. I look around, admire the view, find the most ideal spot and set up my tent. Barring a few exceptions (like a last minute grump on a crashing airplane), when I sit on the toilet, I plan on camping out a while. And yes, I always bring a book. I don't mean to imply that it takes me a long time to shit. I imagine that my actual "pushin' one out" time is about as long as anyone's. A couple of minutes (sometimes less) and the actual bathroom work is pretty much over. But the beauty of the bathroom (once you get over the smell) is that by and large you get left alone in there. I grew up with my mother and my sister in a pretty small house, and if one of them wasn't yapping at me about chewing the knees off her Barbies, the other was asking how my day was, or trying to get me to clean my room. (I'll leave it to you to guess which was which.) My room was no escape from them. The walls were thin, and a closed door was no hindrance to either of them. But I learned pretty quickly that if I went to the bathroom and commenced with the grumpitude, suddenly I was left to myself. Nobody wanted any part of that action. The bathroom became my sanctuary, my place unto myself, and (as I got the book bug from my Mom) my reading room.
The amount of time I spent in there as a kid was legendary. It actually was a running joke with my friends and family. One Saturday my buddy Dave called up to see if I wanted to hang out. My Mom answered the phone: (By the way, I swear to the Great Chocolate Monkey that this story is 100% true.)
Dave: Hey Mrs. Baker, is John there?
Mom: Hi Dave. Well, he's here, but he's in the bathroom, and we know what that means.
Dave: Ha ha ha! Okay, I'd better call back in a few hours then. Ha ha ha!
Mom: Ha ha ha! Yeah you'd better do that. Ha ha ha!
Three hours pass. The phone rings again.
Dave: Hey Mrs. Baker, is he out yet? Ha ha ha!
Mom: You know... Um... I don't know if... Um... I haven't seen him in a while. I think he's still in there. Good lord...
Dave: You gotta be kidding me.
What can I say? If the book was a good one, I could really camp out. My legs would actually go numb, and I'd just keep reading. I'd have ring-around the butt that would last for days. I like to think that this is all proof of my intense love of reading, but you all probably just see this as yet another reason I'm utterly unfit for integration into human society. You may be right.
I'm much better now. I don't spend hours in there anymore, but I do still take a book every time, and I will admit that 45 minutes on the grumper isn't unheard of around here. At least I'm well read.
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, though, is still a feat which has not been duplicated. It's not a huge book though. 176 pages. Also, I was like, 12. I could do better. And if I do, you know you'll hear about it here.
Unrelated thing from my brain #2:
You know how some people (and by "some people" I mean fundamentalists and Mormons... And fundamentalist Mormons. Fundamormons.) like to say "The Lord moves in mysterious ways?" It just now occurred to me that maybe they mean he actually moves weird. Like all the angels and saints just float around Heaven in the normal way, but God sort of hop-shuffles sideways, like an epileptic crab.
No, come to think of it, God lurching about Heaven in a strange manner doesn't really cut it. They don't say he moves in odd ways, they say mysterious. However it is that God is humping all over Paradise, it has to be so weird as to actually qualify as mysterious. New entrants into the kingdom must see God go by, half rolling, half doing jumping jacks, With a fresh donut stuck on each finger and a live lion on his head, all the while making horrible noises through his nostrils like a broken threshing machine. They must see this, and turn to the nearest Seraphim and say "Was that God? Why the fuck does he do that???" And the Seraphim must reply, "No one knows. It is the great holy mystery."
Heaven must be a truly weird place.
Unrelated thing from my brain #3:
Do you think blind people go crazy if they try to read a sheet of bubble wrap? I'm just wondering.
Unrelated thing from my brain #4:
There are several reasons why the woman that I married is absolutely batshit crazy. Here's the latest:
Just now, after writing Thing #3 above, I wandered downstairs to see what my beloved was up to. I found her in the kitchen, cleaning things. And when I say "things" in this case, I mean pennies.
Yes, for some reason, my wonderful wife looked in her wallet and decided that her pennies were just too grungy for everyday use. So she got out the Barkeepers Friend (which, for those of you who don't stay obsessively up-to-date on cleaning supplies, is some crazy powerful shit) and scrubbed all of her pennies to a glowing sheen. I kid you not. Look:
Now you tell me, Blog-Buddies, am I wrong in thinking that cleaning your pennies is a free pass into the nearest padded cell? Do all of you occasionally dip into your pockets, pull out a handful of shoddy loose change, and think "These can be a lot cleaner?"
It's not like they de-value if you let them get dull. That pile in the photo above was worth exactly 17 cents when Sal started scrubbing, and they're worth exactly 17 cents now that she's finished. It boggles the mind.
Look at how happy she is!
What's crazier? That my wife obsessively cleans her coins, or that I probably love her more for doing it? I mean, she's a crazy lady, but she's my crazy lady, ya know?
Okay, that's all I got for tonight. Don't bother writing to ask if she'll clean your money. We ain't running a laundromat here.
All of which is my way of saying "this is my third blog entry in a month??? I suck."
And so, in the interest of not sucking quite so much, I now present you with what passes for a blog entry when the muse departs: A couple of unrelated things from my brain.
Unrelated thing from my brain #1:
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator will always be a very special book in my life. For those of you who don't know, it is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's a pretty good book if you are in that "smart middle-school kid with no friends and no prospects of dating in the next 7 years" demographic. In fact I'll go as far as to say it's a better book than the one that precedes it. But that's not why it's special to me. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator will forever be enshrined in the Wombat Hall of Fame because it is (so far) the only book I have ever read cover to cover in one sitting on the toilet.
Ever since I was a wee lad I understood that rule #3 of being a guy is "No shitting shall occur without the presence of reading materials." (For those of you who are curious, Rule #1 is "If you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it," and Rule #2 is "By all means, shake it more than twice. As often as possible.") I know that a few of you out there are speed-shitters. You crap like it's some sort of timed Olympic event. If you take an extra half a second on the wipe or the dismount, it's like you've let your whole country down. You probably spend hours sitting at your desks, obsessing over how sphincter control training could shave seconds off your TEBV (Total Elapsed Bathroom Visit).
I'm exactly the opposite. I approach the bathroom like it's a sunlit clearing in a peaceful forest. I look around, admire the view, find the most ideal spot and set up my tent. Barring a few exceptions (like a last minute grump on a crashing airplane), when I sit on the toilet, I plan on camping out a while. And yes, I always bring a book. I don't mean to imply that it takes me a long time to shit. I imagine that my actual "pushin' one out" time is about as long as anyone's. A couple of minutes (sometimes less) and the actual bathroom work is pretty much over. But the beauty of the bathroom (once you get over the smell) is that by and large you get left alone in there. I grew up with my mother and my sister in a pretty small house, and if one of them wasn't yapping at me about chewing the knees off her Barbies, the other was asking how my day was, or trying to get me to clean my room. (I'll leave it to you to guess which was which.) My room was no escape from them. The walls were thin, and a closed door was no hindrance to either of them. But I learned pretty quickly that if I went to the bathroom and commenced with the grumpitude, suddenly I was left to myself. Nobody wanted any part of that action. The bathroom became my sanctuary, my place unto myself, and (as I got the book bug from my Mom) my reading room.
The amount of time I spent in there as a kid was legendary. It actually was a running joke with my friends and family. One Saturday my buddy Dave called up to see if I wanted to hang out. My Mom answered the phone: (By the way, I swear to the Great Chocolate Monkey that this story is 100% true.)
Dave: Hey Mrs. Baker, is John there?
Mom: Hi Dave. Well, he's here, but he's in the bathroom, and we know what that means.
Dave: Ha ha ha! Okay, I'd better call back in a few hours then. Ha ha ha!
Mom: Ha ha ha! Yeah you'd better do that. Ha ha ha!
Three hours pass. The phone rings again.
Dave: Hey Mrs. Baker, is he out yet? Ha ha ha!
Mom: You know... Um... I don't know if... Um... I haven't seen him in a while. I think he's still in there. Good lord...
Dave: You gotta be kidding me.
What can I say? If the book was a good one, I could really camp out. My legs would actually go numb, and I'd just keep reading. I'd have ring-around the butt that would last for days. I like to think that this is all proof of my intense love of reading, but you all probably just see this as yet another reason I'm utterly unfit for integration into human society. You may be right.
I'm much better now. I don't spend hours in there anymore, but I do still take a book every time, and I will admit that 45 minutes on the grumper isn't unheard of around here. At least I'm well read.
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, though, is still a feat which has not been duplicated. It's not a huge book though. 176 pages. Also, I was like, 12. I could do better. And if I do, you know you'll hear about it here.
Unrelated thing from my brain #2:
You know how some people (and by "some people" I mean fundamentalists and Mormons... And fundamentalist Mormons. Fundamormons.) like to say "The Lord moves in mysterious ways?" It just now occurred to me that maybe they mean he actually moves weird. Like all the angels and saints just float around Heaven in the normal way, but God sort of hop-shuffles sideways, like an epileptic crab.
No, come to think of it, God lurching about Heaven in a strange manner doesn't really cut it. They don't say he moves in odd ways, they say mysterious. However it is that God is humping all over Paradise, it has to be so weird as to actually qualify as mysterious. New entrants into the kingdom must see God go by, half rolling, half doing jumping jacks, With a fresh donut stuck on each finger and a live lion on his head, all the while making horrible noises through his nostrils like a broken threshing machine. They must see this, and turn to the nearest Seraphim and say "Was that God? Why the fuck does he do that???" And the Seraphim must reply, "No one knows. It is the great holy mystery."
Heaven must be a truly weird place.
Unrelated thing from my brain #3:
Do you think blind people go crazy if they try to read a sheet of bubble wrap? I'm just wondering.
Unrelated thing from my brain #4:
There are several reasons why the woman that I married is absolutely batshit crazy. Here's the latest:
Just now, after writing Thing #3 above, I wandered downstairs to see what my beloved was up to. I found her in the kitchen, cleaning things. And when I say "things" in this case, I mean pennies.
Yes, for some reason, my wonderful wife looked in her wallet and decided that her pennies were just too grungy for everyday use. So she got out the Barkeepers Friend (which, for those of you who don't stay obsessively up-to-date on cleaning supplies, is some crazy powerful shit) and scrubbed all of her pennies to a glowing sheen. I kid you not. Look:
Now you tell me, Blog-Buddies, am I wrong in thinking that cleaning your pennies is a free pass into the nearest padded cell? Do all of you occasionally dip into your pockets, pull out a handful of shoddy loose change, and think "These can be a lot cleaner?"
It's not like they de-value if you let them get dull. That pile in the photo above was worth exactly 17 cents when Sal started scrubbing, and they're worth exactly 17 cents now that she's finished. It boggles the mind.
Look at how happy she is!
What's crazier? That my wife obsessively cleans her coins, or that I probably love her more for doing it? I mean, she's a crazy lady, but she's my crazy lady, ya know?
Okay, that's all I got for tonight. Don't bother writing to ask if she'll clean your money. We ain't running a laundromat here.
posted by CommonWombat at 11:16 PM
16 Comments:
Although I count both of you as good friends, allow me to say one thing: You both have officially fallen off the deep end. I see padded cells and men in white coats in both of your futures.
You two were truly, truly meant for each other.
I would think spedning those pennies ASAP would be the easiest soultion to dirty money.
That's ALL you got for us. Jesus! I had to set aside time to read this dissertation.
Do they really say "The Lord moves in mysterious ways"? I thought they said, "The Lord WORKS in mysterious ways."
Where is the computer sex talk?
And finally, Sally is awesome!
Sally - you know where I live. Could you bring your cleaning frenzy to my house?? Pretty please?
I agree with scum... I dump the coins in a bucket and when it gets full, I dump the coins into the Coinstar...
I only keep silver coins like FDR dimes 1945-1964 or Mercury dimes...
Ring around the butt? Maybe barkeepers friend would help with that...
First: You chewed the knees off of Barbies?
Second: It is "...works in mysterious ways" which solves that nagging issue.
Just to clear this issue up, since Paul is busting my balls, and since I get to demonstrate just how well-read one gets spending hours on the tiolet:
The phrase is indeed "the Lord (or sometimes God) moves in mysterious ways." It comes from The poet William Cowper and a collection of hymns (Called "The Olney Hymns")he wrote with John Newton between 1765 and 1773. The hymn in question is called "Light Shining Out Of Darkness," and begins:
"God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, He plants His footsteps upon the sea, and He rides upon the storm."
The first part fell into use as a popular idiom. Yes, people these days sometimes say "works" instead of "moves."
One interesting bit on trivia is that another of the Olney Hymns (this one written by Newton) was "Amazing Grace."
Paul would have known this if he had just spent more time shitting and reading when he was a child. Or if he did a Google search. Heh heh heh.
Yeah, but you chewed the knees off Barbies?
of course you would post when i have no internets.
i am stealing this internet right now!
also, shorter visits to the great glass elevator might help you keep from having rectal problems in the future.
unless you like being probed and called a girl face.
One Saturday when I was a kid my dad sat in a chair and cleaned pennies until he went to bed. He cleaned one penny so thouroughly that it was almost silver.
I guess he just needed to feel like he'd accomplished something.
Kudos on the bubble wrap observation.
And the pennies thing? Disturbing.
The image of a lurching God will haunt me all the way to the confessional. I'm surely going to Hell for laughing out loud.
and the bubble wrap...
I was feeling guilty that I had taken so long to check your blog for updated posts. Now I wish I had waited longer.
I want to erase from my mind completely the image of you sitting on the toilet, so I'm tempted to take a handful of pills and/or drink a bottle of Drano--but I'd like to RETAIN the mental image of Sally scrubbing pennies, because that's kind of whacky and cute. Can I selectively kill brain cells, or does it always have to be random and sweeping, like in the past?
And by the way, I'm pretty sure the only reason Sally has turned into an obsessive-compulsive, penny-scrubbing nutjob is because she has an anally-obsessed fartbag of a husband who has spent over half their marriage crapping, and getting his filthy, fecal-germed hands all over every book she owns.
I am so guilty of the bathroom reading. Magazines just dont cut it..has to be a book.
I laughed so hard at that post that I woke up my dog.
And I cant wait to ask someone about the bubble wrap!
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