Fourteen - A Carrot Of Temptation

It was in a cold and musty room where I discovered the impetus which would lead to my special skill. There was a painting on the wall of a man on a wall. On the window sill sat a glass model of a boy making glass. On a table to my left was smaller table, and on that an even smaller table, and on that a yet even smaller table, and on that was a much, much, much larger table, fortunately the first table was about the size of a gnat, so the whole contraption only wobbled slightly, unfortunately someone had put on the table an overfull vial of a newly government developed super flu, and the vial toppled over and spilled, leading to EVERYONE getting the flu. 

I'm sure you all remember the Great Fluing Of '98. It was awesome. EVERYONE was phlegmy, so no CARED about being phlegmy. We all played with tadpoles in phlegm puddles. We went on the phlegm slides at Wet And Gooey Phlemg Recreation park. We rested our weary bones in relaxing phlegm jacuzzis. We swung off ropes into phlegm rivers. We went phlegm skiing across the local phlegm lake behind phlegm shooting speed boat propellers. And we made beautiful love in the phlegm grotto at the Playboy mansion (although technically that had been there since the sixties and so was not part of the great fluing of '98). I even heard three toddlers learned to blow their OWN noses. It was so sweet, it was their first time doing something their older sisters were trying to teach them. And it was also kind of gross, they held those tissues with their fingers, do you know how DISGUSTING toddlers' fingers are? Ewwwww.

Everyone was having fun. Except me of course. As the first person to have this particular strand of flu I got the blame, which is stupid! I mean I was also the one hired by the government to chemically develop the flu, out of some fly feces, six vats of melted treadmill tread, the phlegm of a hundred Phlegm Tailed Canyon Condors (which don't actually exist, obviously, who's stupid enough to believe such in an obviously mythical bird? Mythical things aren't real you dicks - These Condors are actually just Doves with Meryl Streep's used tissues from her crying scenes in Sophie's Choice stuck on them using the seaman from a werewolf), and the memories of two ghost monkeys fighting in a burlap sack, so surely THAT'S why I deserved to get the blame. People are such morons. 

Plus it's not my fault everyone fell for my practical joke, you know the one where I announced everyone on earth had to lick my used dinner plates or I'd release the ghost monkeys in THEIR houses.

People are so stupid, everyone knows it's annoying and tedious to try and entice ghost monkeys out of burlap sacks, do I look like someone who would do something annoying and tedious? Yes I do, obviously. And it's so boring doing something you look like you'd do. Do I look like someone who would do something I look like I'd do? Yes, clearly. So I'm NOT going to do something boring am I? That's why I pulled the practical joke in the first place, because one day Kev said 'wow you look cool today', and I was like 'so you're saying that I'll do stuff other than be cool, cause why would I look cool AND act cool, you're such a dick'. So I had to do something cool to show him! 

It was only after the seventeenth person was licking my seventeenth now empty plate of gnocchi in hash-brown sauce that something unprecedented and unique hit me 'I'm sort of full,  in fact I have been nearly all week since I started this, maybe I could just spit in people's mouths instead for a while'.

And that's what made me realize something even unprecedenteder and uniquer 'also I have tons of this flu in vials at home, I could just put it in the water supply'. 

And that's when something even unprecedentederer and uniquerer struck me in the face 'or I could just NOT spread the flu to everyone'.

And that's when something slapped my very soul with epic levels of 

unprecedentedererist and uniquererathons 'nah fuck that, why should I be the only one who feels a tad sick!' 

So I went back to eating gnocchi in hash brown sauce, and kept it up non-stop for the next three months, before I was hospitalized with a rare form of Potato Poisoning. I don't know how I got it, I hadn't eaten potato in years. I must have got it while melting the treadmill tread, some dick must have been eating potatoes while working out. Idiots. 

Three years in the hospital getting your veins one by one taken out and scraped of potato residue can give you some time to think. And I hate thinking, so I watched LOTS of TV. But then one day the TV broke, and I was FORCED to think. 

I began to feel proud. The great Fluing had happened because of ME. And, outside of the unprecedented levels of suffering, it had brought joy to the world, I'D done that. And I'd done it by making a BIG decision and making it THEN (which at the time was NOW). If I could do that I could do ANYTHING! I controlled my own destiny. If I wanted a special skill all I had to do was decide to get one. And that's why I made a BIG decision and I made it NOW! 

I decided to only ever make BIG decisions from NOW on. And the first one I made, and I made it BIG, was that as soon as I figured out how to do it, I'd decide to have that special skill right NOW. And that's just what I did. 

There's more coming to town*

*the town of Inthisstoryville*

*which would be a badass place to live, I bet they'd have cool things, like maybe they'd even have a local park, and parks are badass, and badassness is awesome, and awesomeness can be cool, wow now THAT be worth enticing out of a burlap sack! 

Off the top of my head

I know what you're thinking... 'My favorite hat is great! It's stylish, it looks good on my head, I look good with my head under it, and just ONE of those things would make headless people jealous of us, it's never once whipped me to a bloody pulp with a bike chain on a Tuesday, together we've solved more crimes than most envelope paper cuts, when lit on fire we're easy to spot on snow fields, since we've been together very few South East Asian Sea based islands have been sited sneaking off to the North West Moldavian Tar Pits, and it pairs well with two, maybe even three of my favorite belts, it's a GREAT hat! Yet, well, it's just that sometimes I think it's unsatisfied, do you think maybe it secretly wishes it could try being a sock?'

Well I know your pain. Lucky for you I have a special skill, the skill of knowing the exact signs that YOUR hat secretly wants to try being a sock, and these include and are strictly limited to the following: 

- It's always oddly quiet when you ask it if it thinks you should update your sock collection. 

- It once said 'Oooh, I'd let someone hide their jewelry in the ME draw'. 

- When you and it are on fire in the snow it always says 'I'm jealous of your socks' but NEVER clarifies 'you know, because they're in the snow and therefore not as hot as we are'. 

- Sometimes when it's startled by a spider instead of leaping with fear it merely sighs 'think of all those feet'.

- When you hang it on a hatstand near a fish tank it's always looking at the space below the fishes legless bodies and saying 'what a waste'. 

- Once, as a nice gesture before a big exam it had to sit at Hat University (HU), you gave it a lucky rabbit's foot, but instead of saying thank you it shoved you to the ground and screamed 'WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT THAT?' and you replied 'sorry, sorry, I know you're not the superstitious sort' and it yelled 'NO NO NO, it's not that, it's that it's CRUEL! I mean the poor thing is fucking NAKED!' 

- Sometimes when it's giving you a foot rub, and you say 'alright, that's enough, time to put my shoes on and go to work' instead of stopping it only seems to rub harder. 

- When one of your socks goes missing after you've done laundry it's often seen nearby blushing. 

- Once it said 'I'd kinda like to try being a sock one day, nah screw that, I'd REALLY like to try being a sock one day'. 

- It's a hat shaped like a foot. 

So there you go, feel pain no more, you no longer have to wonder, you can now KNOW if YOUR hat wants to have a go at being a sock. 

Oh and yes, I've been saying YOUR hat, because, ha ha, that would NEVER happen to me, what kind of an idiot gets themselves the sort of quandary where your not sure what your hat is thinking? You people are SO strange. Ha ha, I avoid nonsense like that by having daily heart to hearts with MY hats. 

Ps. Hat university? What a lame name. Come on hat centric higher learning establishments, there's no People University for fuck sake! Plus I've heard about your prejudice against berets in the Actuary Department, for fucking shame! 

Pps. Stop making your hat wonder and just let it have a go as a sock for fuck's sake. What are you scared of. Being killed? That's ludicrous. The famed People Wearing Hats As Socks Slasher hasn't been active in months! 

Things like chopsticks

Oh man if I was holding a bowl of rice right now the things I would do, the THINGS I WOULD DO!! Oh yeah, I'd do things. THINGS I tell ya!

Oh yeah I'd do things like COUNT the rice! 

I would. 

I would.

I so would count the rice. 

One, two, three AND so on! 

Like that wouldn't be the end, there'd be more than that, the so on bit...

Eight, nine, ten even! 

Fucking ten!

Oh man, if I was holding a bowl of rice right now there could TOTALLY be as many as ten rices! 

Depending on the size of the bowl.

Wow. 

Potentially ten! 

Oh man, if there were more than ten rices the things I would do, the things I WOULD DO, oh yeah I'd do things! I'm talking THINGS! 

Things like name other things that come in more than ten. 

Oh hell yeah I would.

I'd count things that come in more than ten things harder than mice count hammers in hardware stores they've broken into and don't want to be hammered in. 

I SO would. I'd count things that come in more than ten.

Trees, people, types of hat AND so on. 

Like that wouldn't be the end. I'd count even more that. If there ARE more. And there might be? Who knows? 

Well If I had that bowl of rice, then potentially I would know! 

Depending on whether there were more than ten rices. 

Which there may well be!! 

Depending on the size of the bowl size.

And most bowls aren't tiny! 

That means, to my best guess at least, that there could be at least six more things that come in more than ten! At LEAST six.

Wow. Oh man. If there were more than six more things that come in more than ten the things I would do. Things I'm saying. THINGS! 

Things like trying to remember things. Things I tell you! 

I LOVE remembering things.

I'd remember things like things that I've previously encountered like the way rats remember which hardware stores their mouse friends have been hammered in! 

I would totally remember things that had happened before. 

The past, times before now, historical occurrences of my existence AND so on.

Like that wouldn't be the end. Because WHILE I was saying that other things had happened. Like a rodent ate all my rice.

Oh fuck.

Everyone Does

Today's been one of those days. Yes THOSE days. You know the ones? Everyone does. Where you wake up and get slapped in the face, and you go 'hello, what's this, a kidnapping, yaaaaayyy' and then it's not that, so you go 'it's not a kidnapping, that's strange, then what is this?' and a murky shadow of silence whispers 'actually it would he strange if it WAS a kidnapping' and then you go 'says who' and it goes 'just about everyone actually' and you go 'actually I don't think "everyone" ever has the same relationship to experiences you dick, plus you still haven't answered the question, if it's not a kidnapping, then what IS it?' and then it goes 'it's TRUTH!' And then you go 'how can murky shadow of "silence" whisper' and it yells back 'I was being mysterious you dick!' 

We've all been there. And there is nothing you can do but RECKON with that truth, because that murky shadow of silence has a bad attitude, and who wants to deal with THAT? Frankly if a murky shadow of silence doesn't have a good attitude I don't even want them in my room pre-dawn.

So right now I'm reckoning with truth. And that's hard, because truth is subjective. 

Like take this undeniable fact: 

'Quitting pie is often the fastest way to delinquency! The fastest!'

It's as true as the sky is blue, and the hue is too, but rarely is glue and that you shouldn't try to poo out a screw. 

And it's especially true for kids that are part of the 'jam them full of pie, that'll stop them being delinquent I reckon. But still, hey, between you and me, how cool is delinquency man! It's a gem. It's got mischief, shenanigans no good up toness, and sometimes even thieving, and theiving is super fun, especially when you realize realistically that you can just about always thieve delicious stuff, oooohh stuff like pie, mmmm pie, I could go some pie right now, wish we didn't give it all to these little delinquent shits, let's go steal some' program. 

Which if you ask me was a fine program, super fine even. 

And well, sure it had its draw backs, the name was a tad long, and some of its developers turned out to be thieves, and over all it proved to increase, rather than decrease, total delinquency, but hardly any of the kids on the program were delinquent while they were actually eating the pie.

Well, sure some of them were truant from school while they were eating the pie, but I think that has just as much to do with the fact that sign ups for the program happened during school hours, and right in front of the school, and on test day, so you can't blame them for that particular act of delinquency, the truancy that is. 

But when the program ran out of pie almost every one of them turned to delinquency. Especially seeing as they ran out of pie at 2:43am and all of them had curfews between 11pm and 1am. Oh and also because the pies turned out to be laced with drugs. Which were illegal in the town this program began. 

Regardless of these small obstacles though, TRUTH shone through. Stopping eating pie led to delinquency FAST!

So if you don't want to be a delinquent don't quit pie today. Although I heard delinquency is a gem. So feel free to go that way too. 

Okay, truth reckoned with successfully, it turned out in this case their was no element open to subjective opinion, so that's nice.

But I'm still not satisfied, why DIDN'T the murky shadow of silence want to kidnap me? I'm a good kid.

Also how come no one ever shoved my face full of free pie? It really has just been one of those days. But you know what it's like. Everyone does. 

Boldly doing stuff

'Okay! I'm gonna do it. No no no, I HAVE to do it'. 

That's the type of awesome, pumped up, call to arms as said, nay SCREAMED, by people who do stuff, and more specifically stuff like 'it', and when I hear things like that it reminds me of things. Things like the fact that here at Fleeting Forever we have a bold mission statement: Do stuff. 

And here at Fleeting Forever we're not the type of people who take things lightly. Consider these four points on things we do or do not take lightly:

1. We do NOT take 'mission statements' lightly.

2. We do NOT take 'boldness' lightly.

3. We DO take being places lightly (especially heavy places, like clouds made of refined lead floating in vats of oil, with the vats being on fire, and with cracks in the vats, and with the vats being located above the flimsy ceiling of a children's school, the flimsiness being a result of letting the students do most of the carpentry work, which turned out to be a mistake, despite it being a rousing success at the 'adult school of advanced carpentry: that is carpentry school for students already quite advanced in the skill of carpentry', so the fact that it didn't work at this school baffled school administrators, yet not as much as their failed 'let's let the school's pet gnats decide where to keep vats of dangerous stuff' program, I mean what sort of idiots let the kids pick what sort of school pet they get? Everyone knows kids choose whichever animal is most likely to light stuff on fire!) 

4. And we do NOT take 'have' lightly!

That's right. So at best we could justify taking the decree to 'do stuff' one quarter lightly, but we wont. We CAN'T. Because one quarter is a TINY amount. Consider one quarter of these things:

1. An atom of an ant.

2. The memories of a blind worm.

3. Jupiter.

4. A small breath of air as breathed by a small air breathing air bubble.

Yep, only one forth of that even amounts to anything, and even though that particular one fourth amounts to more stuff than on the entire of planet earth I think we've still proven that a quarter of stuff is nothing. 

We also won't take quarter lightly because if we do then a quarter of us will legally have to jump on that vat, and those school kids will then be crushed and burned due to their own laxidasical and poorly thought out pet choices, and nothing BUT that, which is exactly HOW that should go down. I mean gnats, seriously? Of course they're going to be haphazard with vats, they're totally pissed off their name rhymes with wats, because 'wats' aren't anything, and who would ever want their name to rhyme with something that doesn't at least a quarter exist? 

So we ARE going to 'do stuff'. And because we've talked about it so much already we're going to make sure we do it boldly, and if we're going to do something boldly we're going to make the thing we do a bold thing, and there is nothing bolder than making a bold statement! Except of course there is - making a bold statement BOLDLY! 

Here goes, consider these four boldly stated statements:

1. You shouldn't hug garbage.

2. Spinal Dysophage Disease doesn't sound that nice.

3. Cheese is often kept in the fridge.

4. Being stabbed in the eye sounds unpleasant. 

Boom.

Yeah we fucking did it. Clearly all four of those statements was stated boldly, but one out of four of those statements was also in itself BOLD! And as we've established one out of four of things is kick ass! 

And yes, yes, fucking yes, I hear the doubters, I hear the cries, I hear the naysayers, I even hear he lollygaggers, and I hear the voices of reason.

'Which one was bold'

'Not always'

'Depends what sort of cheese'

'What the hell ARE we?' 

'Yeah, we know, it's a cold dairy product, of course it goes in the fridge'. 

But you can all shut it.

And by 'it' I mean your mouth. 

And by 'shut' I mean something akin to open but not quite, depending on how you feel. 

Because we here at Fleeting Forever do stuff, and when we say that you can once again count that stuff will be DONE. 

By which of course all I really mean is - hey who the fuck left the cheese out on my kitchen bench? Don't you know it's supposed to go in the fridge

Also I think my pet small air breathing air bubble has stopped breathing, anyone know how to give CPR to something with an outer membrane less strong than a gnats pinky toe? I really could do with it living, it's supposed to tell me by tomorrow where I should keep my melting cauldron of liquid hydrogen encased in a crate made out of killer bees! 

Late Saturday Night Thoughts As Delved On Wednesday

Sometimes I can't help but focus on the fact that I'm a silly monkey full of starlight juice, and stars are hard to juice because they're so pulpy, so while you're squeezing them you often get distracted doing Tarantino quotes from Pulp Fiction, which can lead to doing tarantula quotes, and some people claim tarantulas can't talk so you have to throw snakes at them, which are a natural enemy of monkeys, reminding you that focus is hard, and maybe you need to update your glasses prescription. You know? 

Wait, I'm sorry, I take it back. I think it's Thursday now. 

Still, fuck you pulp. 

Thirteen - Crying Darkness

I'd officially made the official decision to develop an amazing new skill and have it made official. And making a decision to develop an amazing new skill is no small thing. It requires an official declaration for one thing. Which can include a lot of annoying paper work. But that's just the start. As surprisingly actually developing the skill can also require some difficulty. Sometimes even extreme lengths are required. And it's tough to get a length officially registered as extreme, so I knew that NO part of this would be easy.

For example I once knew a guy who decided one day to develop the skill of x-Ray vision. To facilitate this he first officially declared that he wanted this skill, obviously. Then he did all the paperwork. And then he plucked his eyes out with a fork, stuck them in the microwave on high for three minutes, then finished them off in the sandwich press for a further four minutes! 

And that's when he realized something NOW, and it turned out to be BIG! 

He realized that he'd accidentally gotten the instructions for developing x-Ray vision mixed up with his own personal preferred method for reheating pizza. 

It was a crying shame too, shame being what he felt in his eye ducts, something they found heart breaking, leading them to leak, and leaking eye ducts always made him sad, and sadness made him cry. 

I mean he'd done SO much to get those instructions. 

This is how it went down - he'd paid a mysterious and scary man in a turban in the back of dark, dark and extremely smokey car wash cafe twelve bucks. And that was no small feat. The the man hardly just offered to sell them for twelve bucks at his regular selling spot, my friend had to MAKE this happen. 

This is how it went down - my friend had gone to get a coffee at his favorite coffee place. He liked it there because he'd always wanted to meet someone who could drive a car, and he thought this was as good as place as any. Plus it was only a ten minute taxi ride from his house. So he'd been going ever day for months hoping to eventually get the confidence to talk to someone. But before he did he saw someone else is wanted to meet even more, this was a NEW goal and it was FRESH! You see he'd spotted a man in a turban. 

This was a HUGE opportunity, and he had to act on it NOW, and in a BIG way. So he immediately smashed the light bulbs out with a chair to create some dark, dark atmosphere. Next he mugged a magician for his smoke machine, and set it up. Then he kicked it a few times because it wouldn't work. Then he looked up instructions on how to make it work on the Internet, where he discovered that the plastic cylinder labeled 'water container' was not indeed a cylinder that MADE water, but rather one that REQUIRED water. So he had to run out and track down the magician. Which was hard, as he had to attend fourteen different magic shows to find him, which sucked because he had to be careful not to watch a single trick being performed, knowing full well that if he couldn't figure out how they did the tricks, he'd have to go back stage and kick the magicians in the kneecaps once for each time he'd been fooled, and he didn't have time for that, because he had a magician to find! Then when he finally found HIS magician he kicked him in the kneecaps and yelled 'that's for not telling me that your machine didn't MAKE water but instead REQUIRED it, you dick!' 

Then he ran back to the car wash cafe, now suitably smokey and dark, dark as he'd desired for the atmosphere he desired, with dark, dark and smokey being his desired atmosphere of smokiness and dark, darkness. 

Lucky the man in the turban was still there. Well not really luckily, some how his car had kept getting mud sprayed on it. By which I mean my friend had mugged a magnetician for his mud sprayer (but that's a whole other story - just know this, the way it went down was fun and exciting, and included bad ass things such as magnets! And even mud!)

He now gingerly and warily approach the man in the turban and gave him a big hug and sloppy kiss, and said 'wow, I've heard about guys like you, and I've heard that guys with those head things, in dark, dark and smokey places always have secret magic! And and I've ALWAYS wanted to experience magic but the opportunity never arises for some reason, it's bullshit, magic people are such dicks, so show me a trick!'

The man in the turban had been caught out, but he wasn't going to give it up yet 'I don't know any tricks, you racist' he replied. 

'Yeah you do' my friend now said with conviction 'you're just scared I won't be able to guess how you did the trick and I'll kick you in the kneecaps, but I won't, unless it's REALLY hard to guess' he added as reassurance.  

'Oh WHAT an OFFER, how could ANYONE resist that' the man in the turban responded with a weird questioning sing-song tone in his voice, a tone that screamed loud and clear, screaming 'you got me!' 

'Okay show me' my friend said.

'I don't want to' came the reply.

'Please?' Came a further request.

'Nah'

'But I want to see one, I really, really want to see magic. Let's say this - I'll hurt if you don't show me. But if you do I promise I won't kick you in the kneecaps if I can't figure it out, I'm not a violent man promise'.

'Nah, still don't want to'. The man in the turban replied arrogantly. 

'Please?'

'Look I don't know any tricks, honestly, but I do have something else' he suddenly said with a cheeky look in his eye. 

'I want it, I WANT it, give it'.

'No pay me twelve bucks'. 

'That's actually very reasonable, why do people resort to violence and muggings so often when perfectly fine financial transactions are available?' 

After an extreme lengthy conversation was had about the nature of economics and the flaws of a capitalist society was concluded, with the required paperwork finished to made the length officially declared extreme, twelve dollars was handed over, and that's when the man in the turban got serious, and handed over a list, that to the layman appeared to just be a list of standard items available at a supermarket. 

'Hey I'm a layman you dick' said my friend 'what is this?' 

'Um' replied the man in the turban 'um, well, um, are there any skills you've been wanting to acquire?' 

'Yes, x-Ray vision!'

'Oh wow, fluke, cause that's EXACTLY what buying these things and delivering them to me here, oh and possibly some other tasks, will gain you, I will give you further instructions on your return!' 

'Of course!' My friend yelled. 'I always wondered why people purchased food at supermarkets instead of just mugging people for it, clearly they've been acquiring x-Ray vision, and now I will too! 

But because he didn't know that acquiring amazing new abilities was hard, he'd gotten too complacent. And decided to go home to reheat some pizza first. And well we all know where that went wrong. 

When he put his sizzling eyes back in his head he realized his fuck up 'ah man' he sighed 'I can only see through stuff if I squint REALLY hard, and everyone seems to have black charcoal colored skeletons, I don't want to see that'.

Then after finishing the man in the turban's detailed and difficult tasks he ended up with three slices of pepperoni deep dish pizza living in his car that use the x-Ray vision THEY got to mock his underwear choices RELENTLESSLY (stock mock: you should wear SOME underwear you gross bastard, seriously, or shower occasionally, maybe both even?) 

I've of course since also mocked my friend relentlessly for the relentless mocking he cops, how could I not? The problem is this man is ME! That's right, I'm my own friend, that's a win for me you dicks! So imagine how much relentless mocking he'd get from me if it was someone else? 

I'd HATE to be mocked that much. That's why I HATE trying to develop new skills now. Unless their importance is BIG, and their importance imminent, in fact so important and imminent that their imminence is important NOW! 

Like it was in the case with this waiter, and luckily I had a skill developed NOW and that's BIG, but to have it now first I'd had to develop it, and its development had to be GOOD and it therefore it had to be developed SMART! 

Here's how I did it...

Explanation coming* 

*Note this explanation includes very little magic, so your risk of having to kick me in the kneecaps is minimal, REALLY minimal! That's the truth, and I ALWAYS* tell the truth

*By the way I lied above, I didn't do my own paperwork. This is how it went down -  I had Kev do it. 

Twelve - Popping Safety Attack

Amazing skills are hard to come by. I once heard of a guy who pick pocketed eight hundred and twenty seven people to try and get a special skill, and he did it at a massive police convention, and he pick pocketed them on the stage in front of ten thousand cops, right after the marching band played and right before the talk on 'staying alert', and he didn't get caught for a single one, and EVEN he didn't acquire his desired special skills, he didn't even get ONE! 

So I don't want you to take your special skills for granted, if you have any, which you don't, but I do, so don't take mine for granted dick.

Here's how I discovered my newest and most amazing skill, the skill to always know when danger lurks:

It was a hot and sweaty day the day this happened, as it was International Sauna Day, and Scandinavians had stormed city squares, parks, gathering spaces, bird nests, beaches, offices of actuaries, food courts with foods from around the world 'yet no Norwegian Pickled Herring Desert Huts?, "around" the world my ass' , football players underwear draws, the inside of hollowed out not yet formed holes in the ground, and even food courts that DID have Norwegian Pickled Herring Dessert Huts, and these Scandinavians had set up Saunas the size of LARGE saunas, REALLY large saunas, and they were screaming at their hostages 'just try it, it's actually really relaxing, why do you think our nations have such low crime rates?' But little did the Scandinavians know that they WERE trying it, EVERYONE was, the Scandinavians had forgotten to close the sauna doors and the whole world had become a sauna! 

I'm sure you all remember the Great Sweating Of '97. It was awesome. EVERYONE was sweaty, so no cared about being sweaty. We went rafting on sweat rivers. And we swam in sweat pools. We splashed about under fire hydrants spraying sweat across roads. And we made love under sweat waterfalls. I heard three Eskimos even went skinny dipping in a warm bubbling pond of sweat. It was their first ever encounter with warm water! It was so awesome! And of course kind of gross, none of them had ever been naked before, and it turns out those Eskimo outfits are a tad sweaty on the inside, yuck! 

Everyone was out enjoying the fun. Except me of course. I don't follow trends, I START them. So I was inside having a bath in ice, a new trend that I'd started after seeing Scandinavians jump in snow after delightful saunas. Man that looked nice, I wish I could try it. 

Just then a REAL LIFE ghost monkey invaded my home! It was running around pushing things over. Breaking stuff. And picking things up it had pushed over then breaking them and pushing them back over. And there was NOTHING I could do. It had disguised itself as a human, so I couldn't call it implausible, I was stuck. 

And that's when it did something BIG and it did it NOW! 

It began screaming at me...

'That's for whipping my brother Kev all the time you dick, among other ways you treat him bad, STOP it!' 

I was dumbfounded. 

'I have NEVER whipped a ghost monkey you dick!' I screamed. 'I only whip my HUMAN friend Kev. How dare you accuse me of that. Cruelty to animals is cruel, and if I did something cruel it would cruel my chances to get into The Society Of People Who Don't Like Cruel Stuff, and I REALLY want to get in to that society, I have a really cruel practical joke I want to play on them. Get this, I'm going change the official records so that some birds I have had officially denied, get put down as having previously existed, but say they were killed off by The Society Of People Who Don't Like Cruel Stuff, then I'm going to release a canary in their office that I'd nailed-gunned bubble wrap too, so they'd think it was a previously thought extinct African Rasping Elephant Vulture, and then I'm going to laugh at them!  I'm just waiting for a canary to volunteer. So I would NEVER be cruel to a ghost monkey, or anything else, you dick!' 

Then I ran out of the house. And I put locks on all the doors, and windows, and covered the entire home in air sealing gel, except one hole, that I used to gas the place, with some of the immense supply of mustard gas I'd found in my dead granddad's (a war hero), home and kept because I had at first misread it as being mustard gaffe, and I thought 'ha ha, can't even spell gas, you idiots', and which I'd been using to set booby traps on my mail box to try and get the paperboy to throw my paper at the front door like they did on those TV shows, and because that lazy paperboy started walking it to my front door instead, three postmen had ended up in hospital. Well done paperboy you dick! 

The ghost monkey seemed to not believe my very truthful explanation though, because I could hear him still breaking stuff, for some reason he really wanted to break my front door, which he did, then he ran down the road, yelling 'you're nuts, you're really nuts'. So I yelled back 'jokes on you ghost monkey, no one likes name callers, you dick!' 

Then I realized something BIG, and I realized it NOW! 

'Oh my god, are you stupid?' I said to myself. 'A ghost monkey can just go THROUGH doors. Therefore it CAN'T break them. Therefore that CAN'T have been a ghost monkey!!!!!!' 

It was now very clear what had just taken place. 

That must have been a ghost LEMUR! And I HAD been whipping a ghost lemur's bother Kev. I mean it had asked me to. I'd never be cruel. But still, whoops. I was SO embarrassed. REALLY embarrassed. 

And thats when I realized I needed to figure out a way to stop things like from keep happening to me. I need to spot danger BEFORE horrible things, like me getting embarrassed, happened again. And I needed to figure out this danger spotting method NOW, and it had to be BIG! 

There's more coming*

*oh I like that one, simple and straight to the point* it's nice to find something purely nice and helpful

*the fun end of a spear, often with blood dripping off! 

Eleven - Hot Endowment Snorts

There's an Ancient Chinese saying of wisdom that I coined recently – ‘If you're headless and you ride a horse you're the headless horseman, but if you're headless and you ride an evil robot dragon that's probably how you lost your head you idiot!’ 

I like this saying for four main reasons:

1. It's very wise.

2. Because I came up with it.

3. It's a reminder that there is danger everywhere, at all times and it wants YOU! 

(Fact: Danger lies in bed at night dreaming of you. It wakes up in the morning and wipes it's phlegmy drool on its still sleeping lover's face just rabid for you. Danger sometimes even sits bolt upright at its desk at work, with steel fire in its eyes, and has to walk over to its boss and say 'mind if I take a quick break boss, I'm feeling insane desire for you again' and sometimes it's boss says 'again? Look you can't take another break until the Harrison account is balanced okay, I'm sick of you letting your personal life come into this office, we're accountants damn it, numbers ARE our personal lives, not deep seated yearning for people' and that makes danger covet you even more, so much so that sometimes it replies 'but boss, please, I don't just yearn you, I CRAVE you, I boil with lustful NEED for you, like a perfectly boiled batch of French Fries' and then danger goes home and thinks to itself 'man sometimes I feel like I missed my calling by becoming an accountant, but you have to take the safe option in life sometimes don't you, I mean I want everyone, especially you, and I can't get them following some fancy pipe-dream "fun" career'. Yep danger wants you BAD! And you may think that you're safe while its at work, but I'll tell ya, when that Harrison account is balanced danger could be on break ANYTIME!)

4. It has a cool evil robot dragon in it.

The wisdom of this saying has affected me deeply, and it's in my deep spots where I make decisions, and my deep spots are always deciding to say to me 'listen to wisdom, and listen to it NOW, then respond to it with something BIG!'

Now if there is one thing people all know about me, it's that if I need to do something BIG, and if it has to be done NOW, then I always, ALWAYS, do that thing NOW, and I make it happen in a BIG way!

That’s why since this saying came into my life, over the following months I instantly made lots of changes. I bought stocks in several mechanics and technology companies, hoping to make some of that sweet evil robot dragon cash for myself. I fired my accountant after I realized he was probably taking way too many breaks. And I started to come up with ways to spot danger BEFORE it got me.

I tried several methods before I found one that worked, walking around yelling 'I see you there, you can't hide from me!' hoping that danger wouldn't know that I was lying. Bathing in squid slime every morning hoping that danger would abhor the smell as much as I did. And having my mate Kev walk three feet in front of me at all times while constantly whipping him with a bullwhip hoping danger would think that I was on its side. All these methods worked at times, but then for some reason strangers would look at me funny, sometimes even with scorn, and I knew that it was danger at work letting me know I hadn't beaten it.

Then God intervened - and gave me a gift. 

God's given me lots of gifts so far in my life, including but not limited to:

- Perfect powers of perception. 

- Dream ability to detect the presence of people who are dicks.

- The skill to pretend to be a ghost monkey for periods up to twelve minutes without a single person pointing out that this was implausible (today I got away with it for nearly twenty eight seconds, which is EASILY within up to twelve minutes).  

- A capacity to never be on a farm for more than four minutes without saying 'a farm, seriously, why would you bring ME here, you dick, why are you ALWAYS bringing me here?' 

- The power to be on a farm and spook the cows WITHOUT spooking the pigs.

- The aptitude to then prove I still wasn't scared of the cows, by climbing into the bull pit.

- The dexterity to say 'yes I WILL really prove it' then slapping a bull in the face. 

- The competence to tell my friends to video what would then take place. 

- Discovering now that that dick Kev had totally worn out my bullwhip, but then having the talent to then only get gored in the soft bits of my torso.

- The intelligence to look up 'ability' in the thesaurus while in the hospital waiting for my wounds to heal.

- And the resourcefulness to tell my friends 'I've been cooped up in a hospital bed all week, you owe me, take me somewhere please, oh I know, some where rural, that'll be a nice change from a hospital for sure'.

And then one day God gave me a yet another new thing: 

- A facility to know whenever danger lurked. 

The waiter had made it clear that clearly he wanted to be really clear in that he was clearly hard to read, and so clearly I had a clear goal in mind, figure out WHY he wanted to be hard to read. 

'Stop that, it's implausible' he said to me as I flawlessly ghost monkeyed throughout the restaurant for twenty eight seconds, 'you're a hero, how can I ever repay you?' He added, adding to his clear need to be hard to read. 

And it was right then that I noticed my danger notifier going off. It wasn't clear why. But that's just how it is when the danger is BIG and in my face NOW, so clearly whatever was about to happen was about to happen NOW, and it sure was going to be BIG! 

To be continued*

*Yes I know that was the first one, but I think sometimes it's okay to go back to the beginning, in fact it probably always is, PERFECTLY* okay! So fuck you if you think it's not. 

*Another word for 'clearly an exaggeration*, what are you trying to hide you dick!' 

*Something I have the dexterity to NEVER do. 

A Moving Tale

'I know I said it, but I was just upset, I didn't mean it, I don't need the ENTIRE world on my side, I just need YOU on my side' said Clarice, with a tear in her eye, and love in her voice, to her husband Greg. 

This panicked him. 

Not because as a surprise he'd hired three local gardeners to start digging up the entire Western Hemisphere and start dumping it on her side of the bed, with at least several wheelbarrow loads expected by the time breakfast was finished, and that he didn't know how to tell her that after braking a handle one of them had borrowed HER shovel.

Nor because as another surprise he'd already had seventeen thousand bulldozers work overnight to dump the entire Eastern Hemisphere onto her side of the bed, and he didn't know how to tell her that some of them had forgotten to take their shoes off before climbing in the bedroom window.

Nor even because he had forgotten to tell those shovel wielders and  bulldozer operators to remember exactly where each individual bit they'd dug up came from so they could put them back exactly where they got them from, meaning now that those bits WERE going back that the odd bit may be put back in the wrong place. 

Not even because of the overtime pay he was going to have to fork out to all these workers to try and figure it out so that the bits were back in at least some place near their origin by the end of the work day so no one would complain at him about their bits missing, knowing full well that once word got out about the pay structure that the bulldozer operators were going to complain about having to share between seventeen thousand for half the world, but the other guys only had to do a three way split, and probably were going to get several more days work than they got too.

And not even because of the complaints he now realized he was going to get from people pointing out that East and West aren't true hemispheres and that if you're going to dump the entire world somewhere to at least break it up into Northern and Southern. 

No he was panicking because he didn't WANT to be on her side of the bed, 'if I did then why the fuck did I spend all that money for the ample space of a king sized' He wanted to scream.

But he didn't. He was more worried about how to tell her that due to a bulldozer operator mistakenly and stupidly taking the suggestion that he 'take a break' literally, that one of her prized paintings of famous sports injuries resulting in horrendous broken bones had been stolen. 

Which was so sad, those were a gift from him that he'd stolen from the Broken Bone Hall Of Fame after she'd told him that 'when it came to present gifting in the near future he should take a break'.

Asshole. If you can't trust a bulldozer operator then who can you trust? It really is just so hard to find good help these days.

Delicious Flying Solutions

I know what you're thinking...

"Dave, I'm constantly being challenged to 'Make A Milkshake Out Of One Of Your Old Shoes' competitions, but I'm just too scared to enter, because they seem so hard to win, help please?"

And you're right, you SHOULD be scared, you're life is on the line! Always! I mean just think about meteorites, ALWAYS think about meteorites. Fact - no one that's ever been killed by a meteorite has since gone on to say 'and it was funny, because I was thinking about meteorites AS it hit me'. Not one. 

And you SHOULD think in question form. Fact - if you think exclusively in questions then by definition you will be unable to answer anything and therefore you will never be wrong again, except maybe about choices in friends, I mean seriously? Harry? That dick NEVER thinks about meteorites. 

And you're questions SHOULD be addressed to me. Fact - I'm ace. 

So I'm proud of you. You're doing great. 

But you're still an idiot. Because 'Make A Milkshake Out Of One Of Your Old Shoes' competitions are fucking EASY to win. You morons.

You just have to go back in time and spend a few months wearing shoes made out of milk. 

Boom. 

Ps. For more information about how to avoid being hit by meteorites buy my book - How To Avoid Being Hit By Meteorites (Advice From Someone You Can Trust Cause He's Been Hit By Less Than Three Meteorites, Or More Precisely Two) By David Tieck, available now at all your favorite meteorite themed Cafe Bookstores (exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere).

Whoops, just gave away another of the tricks - stay in the Southern Hemisphere, I mean duh, they come from UP you morons. 

Don't jump to conclusions!

So this is weird. Get this bullshit. Get a load of this crap. My friend, Joseph, just said to me, 'Dave' he said 'why did you just turn into a living poster advertising the coming tour of a metal band that sings film Noir styled songs, then climb a tree and turn a rainbow into a cloud before burping up some kitchen linoleum flooring'? 

And I'm like 'mate', 'mate' I said, 'you KNOW my dad was part living poster advertising a thrash band that sings Romantic Comedy styled songs and I WILL NOT BECOME MY FATHER, I WILL NOT! So don't question why I didn't become that.

And my friend Roger, the candy flavored rocking-horse was on fire, and the fire was black because it, obviously, was being fueled by dried kraken jawbone, and everyone knows, EVERYONE knows, that if you try to put out a black fire fueled with kraken jawbone with standard rain from a cloud that never was and NEVER will be a rainbow then the black fire rejects the water and instead turns into a brush with a cute stranger whom you can never track down, and that sucks, so I don't know how you treat YOUR friend candy flavored rocking-horses, but no fucking way am I going to do that to MY friend candy flavored rocking-horse, I mean he's already on fire, how much pain do you want him to be in, plus he wouldn't taste as nice all burned. 

And linoleum kitchen flooring just TASTES GOOD! Duh. Of course I ate too much of it. I like the classic black and white checker myself, but an old school pale yellow can be nice too, and I know you think it's out of fashion, but taste doesn't go out of fashion, taste is absolute, taste you can fucking rely on! But ok, I guess it's a tad weird I burped up some scuffed grey. But my linoleum kitchen floor guy is out of town, so I ate some left over from a sample basket he gave me once. Like you've never eaten something that wasn't your absolute favorite because it was free, of course you fucking have. 

So don't be a dick, Joseph' I explained. 

It still sucks though. You know? It's like some people just WANT to think you're weird, even when there is a perfectly logical explanation for everything you do. I mean what a dick. 

I'm so mad I barely sky dived off a bag of scandal like I normally do before bed. 

Oh no, I can't win, now he's going to think missing my routines is weird! 

Fuck you Joseph.