Dr. Moriarty is Alive and Well and Trying to Drive Me Crazy

The author, on his pinewood soapbox.

I read with Grim Satisfaction (my usual breakfast companion) the following paragraph from the online Wall Street Journal this morning:

To protect them [moon rocks] the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has strict security protocols befitting a heist film. It isn’t just paranoia. Over the years, some pieces of the moon have escaped NASA’s gravitational pull. One night in 2002, three interns absconded with a 600-pound safe full of moon rocks from Apollo missions. The rocks were retrieved, but couldn’t be used for scientific research. The interns pleaded guilty and the ringleader was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.


"Ha!" I said to No One In Particular (another one of the merry band of breakfast companions I keep around) "It says here that NASA can't keep track of their moon rocks -- they're disappearing like jelly off a dog's nose."

 I wiped the crumbs from my mouth and went out to the patio to watch the finches natter over the nylon sack of black thistle seeds I put out for them -- and some very intriguing thoughts came to me, which I am happy to share with the general public on the understanding that it's pure peculation . . . uh, I mean percolation -- no, that's not it either . . . ah, it's pure speculation. I knew it started with a plosive.

That jamook that got eight years in the slammer for boosting moon rocks back in 2002 -- he's out of stir by now, and it doesn't take a Stephen Hawking to figure out that he must be the one responsible for the aggravating and mysterious thefts that occur with tedious regularity around my household. Some of my more impudent children claim I am merely becoming absentminded, with a growing tendency to misplace things. Cutting them to the quick with my osprey-like gaze, I haughtily remind them that after a lifetime of pickled herring and canned sardines my little grey cells are stronger and more astute than ever. No, miene leiben Kinder, the only logical surmise is that someone is systematically stealing small inconsequential items from me in order to drive me mad. And, whether it's the moon rock guy or some other diabolical creature, they are coming close to succeeding.

Consider, for instance, the Case of the Missing Postage Stamps. Once a month I buy a book of 20 Forever stamps; I have a wide and varied correspondence with persons of consequence; most of them enjoy stamping OVERDUE in red ink on their missives to me -- quite the wags, no? 

Once I have the stamps in hand I slip them into my thin greasy wallet and then transfer them to the top drawer of my bedroom desk. This routine never varies. Yet on several occasions during the past year when I have opened the drawer for stamps they are nowhere to be found. Did I use them all up? No. Did I move them while searching for my adult coloring book? Nope. Eaten by silverfish? Hardly likely, since I treat all my furniture with formaldehyde on a regular basis. 

As my quest widens I begin whimpering mild obscenities in Sindarin and pulling out thatches of comely brunette hair from my throbbing scalp. I finally collapse, utterly spent, on the chaise longue, giving myself up to despair while gibbering like a kelpie. It is not a pleasant sight, and if it occurs when one of my children are visiting they rub cayenne pepper in the wound by nonchalantly opening a few drawers in the kitchen until they pull out the book of stamps -- somehow moved to the new location by a person or persons unknown, bent on my mental demolition. 

Or how about the strawberry yogurt in the fridge? I put a new container in and within 24 hours, or less, it is no longer there, and so I forget all about it -- distracted as I often am by finding the solution to Hilbert's Sixteenth Problem (the solution, by the way, is that the butler did it.) Then, three months later, that same container of strawberry yogurt, now crawling with corruption, reappears in my fridge on the top shelf, right behind the prune juice. Don't tell ME that's not an inside job!

I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it's the last thing I do. I give fair warning to the fiend, whoever you are, that is trying to break me -- you've met your match, Dr. Moriarty. I've set out a series of subtle alarms and traps throughout my apartment to nab you -- a hair entwined around a doorknob, a Victor mousetrap laid cunningly in a kitchen drawer -- so you'll not escape my clutches for long! And when I have you I'm phoning for the FBI, cuz you'll undoubtedly be on their Most Wanted list -- just as soon as I can find my blasted cell phone. By ginger, it was here just a minute

 ago . . .

Now where did I put that One Ring?  Sauron's gonna be mad.



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Well, I’m done writing for the day. Been up since 6, shaved, showered, and covered my body with CeraVe ointment per my dermatologist’s orders, went shopping for potato bread and shrimp-flavored ramen noodles, wrote my postcard to the president, wrote my scripture poem, and then picked an article out of the WSJ to base a feuilleton on. I have decided to change my moniker from poet to feuilletonist -- a fancy French word for ‘writer of small pages.’ That is what S.J. Perelman called himself, and if it was good enough for him it is good enough for me.

That took me until noon, when I broke for some ramen noodles with Brussels sprouts and a sliced tomato, with a stale fudge brownie for dessert -- washed down with a glass of mixed lemonade and Shasta’s Mountain Rush (a Mountain Dew knockoff.) Then I reviewed and edited my feuilleton and sent it out to the WSJ reporter whose story I used for inspiration and to a few of my intimate pals like yourself.

So now I have the entirety of a Saturday afternoon and evening yawning before me like an abyss. What shall I do with myself now? Obviously, one thing is to write this afterpiece -- I still have some energy and focus left, so I’ll use it detailing so much minutiae that it will make your eyeballs fall out with tedium.

I’m trying to discourage the sparrows from feeding on my patio, so I’ve switched from putting out cracked corn to black oil sunflower seeds -- it is two dollars cheaper per bag than cracked corn, and I thought the sparrows wouldn’t like it and so make room for some of the other songbirds around here. But those little brown guttersnipes decided, after a few hours of hopping around the tin pan I filled with sunflower seeds, that they would give it a whirl -- and now they’ve eaten all the sunflower seeds. Oh well, I still get parti-colored finches, ringneck doves, and quail, to feast my eyes on. The sparrows are like those inevitable in-laws you can never get rid of for long and so you just learn to live with them until you can figure out how to murder them without getting caught.

I finally got my cable box set up, since basic cable is part of my rent whether I want it or not, but it has proven to be a rotten way to waste time. Here’s what’s on basic cable right now:

PGA TOUR GOLF

THE JAMES BROWN SHOW

30 F0R 30 (MADE FOR TV MOVIE -- MADE FOR HELL MOVIE IS MORE LIKE IT)

2019 WOMEN’S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

SPORTS OVERFLOW UTAH

COOK’S COUNTRY

LO MEJOR DE VENGA LA ALEGRIA

A BIOGRAPHY OF AMERICA

ANCIENT ALIENS

THE INSPECTORS (A BYU FLAVORED SITCOM)

FUTBOL CENTRAL

2019 FIFA

STREET OUTLAWS

BONES

LAW & ORDER: SVU

LOCAL PROGRAMMING

RAWHIDE

HOY EN LA COPA AMERICA

BUGSY MALONE

QVC -- OIL COSMETICS

So there’s no chance I can veg out on cable in my recliner.

I can read my Kindle, of course -- but after an hour or two I always start to nod off, even when I stick my feet in cold water while trying to read.

I could take a walk, except my bowels are not reliable today -- like many days for the past couple of months, dammit.

I almost wish I was in some kind of messy relationship again, like with crazy Marilyn my ex Amy or my son Stephen -- at least they ate up my time and made me appreciate moments of quiet and calm. Right now I am looking at about six more stale hours of  peace and quiet before going to bed with an Advil PM.

Geez, maybe I better just write some more.