The LAST FACT OF LIFE

My least two favorite words when paired together are 'The' and 'End'. Though the article 'the' has been a very useful word to write with over the years, usually the 'Ends' of most things (especially sausage) are typically disgusting or disappointing in some pointy or puckered way. The only exception to that rule of course is an end cut of a prime rib - since nothing makes my day, like a  

burnt hunk of leather to wave in the face of a snobby  'pink meat' gourmet.

While it's true I never want great culture, innovation, and tasteful troughs of food n' libation to quit, there are a select few moronic movies, noisy music, and gooey baby's loose ends to tie up that I won't miss a bit. Though I like heavy bookENDS when tantrum-tossed in twos, they confound me as literally literary-prop duos; since in vernacular 'book-BEGINS' is not known or claimed, it's frustrating only the back-half of book-blockers, are properly named.

When it comes to the end of the road I have never understood the inaccurate expression 'Death is a part of Life'. So tell me, what breathless death and dumb linguist decided 'dying' deserves a place at the head table in a recipe for an idiotic idiom supposedly about living? Oh sure death's incessant knock at the bathroom door when you're not quite 'finished' might be scary, but while you still have a few matches to burn, simply ignore the intrusion and go about your business. Everyone's end-game journey is just the same with an ultimate and inevitable dead end to wipe the slate clean n' free of worry, since dead means just that - DEAD, save for an occasional pasty-faced goth-zombie or leftover weakling smoke detector battery.

The 'finality' of a lot of things in life might not seem so obvious if only my stupid microwave would quit constantly taunting me with its incessant beeping and bean-green screen flashing 'END' over n' over when done popping corn or giving last rights to my two-day cold coffee sludge. I'm starting to think maybe I too should start listening to 'Mikey' more and embrace this last fat FACT of life, by finding some kind of signal to display when I flash my own end sometime.  Don't worry I'll still be considerate of my wife and nosy neighbors because I'll only use that ear-piercing beeping for when I back down the driveway - or else I'll never hear the END of it!

BEDlam

As a TUFT guy invariably I spend some part of my day glaring and daring to make up the beds around this chicken shack. You would think after years of stuffing my face and making it soft and puffy, then I would be pretty good at fluffing up a roost or two into an oversized set of flannel jammies. But sadly no matter how much I wrestle and wrangle, sheets, pillows, bed bugs n’ blankets, I never ever seem to get the better when battling boxsprings all surly and thankless.

First I have never met a more frustrating feat of linen than that of the stinking ‘pucker-pointed’ fitted sheet. Even my Wally-Mart fat pants allow for more stretch, ebb, and flow than any fitted sheet will ever know. I mightily lay and splay to tuck the curly corners down, but invariably first one point gives way to bed-center then the opposite two, like an irritating elastic slingshot burrito-ing my view.

Let’s face it, it’s established fact that bulky, billowy sheets are just too big to wash, fold, and certainly place neatly back on any bed by one person much less a goof like me. Even ghosts have learned that lesson long ago and now usually prefer to appear ‘au naturel’ unless haunting a Klan picnic or some hooded terrorist hoe-down.  That’s why I probably need to recruit an army to spray Febreeze on bed linens and just leave them in place forever, or Velcro tiny pillowcase-sized chunks of fabric together to build my own right-sized sheet.

Ok, I know I’m probably not the best arbiter of boffo bedding unless you are talking about the stuff I pitchfork out for ballpoint PENned animals like myself. Yes for me less is more when it comes to laying down on the job, so you can keep your stuffed n’ puffed comforters and your haughty pillow-topped dead skin sacks for yourself. Like my oak barrel heat-hardened head, (except for those creaks under pressure), as long as you keep my crate warm . . . I think bare solid wood makes for sounder sleep anyway!

Real Turkey Stuffing

Despite my body shape resembling that big buttered namesake bird itself and that Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favorite holidays, I still approach the traditional fam-feasting with a little consternation.  Sure the travel is a pain and all bets are off as to my belt’s last lonely sole hole will be able to cinch up the collateral damage after a 5000 calorie snack, but that too is not my biggest worry. No I sweat bullets over the really frightening reality which make stuffed ‘carUncle TOMS’ like me weak in the wattle and that’s ‘who left da’ lumps in the taters n’ gravers?’

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the occasional stray spud that missed the mixer and didn’t win the race through the ricer. I guess I can also forgive the bold, brave n’ bready chunk of gunk that stows away from the stuffing and inadvertently into my brown gravy boat of pureed pleasure.  But please don’t try to sneak in and fool me with a flotilla of stringy beans or slip in globs of greasy giblets to test my zest and goad my gag-reflex.

You see I have to always be on guard for the unexpected lascivious lump should an errant somethin’-chunk cozy up too closely to my uvula bump. Believe me nobody, not even a food sci-fi-entist wants to see a giant fat-cat sitting at the kiddy table reversing a cup of gravy’s smooth n’ true course in mid-stream. Why is it so hard to understand, like my groin I prefer my gravy strained, the jello  junk-less n’ stripped clean, and my mashies uniformly smashied, then whipped into a sublime-grind cream.  

Considering I am just lucky to be uncaged and temporarily free from the torch-waving townies, it is odd for such a persnickety and moody rude dude-y to have so many rules about delicious snood foodies. Yes I know as a bulky beggar there are definite politeness conventions to follow especially on a day where giving thanks is spelled out right in the name. So never fear, even a mouthy Meleagris like me won’t look a gift gobbler in the beak and will take my lumps quietly. After all imitation is the sincerest form of ‘Plattery’ so my turkey-neck and I will honor my big bird brethren, and all who prepare him with an appreciative 21 ‘done-button’ salute!

Dust Bunny Blame

Due to my persistent patter that I am disheveled and a bit of a dust devil when it comes to cleanliness is a tad misleading. It is not really ME that makes most of the messes around this ape cage, it is those dumb bunnies who hide under the toe kicks in the kitchen and waft across the floor at the slightest sneeze of a breeze. I don’t care how much I sweep or suck the buggers up with a bigger vac duct, they always seem to find a way to multiply and fly in the face of my hopes for a spic n’ span  place.

Hey I know I rarely smell of bleach but that doesn’t mean I am a fan of competing for floor space with fuzzy baseball-sized amalgams of intertwined dust and dirt. More than once I’ve suffered a squirt of adrenaline as one of those darting wind-driven faux-rodents streaks up from behind to fondle my meaty beat feet. Though I can think of several things more unpleasant caught aloft surfing on a warm-winded vortex, who wants the comet tail from some linty lapin always trying to sneakily squeeze that out of me.

What worries me is given the degree of follicle fleece flying freely at floor-level, logic would have it that the dust stuff is breeding down there somewhere too. That takes the suspicious spotlight off of the attic mite-y mice of course since they typically only come downstairs to watch Tom and Jerry cartoons while ironing their capes. I also don’t believe my cave-feet are to blame since I’ve turned to Rogaine and that means the silky long locks of my ankle-manes have never looked fuller and more alive.

So though I am at a loss as to the creation of this excess loess, my wife’s judgmental and furtive glances towards my thinning ‘Bowl-Magnon’ cranium have not gone un-noticed. Oh sure my lice have a little less to work with and mowing the Mohawk takes half the time now, but surely one hairless rat alone cannot be at the root of this dusty bunny foot ball invasion? Too bad we don’t have a few domestic pets around since I’m looking for something to blame and take a broom to other than myself; because it’s times like these that I could sure use a little MORE ‘hare of the dog’!

Green Sleeves n' Shelves

It’s usually a bad idea whenever I explore my drawers regardless if I do it in the bedroom closet vanity or in the back of the refrigerator. While I can usually control what goes and grows into the underwear or socks, I really never know what I am going to find fascinatingly fetid inside the fridge. Oddly beyond the rainbow of colored Tupperware containers (both inside and out) and the Rorschach jelly and gravy shelf-blots it was something very GREEN yet very ordinary which caught my eye.

From dairy to berries everything in that ice box had some kind of cutesy label or attempt at a memorable marketing catch-phrase to grab what’s left of my aging and fleeting attention span. That makes sense for foods that are grocery store shiny and trying to sell me on their merits before I check-out – (more than ordinary anyway). However once the stuff has been fermenting freely on frigid racks for weeks I use my snout more than my cerebrum when deciding what’s good to eat rather than what smells like feet.

So that frees up a smattering of what’s left of my grayish mattering to think about really important worldly topics like, is ‘Farm Fresh’ really the best marketing term for the food lurking in our refrigerators. I already felt that the household dairy staples of ‘Sour Cream’ and ‘Cottage Cheese’ sound like stuff that might have parked inside a cow too long. But I have to guess that it has been quite a while since any of these Mad Ave Ad geniuses have taken a big country whiff on a truly fresh farm lately. 

I’m not a fan of ‘restaurant quality’ marked items either since I guess stuck-up true foodies aren’t apparently eating in the same bottom-dollar vinyl buffet booths that I slide my coverall-covered rump into. You can also save your snooty ‘sea salt’ for someone who sympathizes because word has it - THAT stuff comes from the same place where fish go to the bathroom.  Hmm, that fact alone makes me now question the origins of that ice cold, green-sleeved Mountain Dew I dream to ‘DO’; clearly before ‘downing’ I’d better wash my mouth out with a little soap, or better yet . . . a lot of alcohol!