Bunyips

"I had a plant-based steak for dinner. It was okay, once I covered it with A.1. Sauce.
Then I sat in my bamboo chair and fanned myself with a palm leaf until my shift started with the succulents.
When my shift was over I went to The Club.
But they were closed for repairs, so I took a banana peel home and slept a few hours.
When I awoke I discovered my roof thatch was on fire, so I called Animal Control and they sent over a mail order bride. We honeymooned in La Crosse, Wisconsin. 
After the kids were grown and gone, we decided to pull up stakes and move to Tasmania so we could raise bunyips. 
But after my wife died I lost heart and sold the whole kit and kaboodle to Standard Oil for a pittance and took passage on a refurbished dreadnought headed for the Spanish Lakes. 
The ship sank just off the coast of Bulgaria, and when I got to shore the natives shut me in a hut and forced me to spin kapok into watch caps for their fishermen. This was cruel and harsh work, so I escaped one night and managed to get to Bucharest, where the Embassy took me in, fed me, clothed me, and let me stay on as a supernumerary. 
But eventually I missed my old shift with the succulents, so the Embassy kindly let me go back to the States in a green baize diplomatic pouch, and I have been sleeping in this broom closet ever since."

So read the statement of the old man the police had brought to my court that night for exhibiting a vacant stare without means of support. 
I dealt with many such cases in my job at the Judgery. People who had outlived their usefulness, of course, had to be dealt with harshly -- otherwise the city would be overrun with derelict squatters taking over the mops and pails of our hardworking janitors. These destitute creatures also drank up all the Zep high traffic floor polish they could get their hands on.
The man refused to identify himself, referring to himself only as Theodore Brandon McWilliams the Third. So I had no choice but to have the court clerk write 'John Doe' across his forehead with a black magic marker. Then I lectured him for a half hour on subject-verb agreement errors before remanding him into the custody of the geriatric ward at Sears-Roebuck. I think the old man understood very well what that meant, because he asked for permission to approach the bench -- where he handed me a small plastic bottle of hand sanitizer while whispering "Et tu, Brute?" 
When my shift was done, I had a plant-based steak for dinner. It was okay, once I covered it with A.1. Sauce. 

The Man on the Ceiling

"Who are you?" I asked the man on my ceiling.
"I come with a very important message . . . " the man on my ceiling began.
"Yeah, yeah" I interrupted him impatiently. "You're the third one this month with an important message. Just hold on a minute."
I went and got the broom from the closet and swatted him down off my ceiling. He floated down gently, not at all defensive or threatening.
"C'mon" I said to him as I went out the front door. I took him to the pawn shop over on Elm Street.
"How much for another ceiling man?" I asked the guy behind the counter.
"Hmmm" he looked my ceiling man up and down. "We've been getting a lot of them lately, but I can still give you twenty dollars for him."
"Deal" I said shortly. "You, go stand over there" I said to my ceiling man, who meekly went over to a group of men quietly standing in the corner.
It's a good feeling to have a crisp twenty dollar bill in your wallet from an honest business transaction.
At home I started to make a sandwich with pimento loaf, but somehow the thought of Kraft mayonnaise on bread sickened me. I rummaged through the fridge, looking for something to tantalize me. But all I saw were banal brands -- Vlasic pickles; Heinz Ketchup; a bag of Dole shredded lettuce; Sargento string cheese sticks; and a six pack of Shasta club soda. I couldn't stand the sight of any of it, which convinced me I was now an aesthete. This in turn depressed me so much I just went to bed hungry, and slept soundly through the night.
The next morning I worked in my home office for a few hours, mostly emailing invoices and setting up a boondoggle in West Virginia for Elizabeth Warren. She pays well.
When my stomach kept fluttering without stop I knew I had to give in and fill it with something, so I went over to Schmutz's for hard boiled eggs and buttered whole wheat toast. This helped, but I still felt an existential crisis was brewing -- so I took a long walk in the park on the trail along the river. The exercise did me good, and I made up my mind to change things around, to shake up my world and color outside the box. So I went back to the Elm Street pawn shop to buy back my ceiling man. The place was jam packed with ceiling men now, and I couldn't find mine anywhere. The guy behind the counter was no help; when I asked him if he could point mine out he just shrugged his shoulders and said they all looked alike to him. 
"Well then, gimme that one" I said, pointing to a dwarfish man in tan slacks and a brown cardigan. "He looks okay. I'll give you five for him."
"That's my brother -- he's not for sale. Not yet" said the man behind the counter. So I just took the nearest one handy, for six dollars. 
I took my new ceiling man home and he promptly floated up to the living room ceiling and sat cross legged next to the smoke alarm.
"What important message do you have for me?" I asked him.
"I have no message for you." he replied quietly.
"Nothing?" I asked.
"Nothing" he said.
So I left him there and went into my office to play solitaire on my pc. 
When I came back out he hadn't moved an inch.
"Do you want something to eat?" I asked him.
"No thank you" he said.
"And still no message for me, is that right?" I asked him.
"Correct" he said.
Now I was getting peeved. 
"Well" I told him, "I have a message for YOU."
He didn't react at all. 
"My message is this" I began. "The only thing certain in life is death in Texas."
"You mean 'death and taxes'" he replied, as he began shrinking.
"I mean never look a dentist in the teeth!" I said heatedly.
"That would be 'never look a gift horse in the mouth,'" he said in a squeaky voice. He was the size of a Barbie doll.
"Don't cut off your hair to spite your barber" I warned him. He was now no bigger than a hairpin. And still shrinking.
"Good-bye, cruel world" he said, and then vanished.
Our little talk had invigorated me so much that I went back to the pawn shop for another ceiling man. But they were all gone.
"Yeah" said the guy behind the counter. "They all just shrank away to nothing. But they did leave behind some nice belt buckles, so it wasn't a total loss."
I wasn't interested in belt buckles at all, but I did buy a miniature samurai sword in a black lacquered case that looks good on my desk.

Mine Enemy

Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth . . .
Proverbs 24:17

When my enemy has fallen,

when competitors have failed;

when insults have lost their savor,

and my foe's friends all have bailed --

Then, O Lord, lead me to sorrow,

to a humble memory,

that I, too, may be a villain

to those who don't savvy me!

The Ascent.

East of the Marmalade Fields, past the Dulcet Manor of ancient repute, stands the frowning peak of Odor Mountain. Many have tried to ascend its heights; many have failed. But I would not be one of them. Preparing for the climb since I was a boy of twelve, I had trained myself to challenge the sheerest cliff and find a foothold on the slickest ice field. I had faced down the yeti and butted heads with the fiercest mountain goat. So I gathered my crew for the confrontation that lay ahead of us; an eminence wrapped in impenetrable mist and mystery.
There was Big Swede, Limey Bill, Turkey Sue, Slicker, and Bum Fuse the cook. They were a rowdy and frowzy bunch, but I had seen how they reacted to danger and deprivation on a dozen mountainsides; when the chips were down they had each others back and never left a pal behind. I trusted them with everything except my car keys, which I left with the desk clerk at Dulcet Manor.
 On our first day up the rocky slopes we ran into a bubbling spring of natural fusel oil that ran past our campsite like an uncoiling python. Limey Bill rashly took a long drink.
"Blimey!" he exclaimed. "I can smell fish and chips!" 
We tried to stop him, but he ran off a cliff into the void. There was no way to retrieve his mangled corpse from the bottom of the ravine, so we built a stone cairn to his memory and continued on our saddened way.
The next night Big Swede took both our Ruhmkorff coils out into the darkness, claiming he could almost taste the surstromming because the odor was so strong. A herd of nocturnal kayaks got him; we put his shinbone, all that was left, into the hollow of an oak tree, then filled it in with campaign buttons to keep the indigenous bag ladies from defiling it.
My crew were beginning to lose heart. We needed something to cheer us up.
"Bum Fuse" I said to our cook, "whip up something tasty for dinner tonight, and don't spare the cooking sherry!" Rising to the occasion, Bum Fuse made filet mignon, with new potatoes smothered in caper sauce, and a Boston creme cake. I began to chow down heartily, but the rest of the crew looked at me oddly.
"Why are you chewing on that dead squirrel?" Turkey Sue finally asked me.
"Dead squirrel, nonsense!" I replied. "It's the best tasting filet mignon  I ever sank my teeth into . . . " But her question nettled me, so I held up my plate close to the light of the campfire, and sure enough it was a rancid dead squirrel. I immediately spewed the foul carcase out of my mouth. 
"You should have had the deep dish pizza, like me and Slicker" said Turkey Sue smugly. But, in fact, they were both gnawing on pine cones. When I pointed this out to them they roared with laughter, until I snatched their plates away from them to hold in front of the campfire.
"Great Higgly Piggly!" cried Slicker, starting to gag. "The boss is right! Somebody give me a Starburst, quick!" 
I turned to Bum Fuse, intending to give him the beating of his life for serving us such trash -- but the poor beggar was contentedly  slurping up a bowl of gravel.
"Great noodles" he said to me with a smile now marred by several chipped teeth. "I'm gonna get fat if I eat much more!"
"It's the bewitchery of Odor Mountain!" I cried out to them all. "I've read about this -- the minerals in the mountain combine to create a sort of protean pheromone that suffuses the air. We are smelling what we want to smell, and that's making a fool out of our taste buds. Everyone, quick, plug your nostrils with the weeds around the campfire!" 
So saying, I demonstrated how to jam a whole weed, stalk and all, up each nostril. My intrepid crew followed suit, and soon we were safe -- we couldn't smell a thing. I shook hands with each of them, firmly assuring them that the worst was now past and we would soon be setting our gonfalon on the top of this heretofore unconquered mountain. 
Morning came with terrible agony. Turns out the weeds around the campfire were poison ivy. Inflamed and porous like a singed sponge, our noses glowed with torment. Pus dribbled from the enlarged pores in disgusting rivulets.
"Be gotta keeb goink! Cank gib ub!" I yelled at my team mates as they rolled around on the ground, honking like demented geese. I pulled each one up off the ground and led them to a nearby stream to soak their flaming noses in the ice cold water. This helped immensely, and then I dosed them each with quinine and saddle soap. By noon we were ready to resume our climb to fame and fortune. 
Of the many further adventures that happened along the way I'll not say much. We lost Slicker to an avalanche at the Borgo Pass, and Turkey Sue decided to settle down and raise a family when we reached the Folgefonna. So it was just Bum Fuse and I who made it to the summit and planted the colors. We took a few selfies and then started back down. Poor Bum Fuse bought the farm while crossing an unnamed stream when his pantaloons became waterlogged and dragged him under the icy current to a watery grave. 
I alone survived to tell the tale, which now you've heard it can you lend me the price of a Swiss Chalet?   

Forbearance

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself . . .
Leviticus 19:18.

I used to carry grudges;

they made me feel mature.

When others gave me bs

I returned to them manure.

But vengeance is a burden

no longer do I seek;

it makes my soul so ugly

I daren't take a peek.

I can't say I love all men,

I'm not that good as yet;

but I am working harder

past insults to forget.

Photo Essay: A Trip to Ikea with Sarah and the Kids.

So Sarah messaged me on Facebook this morning, asking if I wanted to go to Ikea in Salt Lake with her and the kids for a Swedish Meatball lunch. I had a large tuna pasta casserole already in the oven, so I told her I would love to go -- but not for Swedish Meatballs but just for their company (and a large piece of chocolate cake for my dessert.) The long lunch line is proof of how good and inexpensive their food is.

Brooke grew a little weary of the long wait for her mashed potatoes, french fries, and chicken tenders.

Why Lance decided on getting green beans with his lunch I'll never know; I think his mother put him up to it.

Ohen got green beans with his salmon fillet, as well -- he covered them in brown gravy.

Sarah was the only one to actually get the Swedish Meatballs -- the girl knows what she wants and never settles for anything less.

Looks like the brown gravy just didn't work out for Ohen . . . 

My slice of chocolate cake, on the other hand, was to die for . . . 

 Brooke needed a sugar siesta after we stopped at Trader Joe's for their Ice Cream Sandwiches. Sarah dropped me back home at 4:30 and then had to fight freeway traffic back up to Orem. It was good of her to invite me along today.

The Clouds

Who or what is hiding in the clouds? Like single cell slime mold, these things creep mindlessly yet with some slow purpose around the dome of heaven -- doing what, exactly? Oh sure, we're told they provide rain and give painters something to occupy their time -- but has anyone really gone into the matter? Or gone into the clouds, really. 
My old Norwegian grandmother told me when I was a boy that if you make a wish on a white cloud it will come true, and if you wish harm to an enemy on a black cloud that will also come true. She was gaga from the get-go, I'm thinking -- but it was a powerful lesson to me that there is something askew with the lurking clouds above. When those old sci-fi movies urged us to "Watch the Skies" I don't think they meant look out for space ships -- I think they were warning us to keep a weather eye (no pun intended) on the clouds.
Have you ever noticed that most bad things happen on cloudy days? Do you ever lose your car keys on a bright sunny day? Or go to the dentist when the sun is blazing away? Clouds get in the way of our happiness and satisfaction. Just think of the happiest day of your life and see if you can remember a single cloud in the sky. Not likely, is it? 
I know this may sound crazy, but please hear me out:  My theory is that clouds are not endemic to planet Earth. They are an invasive species from outer space. They colonized our planet some hundreds of millions of years ago -- and that was the reason for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, not some crummy asteroid bouncing off a continent. Think about it: Those big lizards were all cold blooded and needed lots of sunshine to keep warm enough to move around. So the sun must have been shining all day without hindrance. Then one fine day a bunch of fluffy gray things appear in the sky, cutting off the sunshine, and in a matter of months T Rex and Company are in the boneyard. And our scientists, who can run a Hadron Collider without turning a hair, still have no basic understanding of just what clouds are, do they? But I know what they are: Clouds are alien parasites, meaning our planet no good.

Now I wouldn't want you to think I came up with this working hypothesis simply out of thin air. I've had an Experience -- one that cannot be easily explained away, not unless you're prepared to accept the fact that clouds are a malign factor in our biosphere.

But it comes to me, of a sudden, that perhaps I shouldn't be telling you any of this. You have the look of a cloudie -- one of those misty appeasers who want to lull us into a false sense of security. Perhaps you're the kind that likes to look up at the predatory billows and remark how majestic they are, or how this one looks like a dog and that one looks like the Tower of London. You're teaching your children to worship Altocumulus and Nimbostratus. Reporting back to the Head Mist any dissent or doubt that you hear. It's likely, now that I come to think of it, that you could very well be a Cloud Quisling -- egging me on with your moon-faced smile to give up all my secrets. Perhaps you plan to have me struck down by a five pound piece of hail, or sucked up into a whirlwind and never seen again.
Well, my fractus friend, we can't let that happen, now, can we? 
You've developed a nervous tic in your left eye, cloud hugger. You seem strangely upset, keen to leave my presence. I don't think you're too friendly anymore. Let's you and I step outside for a breath of fresh air, shall we? Maybe check for a mackerel sky, hmmm? Oh look, a precipice. I wonder how that got there. Oopsy-daisy . . . darn, I guess I'll never get to tell you about my Experience. 

Inspired by a news article by @AlexHortonTX

Tell Me a Story

"Tell me a story" asked the little boy.
"Why?" I replied, reasonably. "You are not my little boy -- I haven't any. They are all grown up."
"Because . . . no one else will ever listen to your stories again?" he asked slyly.
He had me there. Still, telling a story is a serious thing; one should never go into it too lightheartedly -- the consequences can be sinister.
"I won't tell you a whole story" I finally said. "But I will give you a fragmentary account of something curious."
The little boy frowned, but he sat down on the rug and waited for me to begin.
"A snake was once found in a well, and this snake could sing a song; a song so powerful that whoever heard it went to box the gloves of the nearest person he could find" I began.
"Box the gloves -- don't you mean box the ears?" quizzed the little boy, who was neither cute nor respectful. He looked like he'd been dragged through a coal chute, face down. 
"No. Boxed the gloves -- you know, boxing gloves" I said gravely. Then I waited for the little boy to  acknowledge my peerless humor. But he just sat there, silently contemplating me like a bug hunter contemplating a praying mantis he is considering impaling and adding to his collection.
I am old and thrifty, so I no longer become impatient when my whimsy is slow to be recognized. I never waste words trying to explain it. I went into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of lemonade, and decided to have a stick of mozzarella string cheese as well. When I came back the little boy was gone. I never saw him again.

I knew his mother slightly. She rented out leaf blowers from a kiosk in the parking lot of the convenience store down the block from me. When I went to the convenience store from time to time to buy latex gloves, she would wave to me, and I would wave to her, and sometimes we told each other what a beautiful day it was even though the acid rain and radioactive lightning were destroying the mums that fall. Lying to a stranger doesn't feel like lying at all.
I needed a lot of latex gloves for strangling the skinks that kept invading my basement. You can't kill a skink by chopping off its head -- it just grows a new one. They have to be strangled and then run through a paper shredder, which often gets clogged with their green blood. Professional exterminators will not make house calls for skinks. Too endemic. (Besides, the skinks have a very powerful lobby in DC.)

The reason my boys had all grown up and didn't want any more stories from me is that I lived a double life while they were little. They thought I went to work in an office each day, but in reality I was a professional exterminator who specialized in earwigs. They eventually found out my briefcase contained pyrethrum and not pie charts. Their mother forgave me for the deception after a time, but it was harder for the boys to let it go. We finally went into counseling, the boys and I. Their mother wouldn't attend -- she thought it some sort of new age voodoo. In counseling I learned how much it hurt my boys to have a father who killed small inoffensive bugs instead of dictating to a secretary in a plush office. Feeling so let down by their father, they had all turned to a life of crime -- holding up banks and hijacking fire trucks. This life of crime, I learned in counseling, they hid from their wives and children, who thought they all worked together running a lumber company. With tears in my eyes, I begged them to come clean with their families and not make the same mistake I had made. But they refused to listen to me, and our counseling sessions came to an end when they hijacked all the furniture from the counselor's waiting room. When they were caught and jailed I posted bond for them, for the sake of their families. But they fled out of state and I lost the bail money. 
That's why I have to live on nothing but lemonade and string cheese. Their mother still thinks the skinks got 'em. 

Photo Essay: 永遠のシンボル

Repent therefore of this thy wickedness . . .

Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
Acts 8:22

To tame my heart I daily pray

for help so it won't go astray.

It spurns wise virtue for the spice

of tawdry, unrewarding vice.

I would be more contrite, O Lord,

and smash my proud heart like a gourd.

Thy forgiveness plays great part

in the healing of my heart!