5:36PM. Waiting for the #8
Best overheard bus-stop conversation topic today: Heat rash.
While public discussion of one’s embarrassing ailments is considered by some to be rude, it is considered by yours truly to be hilarious. Consider the following conversation, held between three friends at the bus stop on Broadway and Olive.
"Oh man, it was all up on my thighs, and I was walking all (he walks bow-legged to demonstrate) ‘cause my thighs were rubbing together ‘cause I’m chubby …"
(I can vouch for this, by the way. He was kinda chubby. Sort of a pale, chubby white kid, I’d guess around nineteen years old, with glasses and an unfortunate haircut)
"And then I was walking with this girl and I was all trying to play it off like it didn’t hurt…"
Here he mimes trying to walk normally and look cool while concealing his chafing discomfort. At this point I have decided that I really like him, or at least that I would root for him if he were a character in a movie. Perhaps a movie about summer camp?
After he confides his story of discomfort to his friends, they engage in a round-robin of rash anecdotes, punctuated by exclamations of "Oh, man, get me some diaper-rash lotion or something. Jesus." Or "Damn. I wish you were ice cubes. I’d be all rubbin’ up on you" (this line is delivered to the sole girl of the trio, followed by a demonstration which resembles some kind of canine leg-humping. She finds this hysterical.)
This is followed by a round-robin of mis-told jokes. The jokes are as follows:
#1. "What’s the difference between golf and the G-Spot?"
This one is told by the girl, and since I didn’t hear the punchline, I’ll provide my own. The difference between golf and the G-spot is that if there were something called the G-spot Channel, I might actually watch that.
#2"What do Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson have in common?"
Okay, I’m going to assume that you’ve already heard this one because it’s been around for a while, and if you haven’t I’m not going to tell you the punchline because the set-up is ALL WRONG and there’s really no recovery after a set-up that flawed.
#3. "What do get when you cross a lesbian with an eskimo?"
Answer: "A Klondyke bar."
Now, here again we have a flawed set-up. It should go "What do you get when you cross a lesbian drinking establishment with an eskimo?", because the term "lesbian drinking establishment" is inherently funny. Funnier, in fact, than the punchline, which is often the case with this sort of joke.
You know what else is inherently funny, as far as I’m concerned? Heat rash. But only when someone else has it.
As my contribution to the new sport of recording the best, i.e. most randomly poetic, spam subject lines I receive (a sport I first learned of here), today's winner is:
Ballerina Alchemists Inside 44.
Cause, really, don't we all have 44 Ballerina Alchemists inside?
Picture if you will the hive of the noble honeybee: Row upon tidy row of waxen hexagonal cells staffed by diligent workers making their rounds, cheerfully performing a host of duties. Some are tending to the brood, feeding the larva on nectar and delicious royal jelly . Some surround the queen, protecting and feeding her while she continually lays eggs at a rate of up to six a minute. Others workers generate heat to keep the hive at a cozy temperature year-round. Workers returning from their pollen-gathering excursions dance merry little jigs to indicate the position of nectar-bearing flowers to their hive sisters. The beehive is a model of unity and industry, each citizen working hard and understanding their place in the grand scheme. Every member works unselfishly to serve the greater good, and the fruits of their labors are sweet indeed.
Now contrast this idyllic scene to the den of the decadent wasp: A veritable shantytown of slapdash construction, cobbled together with a mixture of scavenged, redigested woodpulp and wasp saliva into a nauseous brown lump that hangs, off-kilter, from its treebranch or porch-eave like some swollen, leprous malignancy. Within, row upon asymmetrical row of the familiar hexagonal cells, their flimsy paper construction a twisted mockery of the sturdy beeswax structures of their honey-making cousins.
But these cells contain no such storehouses of sweetness; indeed, the scene here presented is by comparison one of unspeakable horror. Here, the marauding wasps return with their hapless, paralyzed prey: the spider, the caterpillar, and yes, even our friend the trustworthy honeybee. These prisoners are encased in cells after the wasps lay eggs inside their very bodies, so that their carcasses can serve as a food source for the larva when they emerge from within their egg casings. And emerge they do, wave upon wave of the malevolent airborne menaces, sallying forth from the nest in a relentless quest to secure their perimeter and amass more food.
Like honeybees, wasps have a taste for the sweet nectar of the blossoming flower, but produce no nourishing honey as by-product of their feasting. The sugars they crave serve as nothing more than fuel for their one true goal: expansion of the nest and preparation of the next wave of soldiers in their wasp army. Unlike honeybees, they also evidence a profound fondness for raw meat, making them the bane of many a backyard barbecue, where they are prone to land on the uncooked hamburger patties of unsuspecting picnickers, heedless to any pre-existing claims to these most American of foodstuffs.
Yes, that’s right, dear reader. While well-intentioned Americans have remained oblivious, right under our very noses the incursion of wasps has penetrated to very heartland of this great nation and found our defenses there lacking. Now even the most cherished of family traditions, from front-stoop cigarette breaks to backyard Fourth of July barbecues, must exist under the darkening cloud of this most perilous of threats to our national well-being.
It is unfortunately all too common for well-meaning yet naive observers to confuse wasps with their beloved apian cousins, honeybees. In the familiar black-and-yellow stripes those inclined to don the rose-colored spectacles of foolish optimism believe that they see the telltale markings of our honey-secreting insect friends. It is important to note that there are crucial differences. The furry, lovable bee is of a more robust and rounded, jolly appearance, whereas the wasp tends towards a feral slenderness and glossy metallic sheen. The wasp also tends to grow to a more pronounced size, most noticably where their longer thoraxes terminate into the fierce stingers for which they are so widely known and rightly feared.
In the application of this sting resides perhaps the most important difference between the two, for while the honeybee stings only in defense of the hive and in so doing dies, by contrast the wasp is free to sting again and again with no apparent ill effects, and is thus far more inclined to do so at the slightest whiff of provocation. A honeybee stinging an intruder is selflessly sacrificing itself for the good of the hive and the glory of its queen; Not so the treacherous wasp.
Nor do the differences end there...
2:09 PM:
For weeks now, the nest on the eave of our front porch has been growing, waxing ever more pendulous and sinister beneath the weight of their numbers and the gravity of their machinations. A growing army of wasps has taken up occupancy there, menacing the comings and goings of this house’s residents and visitors. As their numbers have increased so too has their boldness, until they now conduct themselves as though they were the owners of this home and we the parasitical hangers-on. So confident they are in the impunity granted them by their vaunted stingers that they show not the slightest wariness of any human presence, and in fact they respond with no small bit of alarm and territoriality to the slightest hint of provocation. One need merely slam the front door a touch too forcefully to bring down their wrath, as masses of these insectoid thugs deploy to investigate the disturbance and report back the intelligence they gather to the shadowy wasp overlords that reside within the recesses of their dark paper fortress.
How long shall good people stand by and do nothing while this peril to our persons and to our very way of life is allowed to continue unchecked?
They’re out there. On the porch. Right now. Lurking. Plotting. Laughing at us. Oh, how they laugh. They laugh and laugh andlaugh in their tiny metallic insect voices.
Damnable wasps.
How I despise them.
A good-looking and well-groomed twenty year old boy just got on the bus wearing a shirt bearing the slogan: "You laugh at me because I’m different. I laugh at you because you’re all the same." As I glance around the bus I notice two things about its occupants: One, they are a remarkably heterogenous collection, representing a wide cross-section of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. I can hear at least three different languages being spoken, from the two teenage girls in the seat behind me conversing in Spanish to the tiny eighty year old women at the front of the bus speaking loudly to herself in Chinese. The architects in the seat in front of me are discussing the weight-bearing properties of hyperbolic paraboloids, which is technically English but should probably qualify as a foreign language.
The second thing I notice is that nobody is, in fact, laughing at this boy. Nobody is paying him any mind at all. I am wondering what desperate trauma he has undergone to leave him feeling that people are all laughing at him for some reason. There is a middle-aged black man sitting on the aisle beside me, and as I notice him noticing this kid I imagine him asking himself a similar question: "Why do you feel so persecuted, handsome young white boy?"
Maybe the other kids in his High School made fun of him? Who knows. I momentarily consider the possibility that he just doesn’t know what his t-shirt says, which sends me off on one of my cruellest flights of fancy since the "donate your old clothes to the blind" flyers showed up on our doorstep. (Am I the only one who finds this suggestion a little insulting? I mean, what exactly are they implying? )
Tangent #1:
"Well, the first thing we do is find a local literacy program. We approach the program coordinators and explain our idea of helping out by printing free T-shirts for program participants, as well as clarifying our agenda and methodology. Then we print up the shirts, each one bearing the official logo accompanied by a short slogan. Now we tell the recipients of these shirts that the slogans say things like "Change a life. Give the gift of literacy" or "Franklin County Literacy Outreach Lifelong Literacy Program."
But the t shirts are actually emblazoned with cheerful, engaging slogans like "Ask me about Proust!" or "Call me Ishmael" or "Hyperbolic Paraboloids: Weight-bearing and loving it!" Etc – the sort of things sure to provoke questions and conversation from strangers. Ice-breakers, if you will.
Nothing too insulting, mind you. No "I’m with Stupid^." The goal is just to generate plenty of entertaining confusion as the budding readers go about their business and are forced to field incomprehensible questions from literate strangers regarding the messages written across their chests. A day or two of this would prove highly motivational and loads of fun besides! Once the students have realized the little joke we’ve played, everybody can have a good laugh about it. Talk about a win/win!
Sadly, we won’t ever be able to enjoy this final phase, for even as the truth begins to dawn on our beneficiaries, we will have already moved on to the next town, bringing the joy of literary humor to yet another lucky group of men and women. But we can rest easy knowing we have left such a trail of good feelings in our t-shirt-wearing wake."
By the time I come back from this tangent I see that I’m at my stop. I start to get off the bus and the bus driver yells at me, demanding payment.
"Didn’t I pay when I got on?", I ask, befuddled because I’m certain that I did.
"I don’t know, did you?" he demands.
"Oookay…." I say, stalling while I grope around in my pocket for a transfer. People are waiting on the curb because I am blocking the entrance. They look irritated.
As I am pulling out my transfer and showing it to the bus driver, he says, sarcastically:
"Do me a favor. What does this sign say?" He taps the sign with his finger.
"Uhhh… pay as you leave?" I offer feebly.
"That’s right."
I leave the bus feeling stupid. At some point I must’ve passed out of the Pay As You Enter zone, gone through the Ride Free Area, and come back out in a Pay As You Leave Zone. Note to self: always get a transfer, or you could end up being trapped on the bus forever, unable to disembark.
A pioneering foray into yet another popular work-avoidance pastime of the early twenty-first century: the Blog! A forum for amateur authors or anybody with unsupervised access to a computer, allowing them to publicly air their:
1. opinions about politics
2. feelings of personal inadequacy
3. painstakingly detailed documentation of day-to-day mundanities (yes, I know that's not a real word.)
4. photographs of pets
5. tales of unrequited love
6. tales of requited love (the smug bastards!)
7. ruminations about the meaning of life, the existence/non-existence of God/an afterlife/higher states of being/karma/reincarnation et al.
8. fashion tips
9. trenchant observations about the human condition
Undertaken because at some point I realized I had to stop living vicariously through the comment sections of others.