Monday, Jack-O'Tober 9, 41 A.B.
"STOP! That could be some mother's pet rock!"
- Futile scream which erupted from my lips as I turned on the news again tonight and watched Palestinian youths throwing hefty conglomerations of mineral deposits at Israelis armed with machine guns capable of turning quartz into talcum powder at 50 paces
Is that a sick thing to admit? Sorry. I'm just cranky because the U.N. hasn't yet replied to the letter I sent in which I suggested Jerusalem be razed to the ground by an international force of disqualified Olympians hepped up on steroids, then turned over to the Amish to see what they can do with it given 2000 years or so.
OK, so I realize there's no mail delivery on Columbus Day. I don't care. I'm no longer accepting lame excuses. I mean to say, I mailed that letter back in 1968.
Come on, Mr. Secretary General. Work with me here! Check your friggin' In box!
OK, I admit that I happen to be especially cranky-prone just now because I sat around the house all day in pajamas and a tie waiting for my landlord to show up to fix my laundry room sink faucets. I planned on faking an illness so he wouldn't ask me to help, you see, but I put on a necktie in my "weakened condition" so he'd think I gallantly put forth some effort. Devious, aren't I? But then he didn't show, so I guess the joke was on me, eh?
And after all the time and effort I put into mastering the symptoms of parrot fever....
*Sigh*
*Dry, hacking cough*
*SIGH*
Now what? When tomorrow comes, do I sit around in the same pajamas and tie, or do I put on fresh? It's not like I have an endless supply of either pajamas OR ties, after all. Maybe I'll just change the necktie. That's what seems to have gotten dirtiest, after all.
NOTE TO SELF: Neckties stay cleaner longer if you remember to wear them tied around your neck.
What REALLY has me cranky tonight, though, isn't anything on the TV news (which I can turn off) or the fact that I laboriously spent the day in bed (which I've discovered you can't even turn on in the first place) but something I read in the newspaper this afternoon between wickedly convincing dry, hacking coughs.
It was an editorial, ok? An editorial which said that people could debate precisely why sex ed was needed in the schools "until the cows came home."
Which made me wonder: If the cows aren't home, where the hell are they??
I read and re-read the editorial without ever finding out.
I read the entire paper without finding out.
I re-read every newspaper I have for the last 6 days and I STILL didn't find out.
This is what I think they mean when they say "The media is acting irresponsibly!" I mean, the press can't in effect tell people "THE COWS AREN'T HOME!!!" and leave it at that. Not without running the risk of inducing mass panic. There's a reason why the government won't admit it's got them aliens on ice down in Dayton, and that's it, you know; The government is afraid of inducing mass panic. Who ever would have thought that the government was capable of acting more responsibly than the press??
Personally, I'd feel safer knowing that aliens were on ice in Dayton than that the cows aren't home. After all, how many farmers have you ever heard of being kicked to death by a frozen Martian? And that there Chicago fire thing - was that caused by a stray Klingon death ray? Nope! A cow did that - a single cow. For all we know, a whole herd of such Satanic bovines might be loose even now, plotting the incineration of our entire society. What's even worse, they might be plotting to hotfoot me. I mean, if cows think nothing of torching Chicago, do you think they're gonna think twice about putting a march to my favorite pair of Hush Puppies???
GET REAL!!!!
How ironic that the Nobel Prize people picked today of all days to give their medicine award to three guys who figured out how messages move around the nervous system, eh?
"Hey, guys - I bet those messages would move around the nervous system a helluva lot slower if the damn cows were home where they belong!!!!!"
You don't suppose these marauding beasties are out there undermining the institution of marriage by giving their milk away for free, do you??
I've heard about their type.
And I bet such dirty little bovines are out there sharing needles in haystacks, too.
And my newspaper wonders why we need sex ed in the schools - HA!
IT'S BECAUSE OF IRRESPONSIBLE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY!!!
And maybe a few poor gate latches. But mainly it's the IRRESPONSIBLE ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, I'm sure. After all, that's the phrase all in caps, isn't it?
That's all for now. I'm too sick with fear to go on.
And me with so much practicing to be sick left to do before tomorrow gets here.
It really IS always something, isn't it?
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(©Now by D. Birtcher while listening to his favorite necktie
bouncing around in the dryer with the brownie he threw in to keep it company)
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