This story is fictitious. It is based entirely on the author’s observations of the indigenous people and their curious mores, folkways and goings on in an anonymous small town that the author made while driving past said town at 75 miles an hour on my way to the beach.
The Choptank River, on the eastern shore of Maryland, flows into the Chesapeake Bay after having been fed by various creeks, rills, rivulets, and open sewers. Near the Chesapeake Bay, the water is salty. Further upriver, it’s 100% marsh gas. It’s cut in several places by roads and a highway that transports cosmopolitan Washingtonians from 50 or so miles to the west to the beaches of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, 50 or so miles to the east. Various settlements, unknown or forgotten to all but those who are unfortunate enough to live there or are unfortunate enough to run out of gas there, dot the area. One of them was Postum, MD.
Showing posts with label apocrypha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apocrypha. Show all posts
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Lawn Mower Scalps Woman During Birthday Party
“Lawn Mower Scalps Woman During Birthday Party”- CNN Online, dateline: recent past.
You need to read this article, and you need to read it right now. So stop what you’re doing, kill your way to a computer if need be, search every archive, and find this article.
Because mark my words, one Saturday, you'll be lying there in the grass, looking up at the puffy clouds, just enjoying your mai-tai at your toddler’s birthday party, when you’ll hear…the distant sound of a lawnmower. You won’t think anything of it at first, just another weekend sound of suburbia. But it won’t go away, in fact it will get louder.
And as the delighted screams of pinata-bashing children are drowned out by the roaring engine, then, my friend, then you'll remember this instructive tale and leap out of inaction and save yourself. You’ll stand up, and the lawnmower, pushed by a 5 year-old, will pass over the same patch of grass where your pineapple lay only seconds before. The same patch of grass where you subsequently put your left foot. You’ll lose a few toes, possibly the whole foot, but you’ll still be alive. Alive! And still able to spank the living shit out of that 5 year-old.
The same 5 year-old who minutes before stole his uncle’s pickup truck and drove it 10 miles to get to the party, even though he couldn’t see over the dashboard. Which you also could have read all about in CNN Online. But you didn’t read that one. Hence, no left foot. But hey, at least you’ve still got your hair, Goldilocks.
Oh wait, I’m sorry. It was “Go-Cart Scalps Woman During Birthday Party.” Well, never mind. However, if you happen to be at a birthday party and you hear, off in the distance, some toddler driving a go-cart...
You need to read this article, and you need to read it right now. So stop what you’re doing, kill your way to a computer if need be, search every archive, and find this article.
Because mark my words, one Saturday, you'll be lying there in the grass, looking up at the puffy clouds, just enjoying your mai-tai at your toddler’s birthday party, when you’ll hear…the distant sound of a lawnmower. You won’t think anything of it at first, just another weekend sound of suburbia. But it won’t go away, in fact it will get louder.
And as the delighted screams of pinata-bashing children are drowned out by the roaring engine, then, my friend, then you'll remember this instructive tale and leap out of inaction and save yourself. You’ll stand up, and the lawnmower, pushed by a 5 year-old, will pass over the same patch of grass where your pineapple lay only seconds before. The same patch of grass where you subsequently put your left foot. You’ll lose a few toes, possibly the whole foot, but you’ll still be alive. Alive! And still able to spank the living shit out of that 5 year-old.
The same 5 year-old who minutes before stole his uncle’s pickup truck and drove it 10 miles to get to the party, even though he couldn’t see over the dashboard. Which you also could have read all about in CNN Online. But you didn’t read that one. Hence, no left foot. But hey, at least you’ve still got your hair, Goldilocks.
Oh wait, I’m sorry. It was “Go-Cart Scalps Woman During Birthday Party.” Well, never mind. However, if you happen to be at a birthday party and you hear, off in the distance, some toddler driving a go-cart...
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Self Help 1
It may be apocryphal, but I’m guessing it probably happened: woman in chain bookstore overhears this exchange between clueless shopper and uninterested clerk.
I can’t remember where I read this; it was years ago, but it has stayed with me because it works on so many levels. First, the mispronunciation. Then, the clerk’s belief that someone might actually write a self-help book entitled “Less Miserable.” Not something like “How to be Very Happy Right Now!” but “How to be Less Miserable Eventually.”
Shopper: “I’m looking for a book by that French guy, you know the one they made a musical out of? ‘Les Miserable’ or something?”
Clerk: “Try Self-Help.”
I can’t remember where I read this; it was years ago, but it has stayed with me because it works on so many levels. First, the mispronunciation. Then, the clerk’s belief that someone might actually write a self-help book entitled “Less Miserable.” Not something like “How to be Very Happy Right Now!” but “How to be Less Miserable Eventually.”
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