Twenty Two - Melting Stuck

It was a warm and moist evening the day that I learned an important lesson that has stuck with me ever since; stuck to me like a reminder note stapled to your chest saying 'don't forget to buy bandaids, for some bafflingly unknown reason you need them often, oh and don't forget to get a new box of staples too, maybe two, oh and remember to start writing your reminder notes in a smaller font, this 26 type really makes these notes large, and it's a total waste of staples'. Yep I'm talking stuck to me like a daily routine.

The hit new movie 'Gargoyles; And We're Not Talking The Concrete Ones On Buildings, We're Talking Live Ones, Ones That Don't Want YOU Alive' had just come out, and people were saying that it was the best overly long named movie of the whole summer. I remember personally even thinking 'those Gargoyles are BIG, and they are popular NOW!' One reviewer went as far as saying that the weird gibberish that the gargoyles spoke as they ate people's spleens was 'infectious'. 

He was right too of course. Gargoyle fever had spread around the culture like a virus that had attached itself to an airborne sickness of some sort that was spread around by some sort of bug, probably mosquitos, or possibly flies that had bred with mosquitos and had babies that were called flies but genetically speaking were mostly mosquito, that spread around a virus that had a symptom of a fever, a fever for Gargoyles. 

This was something I knew a thing or two about. I've started many trends that have turned it to be infectious. My recent 'jam a meat cleaver in your forehead like a unicorn horn' was so infectious, that the infection was sometimes dripping down my face.

But during this Gargoyle infection I was in a sticky situation, as due to my epically strong immune system, and because I found the CGI to be slightly substandard, and mostly because I don't follow trends, I START them, I just could not catch Gargoyle fever. It was awful, I hate when everyone has a sickness I can't catch. But I didn't need to wait long for a solution.

Little did everyone know that the 'Pet Gargoyles' I'd been making and selling as a way to capitalize on the trend, were glued together with a concoction made from my earwax, and puss from a bafflingly unwarranted weird wound I had on my head, that wouldn't stop leaking. The concoction turned out to be full of a virus, and the virus was infectious, and the virus acted in a way completely unpredictable, by acting unpredictably predictable, and it spread throughout the land. Soon the infection was all anybody talked about, which was funny because no one could hear due to an, I'm sure unrelated, outbreak of severe ear infections, that had almost everyone oozing with earwax.

I'm sure you all remember the great Waxing of 99'. It was awesome. EVERYONE was waxy, so no CARED about being waxy. 

We went sledding down slippery mountains of wax, we wax-boarded down mountains of sand, and we sand-sled up mountains made of board and wax, we shot eery horror movies in the fog down by the wax marshes, witches cast spells in bubbling cauldrons of wax, spells that made it possible for us to watch TV on our wax boxes, and watch great shows like '101 uses for your wax', 'Game Of Waxes', 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of this Wax, and 'How I Waxed Your Mother', we practiced our gymnastic jumps and flips with the safety of knowing we'd land softly and safely in pits of wax, we lay on our backs in parks and philosophized while trying to spot shapes in the floating by wax clouds, and we waxed lyrical after poetry readings while sipping on warm mugs of caffeinated Wax Sludge at hole-in-the-wall Waxfés, 

I even heard a couple once had a romantic dinner by the beautiful flickering light of a wax candle, and then made love in a room filled with beautiful burning wax aromatherapy pots, which would be beautiful if it wasn't so gross, eeeew romance. 

Everyone was having fun, except for me of course, I got epically distracted watching Seinwax, and suddenly I turned around and realized seven months had passed and the Gargoyle Fever had gone, and I still had three Pet Gargoyles in stock, meaning I'd probably have to sell them at a fifty percent off my regular retail price of four times production costs, which were zero. God damn it. This was going to cost me tonnes! Which made me think of the term 'a shit ton' which I hate, because no on can tell me if that's a metric or an imperial tonne? Meaning anytime I wanted to get out of something annoying, like helping Kev carry his sofa over to against the wall to see if his missing hamster was hiding under there, I'd have to compile two piles of shit, one a tonne and one the other size of a ton, to justify saying 'can't mate, got a shit ton of work'. 

Yep, it was horrible. But sometimes something horrible can lead to something good. Like one time was walking into a Gothic Cathedral and a Gargoyle fell off and landed on me, hurting me emotionally and rupturing my spleen, but I got something valuable from it, an idea for a completely original movie, it's about spleen eating Gargoyles! It's FRESH and it's NEW. I totally plan on writing it one day and selling it for millions! And this particular evening's horror was no exception, I learned a valuable lesson - when you have something to do, never ever EVER delay, not even for one second! 

As I circled the man from the photos in the restaurant library NOW I thought about this lesson. This was a lesson I would put to good use NOW, and the outcomes of it would be BIG. 

There's more to come*

*In the meantime I recommend re-watching some old episodes of Seinwax, remember the one where Jerrwax dumped a girl because, ha ha, because, ha ha, she drank her Caffeinated Wax Sludge at Monk's Waxfé with a straw*!!! It was HILARIOUS. 

*And yet drank her Caffeinated Wax Shakes WITHOUT a straw!  

It's called love people

I know what you're thinking - 'I own a pet dog/ cat/ possibly a ferret or some other thing from the rodent family, and I think it would be fun for both it and I, if I were to print out a picture of a squeaky bone/ dead bird/ I don't know, what's in those pellets? Pigeon toe-nails and horse hoof? So I guess maybe a hollowed out hoof filled with pigeon toes, and take that picture, staple it to my face, and then have an extra special fun time playing with my pet, but I don't know where to start?' 

Well I'm glad you came to me, because I can absolutely help you with your dilemma here. Here are some steps I highly recommend you taking immediately: 

First up: try and figure out what EXACTLY your pet is. There is no point stapling a picture of a dead bird to your face, when a horse hoof bowl of pigeon toes was a better option. 

Here's is a fun trick you can play to tell exactly what sort of pet you have: - Get a jar of peanut butter.

- Now cover your hand in it, the peanut butter that is, you don't want to use the jar, because if it is glass it may break and cut you, we're not doing anything crazy today.

- Now slowly insert your entire hand deep into the throat of your pet.

- If your pet now licks it up, and possibly gnaws off several fingers, congratulations! You have a dog. Wow, s/he's strong! 

- If your pet says 'meow' in a tone that you can easily translate to mean 'no chance dude, I'm way too swift and agile for that' then nicks off, climbs a bookshelf and knocks down all of the pictures of your deceased family members, then congratulations! You have a kitty! Awww, I'm jealous. 

- If your pet explodes into a spray of flesh chunks, hair and peanut butter stuck to rodent organs then, commiserations, you had a rodent, but you can get a new one at the pet store for a buck twenty five, or get one in the sewer for the simple cost of a piece of cheese, a net, and a tip off from the mob as to where they typically dump corpses these days, find a fresh enough corpse and you may even find six or seven new pets!

By now you should know what sort of pet your dealing with, if it's the third one I hope you paid that mob guy for the tip, or else it will be YOU helping people get pets next week, ha ha. 

Secondly: Now it's time to talk logistics, so let's get practical.

Please do NOT use a typical desk stapler. Those require pressure from both sides, so squeezing your head between the arms could be awkward, and pressing on the back of your skull may hurt a tad, we don't want pain here. Plus the only way to get one of those is to steal one from work, which is just plain wrong, don't you know that the work experience kid needs to steal those to support his new glue habit? And if you steal them first he'll have to start stealing the office glue, which would be awful, because stealing is wrong.   

Instead I recommend that you use an industrial curtain mounting stapler. Your local curtain mountaineer will probably let you borrow theirs if you distract them by lighting their storerooms on fire. I recommend going with a chemical fire, they're harder to put out, which buys you time, plus the smells can be delightful. 

(Bonus points: Got a significant other? Nick a fabric sample book, you may be able to finally stop them complaining that you never help decorating your home, plus they usually have a good twenty - fifty samples, so you've got birthdays and Christmases covered for years!) 

Once it's time to jam this metal into your face I recommend that you do NOT aim for the eyes, sure it's a softer entry, but eyes won't grip as tight as say forehead, which means you may end up with several re-insertions, which could cost you valuable play time. 

Thirdly: Well that's all the important stuff out of the way, now I just have, well, I guess it's a personal opinion to get across, which I normally don't like to do when giving advice, but I feel like it should be said - ARE YOU INSANE, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU STAPLE A PICTURE OF A SQUEAKY BONE, A DEAD BIRD OR A HORSE HOOF BOWL OF PIGION TOES TO YOUR FACE???????

Are you just fucked in the head? 

I mean seriously, if you genuinely love your pet, why wouldn't you staple an ACTUAL squeaky bone, dead bird or horse hoof bowl of pigeon toes to your face? 

It's called love people, and your pets deserve it. 

Lettuce Learn

We've all been there before, you've just made a very special trip to the supermarket to buy a head of lettuce, and you get home and discover ...(Dum dum dum)... The fridge was already full! 

Suddenly all sorts of thoughts race through your mind like a car race full of cars racing other cars that look like they're the same type of car but end up being vastly different types of cars, at least based on how fast they can race, thoughts like:

- Ah man

- seriously?

- Crap 

And sometimes even...

- Ah crap, seriously? 

But I'm here to tell you, it's not the end of the world, no no no, it's not, it just FEELS that way. And feelings are often valid, so even though right now I am about to suggest your feelings in this scenario are not valid, I don't want you to stop having feelings all together, and just to make sure of it, here are three things that should make you have feelings:

1. Floods, like really bad ones.

2. The price of potato chips made from organically sourced potatoes. 

3. A tiny little kitten or puppy, depends on your personal preferences, or even a baby bunny, turtle or pigmy giraffe, sitting in your lap, and it can speak English, and it now says 'I'm the one who stole your campervan'.

Alright, you should all be feeling feelings now. If you ARE currently feeling feelings then feel free to forage ahead in this blog. If not please seek help. And then once you get one of those fancy feeling facilitating injections they sell down the ally behind the liquor store you may return and then read ahead. 

Let's take a quick pause and wait for the people in scenario two...

...

...

Alright we're back. Doesn't that feel great to feel stuff? Good for you. Ok, NOW STOP FEELING LIKE IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD THAT YOUR HEAD OF LETTUCE WONT FIT IN THE FRIDGE! 

Look, I get it. You saw on TV, a healthspert, saying 'eat more salad or you may not live beyond a hundred' and you've thought 'but what about my dreams of banging Dakota Fanning's grandkids'! We've all been there. So you race, RACE, to the supermarket, just like the cars we mentioned earlier, and you've bought yourself a beautiful, bulbous, big, juicy, throbbing head of iceberg lettuce, and you've promised yourself to eat at least the outside three layers, and now disaster has struck. But you DO have options, and here they are:

- Sometimes people dump refrigerators on the side of the road, and occasionally these refrigerators have doors, no blood from murder victims in the crevices, and even motors. Simply haul one back to your house and stick your lettuce head in there.

- In certain areas beyond the Arctic-circle, on top of the Himalayas, and inside lawyers hearts (zing) the temperature never gets above freezing, just stick your lettuce head in one of those spots. 

- Experts say that if you've gone more than six months without regularly eating salad and then eat a whole head of lettuce you're an idiot, and will probable get diarrhea, wouldn't it feel nice to prove an expert right for a change? YOU get to be right in your job occasionally you selfish dicks, experts NEVER get to experience this. 

- Grab ten bottles of beer, your lettuce and a hallway and you've got bowling! Wow your lettuce us getting you active, that's a health win! (Rules:  every bottle you get down your opponent chugs. Every bottle you miss you chug, Boom).

- Remember if you pass on banging Dakota Fanning's kids you can chuck the lettuce out, grab a slab of bacon and focus on her kids. Or even her. She's only like nineteen herself you animals. Eat your bacon and have a nice long think about yourself. 

- You can easily pull your lettuce apart layer by layer and cover your passed out roommate in them for a fun practical joke. Remember if your really want the joke to sing you'll need to staple in each leaf in place.

- Or just take up illegal street car racing, by the end of the week you, and three innocent school kids walking home from killing it in their science exams will be dead, and you don't need lettuce in hell! Actually it's probably nothing But salads in hell, why did you ever want to eat it here too? 

So there you go, your disaster has been mitigated. Well I'm off, I hear Mike down the ally behind the liquor store has a new injection that can make you feel sound! I'm sure I'll see you all down there. 

Really, really costly

Here is an exchange I just witnessed.

Frantic woman: Excuse me sir, I am really sorry to bother you, but I lost my wallet and I desperately need $5 so I can get home.

Naive looking man with welcoming grey beard and smile while pulling out cash: I don’t have a five, only twenties sorry.

Woman: I wouldn’t ask, but I am really, really desperate, you couldn’t give me a twenty if I gave you back a ten?

Man: Um, Um, Um, well, you know.

Women pulling out a ten: Please, I really need it.

Man, reluctantly hands over a twenty and takes the ten.

Woman turns around and as soon as he can’t see her anymore her frantic face changes into a beaming smile and she walks away with a smug skip.

The conclusion is obvious – the bus in Sydney must cost FIFTEEN DOLLARS!!! Why are you smiling lady, you should be OUTRAGED at having to pay that much to get home. Less smiling and more writing to your local government representative lady!!!!

I guess the real question is have you ever staple gunned your face to another persons face? It hurts but you end up getting to know them better.