The Mysterious Smokeless Cigarette

DOB: What is this?

TCG: It’s a cinnamon smokeless tobacco cigarette substitute. Don’t light it.

DOB: (Sucking and puffing) It doesn’t taste like cinnamon. Wait, it looks like it went out.

TCG: It’s smokeless – you don’t light it.

DOB: (Continuing to suck in and puff out on the smokeless cinnamon-flavored cigarette.)

UCC: Don’t inhale. It’s bad for you. Perhaps if you dipped the end in your plum wine, the cigarette would have a taste.

DOB: (Sticking the end of the smokeless cigarette in her glass of plum wine, and nodding slowly to indicate either deep understanding or complete cluelessness.) Oh. Ok.

TCG: How is the plum wine?

DOB: Good... (Noticing, with genuine surprise, the cigarette in her left hand) What is this?

UCC: It’s a cinnamon smokeless tobacco cigarette substitute.

WISIMH: This, my dear, is one of the circles of hell that Dante left out. The one where I’m stuck in an endless conversational loop where one party repeats a virtually content-less phrase in lieu of actual cogent conversation. The circle where hope is not only abandoned, it’s left beaten and bloody on the side of the road, registering such minimal brain activity that, if measurable at all, would be at the end of the scale where legally dead could be conclusively established by a four-year-old with a toy stethoscope.

Putting the Ass in Procrastinate

Less than 24 hours ago, UCC left the camera at somebody else’s house.

TCG: (Shouted from two rooms away) Hey! You ever going to do anything about the camera?

UCC: Yeah, I will…(muttered under her breath)…but seriously folks, I ask you - is this guy an ass, or what?

UCC: ...get to it...

WISIMH: ... right about when you get around to disposing of ALL the recyclables, some going back three generations, so that I can actually walk on the brick path I made next to the trashcan corral without having to move flattened cardboard boxes, many evolving into dust after >3 years (presumably left intentionally to ripen like a good stinky cheese, the consistency of both of which, is indistinguishable from baby vomit only through a series of painstaking molecular forensic testing and analysis protocols, performed by one trained beyond the level of Night- Shift Assistant Fry Cook) not to mention a quantity of beer bottles that would make an elephant forget to count them all.

Wheat Grass Incident

The wheatgrass man is in the driveway. Every week at this time, he delivers a fresh flat of wheat grass and picks up the flat from last week. The delivery guy puts the fresh grass on the steps outside the screened porch, and picks up the old flat. I take the fresh flat inside the screened porch and water it a couple of times a week. I make wheatgrass shots (almost) every day before I make coffee.

TCP: (From the room adjacent to the screened porch) Did you put out the grass?

UCC: (In a surly undertone from 2 rooms away, where despite my hearing aids, it’s not always clear what’s being said from such a distance) Don’t tell me last week’s flat of wheat grass didn’t put itself out?

TCP: Hey, What about (unintelligible/incoherent)?

UCC: (Getting up, going to the room where TCP is laying on the couch) Please repeat.

TCP: While you’re here, put the wheat grass out for the guy to pick up.

WISIMH: (Putting the grass out and taking the new grass in to water, while humming "My only prayer will be/ Someday you’ll care for me/ But it’s o-o-only ma-a-a-ke believe.") If there is a circle in hell where the habitually supine will reside, imbricated together like stacked lumber, their collective murmuring just soft enough that nobody else can understand them, mingling together into a low hum, like the sound the world makes rolling around the sun, that’s where you’ll end up spending eternity, bub.

Happy Birthday

DOB turns 90 today.

TCG: (Heading off after his postprandial nap - the second of three per day) I have to pick up the ice cream cake and deliver it to the place we eat every Monday since infinity minus forever. (OK, I paraphrased the last part.)

UCC: (Having packaged the florist flowers delivered earlier, together with the card I got, and a present I bought and wrapped into a shopping bag, to enable the invalid to carry it with him to the restaurant.) OK. There's a vase of H20 next to a wrapped candle in a glass. Be careful.

(TCG drives off. Meanwhile, back at the Fortress of Attitude, a mailman knocks on door to deliver birthday card from DOB's daughter and dranddaughter from suburban Branson and collect postage due. How ironic.)

TCG: (Returning home breathlessly, amid much huffing, puffing, and anxiety to reach the toilet, to sit and to begin speaking. The man is nothing unless it's a dramatic overacting diva who desperately needs attention). Had a minor disaster...

UCC: Oh my goodness, what happened?

WISIMH: Let's see. Selectively incontinent? Broken vase in restaurant?  Other pathetic fuckup?

TCG: (Never one for wasting his words.) Vase spilled, glass candle broke, spill ruined card.

UCC: Yikes!

TCG: (More breathing et. al.) Do you want to run down to CVS to get her something else?

UCC:  (Catching an astonished breath) No.

WISIMH: Are you shitting me, you brain-dead clueless douchebag? What I'd like to giver her for her 90th fucking birthday is my foot up her fat butt so far her demented head'd explode.

TCG: Maybe I'll go down later.

WISIMN: Your filial devotion is exceeded only by your immense absence of initiative, your black hole sucking lack of energy; your tiniest spark of intellectual effort, or your withered fucking imagination.

Meatloaf

DOB: I used to cook...

UCC: You just made meatloaf the other night.

(pause to eat)

DOB: I used to cook...

UCC: You just made meatloaf the other night.

WISIMH: If you can call ground beef and ketchup, baked until a lovely black crust forms on top "cooking".

Pros and Cones

TCG: If you’re going to the kitchen, will you bring me back a chocolate ice cream milk shake?

UCC: I was actually going to the happy place in my mind, can I bring you back a dose of Anti-Laziness Potion, or perhaps a chocolate ice cream cone of despair?

TCG: Isn’t the kitchen on your way to wherever the hell you’re going?

UCC: Yes. As is the abattoir, the slaughter house, the henhouse populated with carriers of the H5N1 virus, the giant freezer where I store my unrealized dreams, and the bathroom. Can I pee for you while I’m up, you lazy bastard?

TCG: You’re not a funny as you might think.

WISIMN: Nor are you as delightfully charming, as accomplished at covering up your paranoid suspicions, as proficient at controlling your smoldering resentment before it bursts into flames of bitterness, or as successful at restraining your self-inflicted self-pity. So that makes two of us, dear heart.

The Stamp Dilemma

TCG: You should know, I used the stamps on the top, in your desk.

UCC: And now I know.

TCG: I mean I used them all up, there are no more – on the top.

UCC: But there might be more stamps on the sides of my desk?

TCG: No, I mean there might be more under the papers and things stacked there.

UCC: And now I know that, too.

TCG: No, I mean there might not be any more stamps.

UCC: You’re telling me I should buy stamps?

TCG: No, you should look first to see if there are more, then buy them if there aren’t.

WHSIHS No, what you REALLY mean is you’re too fucking lazy to do more than pick stamps out of the top of the mess, and notify me of your laziness. Even though you’re going to the Post Office right now, you wouldn’t want to undertake any task involving initiative, decision making, or more than six calories to accomplish.

Gotcha!

TCG: (driving the car one lovely afternoon) Hey, look over there! (gesturing wildly about 12:15 high)

UCC: (obligingly facing that direction and straining for some clue about what is being drawn to one’s attention. Clueless, but trying not to look impatient for falling, yet again, for that trick.)

TCG: What the hell was that?

UCC: Ok, I know, but you go first.

TCG: (Failing without trying to not look impatient) Forget about it.

UCC: Ok, no prob ---

TCG: Hey, what’s that?

WISIMH: An ancient tribal burial mound that suddenly appeared atop that parking structure? A storm cloud on the horizon bearing down on us from behind? A coven of witches in a lurid fluorescence of acid greens and chartreuse, their feline familiars screaming like banshees? A clue left at the scene of the crime in the form of a man standing on the streetcorner and twirling a sign that says something about erectile dysfunction? Is my fucking hair on fire, you douche?

Somebody We Know

We are driving in a car, through a lovely suburban neighborhood, to attend the wedding of a family friend.

DOB: Doesn't somebody live in this neighborhood?

TCG: I suspect that many people live in this neighborhood.

WISAIM: His suspicion is based on the fact that there are so many houses on each street.

DOB: (Impatiently) No. Somebody we know.

TCG: Can you give me a clue?

DOB: (Long pause). I have no idea.

WISIMH: This is what passes for conversation here in the Fortress of Attitude.

Short and Not So Sweet

Short Belligerent Person: Bump your shopping cart into me again and I’ll punch you in the knee.

UCC: I said I was sorry. I didn’t see you because, well, because you’re short.

SBP: Well, next time look, asshole.

WISIMH: Well, surely my good little man. Although, perhaps you should wear a red flag on a long bendy stick - like kids attach to their bikes - to catch the eye of normal people. Asshole.

Menu at the International House of Boredom

TCG: "Another chance?"

UCC: "Always.
You know I love you, right?"

TCG: Yes. I love you too.

WISIMH: There’s worse ways to go than this. Peacefully, in one’s sleep, tossed in restless slumber. Bored to death.
And I do love him so, the sweet loving man.

It’s All About Trust

Went to Blood Bath and Beyond (next door to Holy Christ’s 99 cent store) today to buy a new blade for my scythe. While waiting in the checkout line, I overheard the customer behind me say:

Checkout Line Lady: I would never trust him again, Mom. He did steal your TV, remember?

Mom: I don’t know. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt.

WISIMH: I’d put my money on distrust, Mom. As G. B. Burgin once said, it is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts. As I once said, distrust is da best trust dere is.

Let's Try to Use our Words

TCG: I’ve got the round one.

UCC: What?

TCG: What you just told me to do!

UCC: Again. What?
(Upon subsequent clarification, it was revealed that he was referring to the context of a prior conversation in which I suggested he take leftovers to DOB – the leftovers being in a round container)

WISIMH: While brevity may be the sole of wit, I find that muttered meaningless monosyllables aren’t particularly amusing. A better metaphor would be that if silence is golden, then I’m a fucking millionaire.

Seeing Things

Yesterday, I made pomegranate juice and when I dumped the seeds into the juicer, some of the splashes stuck to my glasses. Later, I started seeing these red spots before my eyes.

UCC: I’m seeing red spots before my eyes. (closing my eyes) I can’t see! I can’t see!

TCG: What’s the matter? What’s the matter?

UCC: My eyes are closed! My eyes are closed!

WISIMH: One of the all-time best insertions of a Three Stooges skit into a conversation. I knock myself out sometimes, I’m so funny.

Unforseen?

DOB: When I… whatchamacallit…
TCG: Can you be more specific?
WISIMH: It seems to me we have in the attic a sufficient number of old boards? (Baudelaire)

Just Do What?

UCC: I have to go and do the laundry.
TCG: I'd be more impressed if you'd just do me.
UCC: I'd be more impressed if you'd just do some laundry.
TCG: If you did me more often, I'd do the laundry.

WISIMH: If you'd do ANYTHING more often, I'd do you more often.

Get Your Tool On

TCG: Always use the right tool for the job.
UCC: Wow, I didn’t think of that.
WISIMH: Then I’ll need a chainsaw, a bathtub, and a case of Liquid Plumber.

dramatis inpersona

Fortress of Attitude
The too-big old house were UCC, TCG and DOB live; across the street from the meth lab; around the corner from the poorly fenced yard with the three pit bulls. The Fortress is the usual location where the cast of characters wage their own personal war on the terrors of growing old. The Fortress is where we all go to escape the Actual World.

Crazy Stew
It's what's for dinner. The ambient atmosphere here in the Fortress smells like a savory crazy stew of paranoia, passive agression and delusional behavior. (It actually smells like urine, peppermint, and cheap dog food that's been left in the bowl too long and become black and crusty.) The recipe? Knead several pounds of satire and frustration together in the pizza dough cycle of your bread machine; add a generous pinch of profanity and some beer; Shake the mixture together in a bottle corked with rage, and break it over the head of someone you love. Just do it in the Fortress, and not the Actual World. (We can't go back there any more. Jesus Christ).

The Actual World
The stage most of us inhabit when not in the Fortress. These days in the AW, it feels like mysterious forces stronger than Capitalism are creating disquiet, making us pause, in civilization's march upward to wisdom; and in the S&Ps march upward toward unspeakable wealth. Currently, when I venture into the AW, I am transported to a postmodern shabby truck stop where people say things like: "Alas, how is't with you/ That you do bend your eye on vacancy/ And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?"

trinity of follies

Whether or not you believe in god, I do. Here are my hold trinity of gods:

Existential Clown

First among equals in the Trinity of Follies. A composite of all childhood imaginary friends: nice people in the Actual World who remain reasonably sane, and attempt, from time to time, to talk other characters down from the ledge before it crumbles and buries us in the rubble of our dreams.

Plastic Jesus

The Imaginary Higher Power, the one true son of the one true god (who was a single parent, apparently). PJ was incarnated as the mutant offspring of 21st century global capitalism and brainwashed, unwashed masses. (Note to the Damned Anarchists and other atheists: this character is real to a lot of people who believe so strongly in his existence that they would kill you). PG is as real as the other existential clowns and imaginary super-friends in this blog.

Imaginary Superfriend

The final member of the Trinity of Follies. Amorphous composite of all known existential clowns and madmen. IS has various powers, like the ability to draw a perfect circle freehand, say, or burp the alphabet, or drive drunk but safely home in the rain, or make good fudge without using a recipe, or leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

dramatis persona

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (Tolstoy). Each crazy family has its own cast of characters. Here's mine.

Unnamed Co-Conspirator

The once overly sensitive and delicate waif who grew up and fell in love and grew up some more. The character in this comedy of errors who most needs a place to say all the things clapped behind her hand, burning her tongue, and thereby adding to the already robust spice of the interpersonal relationships in the Fortress of Attitude. The only difference between UCC and a madman is that UCC has no penis.

The Couch Garden

So much more than a mere couch potato - an entire garden! UCC's roommate who, unless he's watching TV in his recliner, is probably lying on the couch resting up from a session in his recliner. TCG is as endearingly crazy in love with UCC as ever, but has long since dropped out of the race. The second laziest person in the world, and the love of UCC's life.

The Gardener

The bitter old woman that UCC will become soon unless soomething happens soon (Purposefully redundant). This character spends most of the time cultivating TCG and DOB. In any time left over, TG functions as the Ghost of the Future in this blog, appearing without warning and scaring the crapp out of UCC. 

The Demented old Bitch

The third roommate in the Fortress, living in a back room with her faithful canine companion Old Fat Dog. DOB combines the fun of paranoia with the wisdom of delusion. She has one tooth, and frankly, communicates more by smell than meaningful sound in this performance. Daily, DOB and FOD endeavor to create olfactory symphonies composed of various smells of mysterious origin. You never know who has contributed to what part of the olfactory bomb that explodes in your head when you enter their room. Now well into her dotage, her personal hygiene skills are eclipsed only by the wit and subtle nuance of her repartee. In her prime, it is unlikely her personality would have won her a place on the cheerleading team, and now.... well, let's just leave it at fucking old bitch.