Ye Gods, seven days without a post! Well, here’s one to keep you (slightly) amused. Now please call off the black helicopters and tell them I didn’t really mean it when I called the White House and told them I had Jar Jar locked in a steamer trunk and was feeding him strychnine through a slot in the casing.
Let the festivities begin!
*****
I sous-cheffed this evening, grating cheddar cheese while La Raymunda prepared dinner (southwestern pasta casserole…yum) and this conversation sprang up:
“You know how sometimes you can’t control where your mind goes when it’s wandering?”
“Yes,” said La Raymunda.
“So today I was mowing the lawn and I wondered what it would be like to do it with the neighbor’s wife.”
La Raymunda paused. “Which neighbor?”
I told her.
“Ewww!”
“It always starts innocent enough,” I said and dumped shredded cheddar into a measuring cup. “Today I’m out mowing and I see something that makes me think of their kid and then the next thing I’m thinking, ‘Well the kid had to get here somehow…’ Next thing I know there she is in my mind, our sweaty naked neighbor with her legs flung up all every which way.”
La Raymunda, hands on her hips, looked at me with an expression that said, I’m waiting…any minute now your skull will split open and Satan’s devil-spawn will crawl out onto the kitchen floor, which I just swept, wearing sequined Elvis jumpsuits and Richard Nixon masks.
“That…is…so gross,” she said finally. I shrugged and started grating a second cup of cheese.
“Hey, it’s not like I was enjoying it either. Anyway, I told you - I can’t control my mind. It just kind of merrily goes to these strange odd places…”
“Well, as gross as that is it’s not as bad as where my mind wanders,” said La Raymunda. “My mind goes to horrible places, like are they going to find a tumor in my CAT scan or will the airplane we’re in explode in mid-air or what if the bridge collapses and we drive off the edge and…well, you know.”
“That’s pretty dark,” I said. “Hey, is two cups of cheese enough?”
La Raymunda took my arm. “Honey, what if there is something wrong with me that makes me think of these awful things?” Her forehead was all shrinkled up the way it gets when she ponders the abyss. “I’m worried that there’s something wrong with me.”
“Because you’re afraid of cancer and exploding fiery death? Those seem like legitimately bad things.”
“No, because I think about such horrible things. Really, do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
“I think it means that you have a little bit of a dark side. You know, Jim Carhart would find that terribly sexy.” I dumped the last of the grated cheese into the bowl and started toward the basement stairs. “Now unshrinkle your face or it’ll get stuck that way.”
“Do you think it’s just my Chamber of the Horribles?”
“Probably,” I said. I stopped and turned around at the top of the stairs. “Look, some people just don’t worry about stuff. I’m one of them. You aren’t.” I headed downstairs.
La Raymunda called after me, “How do I get my mind to think like yours?” (Now that’s a question I’ve never been asked before.)
“I don’t know,” I said over my shoulder. “Watch lots of porn and football?”
Indignant sigh. “You’re not helping, honey.”
*****
Hey, is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the only thing Cling-Wrap clings to is itself?
*****
Sports Illustrated’s website needs a better online editor.
Today, in the first game of the AL Divisional Playoffs, Oakland’s ace (Barry Zito) beat Minnesota’s ace (Johan Santana). SI had this to say on the front page of their website:
“Frank Thomas dented Johan Santana’s aura of invisibility at the Metrodome…”
Now, you don’t think I’d let that slip without getting a screenshot, do you? No way, my fellow babies!
