April 21, 2009
-by John Keefner – Deep in the secret bunker of science, wearing a lab coat, cackling a little…
When we were high schoolers, more than a full angst-decade ago, I was part of a great thing. The class of 1999 was the first that had a science club in a long time. And so, we liberated Sturgis from the perils of ignorance and mental oppression. Yes, things were blown up, wings of the high school were evacuated, new school policies were written and then revoked around our actions. But most importantly, the tradition continues with new students going forth and winning the local science fair. (Good job guys!)
And now, I have accumulated the knowledge of a decade to formulate the next generation of thinkers and doers. So, I propose the formation of a new “science club”, but serious, and for adults (we can still blow stuff up though), and it will be in the tradition of the great explorers of past years. It shall be called “The League of Amateur Scientists”. It is waay better than that League of Immature Science, which is all about poo and wieners and leaches.
I have thought long and hard about it. This is the first time that this organization has been publicly announced, although it has been in existence for quite some time. In the past, members of the League were identified from an early age by an advanced computer search that found indicators of great science potential.
The Joy of physics.
For example, Mark. His science aptitude of skipping class and wussing out of important tasks made him a clear successor to the group. Now, his great scientific achievement has made him the unquestioned champion of the evil-overlord pickup sticks scheme. In this devious ploy the evil overlord requires the victim to guess the exact number of pickup sticks required to free his bonds. If he does not guess the correct number, the victim is plunged into a tank of writhing blood sucking eels. After years of computer programming and writing equations with funny made-up symbols on a chalkboard, mostly around Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, he discovered the secret, which shall forever be known to the annals of history as the Foygel-Sobolev-Pethukov-Corey-Klein-Mark Equation.
Also, in a seat of prominence in the League, is B*i@n. B*i@n currently works in a sensitive position with the REDACTED government and so his name and identity is hidden for his, and your, safety. B*i@n first became recognized as a candidate when he constructed his first honest-to-goodness death ray. Well, all Leaguers eventually construct a death ray, but B*i@n did it before he started to cackle.
B*i@n is demonstrating an early prototype of his death ray by illuminating a 23 watt fluorescent light bulb with no wires attached. (Really, I did not edit this picture!). Afterward he complained that his hand tingled and that when all of his sperms died at once, it hurt a little.
Bill Murray was also allowed into our group for a while, even though he was a marine biologist, for his discovery of the jaguar shark and later his statement: “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I’m going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.” Words to live by.
We kicked Bill out when he showed up packing a Glock at our poker game.
And finally, we accept Chris “The Crazy Swede”, the high school exchange student from Sweden, posthumously. He is surely dead, for when he was alive Chris was a candle that shown brightly and burned out quickly. For example, when he put that touch sensitive explosive in the garbage can in time for our jumpy chemistry student-teacher to throw away a piece of paper. That was a good time. Also, that time when he made the batch of perchloric salts about ten times larger than the directions stated and then set it on fire in Mr. Bernie’s hood. That was the day we found out how loud Mr. Paris could shout. Oh, yeah, and don’t forget about that time he willingly and knowingly accepted the gatorade bottle filled with warm water and liquid nitrogen. Seeing his hand swell up after it exploded was great times, great times. Surely he could not have possibly survived college, and so we mourn him, wherever his mortal coils remain, hopefully in a single piece, on hallowed ground.
Now that the League of Amateur Scientists is public, we are accepting applications to increase the number of people who can join. Yes, this decision corresponds with the threefold increase in dues for new members, mostly so we can buy that cappuccino machine our clubhouse needs, but all that is merely coincidence. What we are looking for is the stories of scientists who are on the cutting edge of research, truly explorers and adventurers on the front lines in the battle against ignorance and apathy. You also get bonus points for stories that have explosions that go horribly wrong and yet still miraculously avoid loss of life and limb.
Look back on the long years of amateur science tradition, we see the great exploits of amateur explorers like Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance in the freezing south, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who clawed their way to the towering heights of Everest, and Theodore Roosevelt who beat down the perils of new Brazil with his son Kermit. And so we carry on the tradition of going forth, doing things, maybe not understanding them, but doing it in a very thorough and determined way. To all of you amateur scientists out there, we solute you, and…us too. Good luck and we want to see those applications come in soon.
Famous Quote of the Day:
Steve Zissou: Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks?
Anne-Marie Sakowitz: No, they all share one.
PS We are also looking for projects with all the right stuff. If you think you have a project that the League needs to tackle, we’d love to hear about it. Better yet, go ahead and do it, and get back with us. We’ll be happy to write it up as a journal article and publish with it…er, for with you.
April 18, 2009
by Mark Hufnagel, dedicated talentless hack
A zombie picture. Ahh, bad jokes and bad drawings - it feels good to get back to the basics.
April 13, 2009
- John Keefner, writing from Monument Valley, wondering why people never saw the jet helicopter fly out of that mesa right over there.
The A-Team, MacGyver, and Airwolf – all ‘80s era TV shows that were playing primetime during my early youth. Each one I remember having incredible action scenes, tough characters that fought for the right things and bled red, white, and blue. The reruns are long-gone, but thanks to modern day Digital Video Disk optical technology and Netflix on the internets, I have been able to review these shows and compare them to my youthful memories.
In the A-Team, a team of Vietnam special force veterans do good deeds and fight tyranny all while avoiding capture by the government. The characters were the most memorable ensemble, Mr. T, The Face (Starbuck), Colonel Hannibal Smith feels the Jazz, and Mad Murdock. The plot usually begins with Face and Hannibal luring a victim to their lair where the A-Team agrees to be hired. They break Murdock out of the asylum so he can pilot their aircraft of choice. After some sort of reconnaissance or low-level confrontation, Mr. T builds some sort of armored contraption that the locals use to defeat the bad guys. Often there is a car chase where the driving skills of Hannibal cause the bad guys to flip. Hilariously, the bad guys shout out that they are OK from underneath the flipped vehicle. Also, despite all their firepower and training, the A-Team never actually killed anyone, but merely shot the ground and made tanks of gasoline explode. In the interests of 80’s political correctness no one ever died.
MacGyver is one of my heroes and a major influence in my life. He was the sole reason I like rappelling, have a pocket knife, duck tape, a jeep, and know how to make any number of common household compounds spontaneously explode. Needless to say, MacGyver is the show that does not belong, and so it will be a topic for another discussion.
I only recently rediscovered Airwolf on Netflix. If you had asked me a month ago, I would have told you that Airwolf was a show about a helicopter that came out of a mountain. That was it. Well, it turns out that it is all about a helicopter that came out of a mountain that was stolen from the creator who stole it from the government…and the protagonists JUST KEPT IT. After reviewing the first season, I am excited to tell you all about it. The protagonists are Stringfellow Hawke and Dominic Santini who is Earnest Borgnine. Hawke is the quiet pilot who lives in a cabin up in the mountains somewhere, plays a cello to an eagle, and has a crazy art collection. Hawke has a few other character plots that drive the story, but they are generally unimportant. The cello and the art collection never really got mentioned again after the Pilot episode, which makes me sad. Santini is the lovable crusty, aging sidekick that owns the front-company and apparently knows someone everywhere. I learned that Ernest Borgnine should be everyone’s friend, co-pilot and equity partner.
As it turns out, copyright law is still alive and strong in this world, even when it comes to ’80s content. No thanks to the RIAA and Mark’s threats that I wouldn’t be allowed out of the pit, I have replaced my scan of the official AIRWOLF poster I had on the wall in third grade with an alternative dramatic representation by my own humble hand.
The show’s plotline blows my mind. Are you ready to have your mind blown? Well here you go. The bad guy uses the indestructible, superpowered Airwolf helicopter that he created to explode the testing facility which has most of the administrators who funded the operation. He then flew it to Libya and became a mercenary pilot and started doing other bad deeds. Meanwhile, Hawke and Santini are recruited by a shadowy spy agency headed up by the patch-wearing Micheal ArchAngel to go collect it. I think the show does not require ArchAngel, but why argue against a character with a patch? You lose every time, that’s why. So, Hawke and Santini get Airwolf and fly it back to the US, but then they refuse to give it back to the government because of some agency shenanigans. Everything else that comes after is how ArchAngel secretly funds their flights to go shoot up or save someone. They pretty much stick to the no-people-dying idea as in the A-Team, but it must have aired a half hour later in the evening because he does end up blowing up a couple occupied buildings. End of story.
Why is this show unique, or for that matter, important? Well, the main character plays a cello. He also has a cabin. I want to be a pilot. When I played the violin in 5th and 6thgrade, I was sitting next to a celloist. I am trying to buy a cabin in the mountains. So, there you go, Hawke and I have a lot in common. His struggles are my struggles.
The TV shows of today just don’t hold a candle to that ‘80’s programming. Sure modern day video doesn’t show the boom mike at the top of the screen. They rarely try to pass rural southern California off as an asian villiage. And these days television producers will actually pay someone to watch the show to make sure the scenes are in the proper order. All of that anal, expensive, moneyspending…for what? Quality? No, you just go watch Airwolf fly out of Monument Valley and shoot down a bunch of Venezuelan drug lords. Now THAT’S quality.
Dr. Robert Winchester: Tell Hawke… fly cold.
Michael ‘Archangel’ Coldsmith Briggs III: Airwolf, Archangel here. Dr. Winchester says “fly cold”.
Dominic Santini: Cold?
Stringfellow Hawke: Pull the plug back there Dom! They’re into our electronics!
Dominic Santini: Everything?
Stringfellow Hawke: Every last microchip… It’s Orville and Wilbur time!
April 10, 2009
by Mark Hufnagel, inventor of the semi-colon, a colon for lazy people
Whenever life gets me down, whenever I find it hard to suffer the slings and arrows, whenever I find it difficult to come up with more than two ways to say that I’m sad, I go to my happy place. My happy place is spot in the back of my mind to which I can retreat in order to bring a smile to my face no matter the circumstance. Some people’s happy places are on an unpopulated beach or in a field of flowers or on a mountain top. Mine is at a greasy fast food taco joint in my hometown. Allow me to tell you why:
Despite my remarkable potato-like appearance, I’m actually a dedicated outdoor activity kind of guy. Hiking, rappelling, and the overwhelmingly stupid sport of cliff-fu are among my favorite pastimes. A tradition among my rappelling troupe (gang? group? gaggle?) is to follow up a hard day of rappelling with tacos, because nothing balances the need for quick agility, alert senses, and the need for absolute equilibrium required in rope work on a sheer rock face like a big, greasy, liquid-cheese smothered taco prepared by the finest semi-Mexican-cuisine chefs minimum wage can buy.
The sheer pleasure of biting into a heart-attack in a tortilla after an exhausting rappelling trip, as intense as it may be, however, is not the reason the taco restaurant has become my happy place. Instead, the reason for that distinction is the following: the restaurant is across the street from a dentist’s office. About three years ago after returning from a 12-hour rappelling trip on a day that we measured the temperature at the cliff to be over 115 degrees, that air-conditioned fast food palace was a godsend. Barely able to summon the strength to lift our tacos to our mouths, my cronies and I stared out the window in a speechless, tired haze and noticed that we could see clearly into the large window of the waiting room in the dentist’s office. Additionally, from our vantage point we could see the men working on the roof of the adjacent room to the waiting room, their presence apparently unknown to the dentist’s patrons. As a large gentleman on the roof, I’ll assume his name was Tony, picked up a comically over-sized hammer-drill, the eyes of my companions and myself turned slowly from dead and glazed-over to attentive and giddy. We realized the opportunity the universe had delivered to us and we waited in eager anticipation as Tony brought that drill down upon the roof with an unholy might.
He began to drill. And to hammer. Hammer-drill.
The four or so patients sitting in the waiting room, one of them a child, started as if they had been sitting on live wires and immediately turned toward the adjacent room with panic - no, it was horror - evident on their faces. I like to think that more than one of them soiled themselves at the thought of what was occurring in the next room.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is my happy place.
April 04, 2009
by John Keefner - from Tucson, AZ, where the west was won.
This last Christmas was the last time I was invited to the cookie-decorating table. I don’t think I will be welcome there again…ever.
March 30, 2009
by John Keefner - from the sanctified studios of KBHB, 810 AM, Five State Farm Radio, 44 25′23″ N 103 25′42″ W
Balding, stringy, greasy hair. Five o’clock shadow, but not the attractive kind.
He wears a thin print shirt and worn sad looking pants.
Works at the five state farm radio station, on KBHB him you will find.
Clutching his reused plastic lunch bag in fidgety hands.
Working twelve hours a day, weekends and nights, he doesn’t mind.
Sometimes he sneaks up on you from behind
after his shift to have a conversation about the weather.
We love you Rich Verschoor, no matter how you pined
on the radio, there is no one who can run the board better.
March 28, 2009
As anyone who knows me personally will attest, I have a significant empty spot in my soul. This is the sort of hole that, while clearly metaphorical, is still visible from space. It, combined with my truly fanatical outrage at the cancellation of Perfect Strangers in 1993, is responsible for my constant, internal weeping and biblical gnashing of teeth. I have tried to fill this hole with religion, volunteer work, overeating, maniacal laughter, and a form of meditation that consists entirely of trying to decipher the words to The Kingsmen’s version of Louie Louie. Nothing has worked. So it should come as no surprise that, during my recent unemployment (dern’d econermy) I volunteered my services as a day care substitute for my little sisters’ one-year-old son, Benjamin.
First of all, for all of you girls out there: yes, I love kids. Kids, it would seem, also love me (although I would not rule out the possibility that the fondness is due to my superficial resemblance to Santa Claus). And yes, ladies, I’m single. Can you believe that a manly physicist with a sense of humor and who loves kids and can be reached at 555-4904 is single? Baffling!
Anyway, I thought Benjamin and I had been getting along pretty well for the past two months, although I admit that some of his behaviors were a bit concerning. For instance, he has a remarkable tendency to scream right when his head is the closest to my ear. He also is able to fling the constituents of his lunch with incredible accuracy at my person. Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that a statistical analysis of the times he has hit me solidly in the crotch leaves little room for the hypothesis that it is an entirely accidental event. These things notwithstanding, I thought we were good pals. That was until two weeks ago. That’s when I chased him into the living room and found the first hint that things might be going downhill between us.
Benjamin used to have a book about street safety shaped like a little girl. I say used to because he no longer has this book. He now has two, much smaller books. One consisting of the head of a little girl, smiling a now ghastly grin, and one consisting of the body of the little girl, as lifeless as before, but somehow sadder now. I looked at the book and then up at Benjamin who, looking from the book up to me, met my eye and smiled a slow, deliberate smile. This was clearly a warning.
I don’t have the guts to take a picture of Ben’s book - it still draws an
unbidden scream from my throat. Instead enjoy this picture
of Wednesday Addams.
This warning, by itself would not have alarmed me so much. I mean, he’s one year old; I could probably take him in fight if it came down to it as long as he didn’t get the jump on me. But soon thereafter, his hostilities became more apparent. And then, while getting his crib ready for his nap today, I discovered a small notebook under the mattress. Within it was a compelling pattern of crayon scribbles and drawings… little did I know the dark secret it contained.
Like the Necronomicon, only cuter.
It took me awhile to decipher his clever Crayola coding system, but after several hours of careful and difficult translation, I present to you the contents of Benjamin’s journal, the inner thoughts of a one-year-old evil genius.
January 7:
Today Commander Mom introduced the next step of my rigorous training regimen. I think she calls this stage “babysitting”. She has decided to pit me in one-on-one combat - a battle of wits and wills. My opponent is someone she introduced to me as Uncle Marky. I assume “Uncle” is his official rank, but I cannot identify which military uses that designation. No matter, his rank, though - I will be victorious and he will not leave this arena alive.
January 13:
My opponent seems fascinated with a small, red ball in my collection of weapons. He consistently appears surprised while holding the infernal thing, saying things like, “Look, Ben! A ball!” and “Ben! I have a ball!” He is either an idiot or a brilliant imitator of one. Either way, I cannot allow him to continue to possess that red ball. If it is the key to some important tactical advantage, I must secure it, and if it is merely a mundane, red ball, I must not let him continue his campaign of mindless boobery with it. As soon as I can gain possession of the object, I will investigate it’s military potential with a series of tests I have developed, all of which involve trying to put the ball into my mouth.
January 29th:
The man is incessantly following me. Everywhere I go, he is right behind me. He is doing the smart thing by keeping me under such close surveillance; if I could escape his detection for just a moment, I would sneak up behind him and -WHAM!- be done with the whole contest. I have taken to pretending to fall asleep for an hour or so each day so that he will drop his guard, but the knave has decided to place me behind bars while I feign sleep to avoid receiving my wrath. Well played, Uncle. But this time allows me a small respite from his watch each day so that I may plan my strategy and record my thoughts in this journal.
February 9:
I have commenced a campaign of psychological warfare against my enemy. Commander Mom would be proud of my efforts. I have started crying at random times during the day, with no apparent provocation. My hope is to arouse the superstitious nature that people with his sloping forehead are prone to possess by making him believe that I am being acted upon by invisible, outside forces - dark forces. After a significant fit, I affect an immediate mood change, from bawling to laughing, to further unnerve him. If he does not believe supernatural elements to be the causes of these fits, then at least he will believe that he is dealing with a mentally unbalanced opponent that is impossible to predict. Advantage: Benjamin.
Like a laser beam. But with sound. And filled with hate.
February 13:
It’s working! He is a walking bundle of nerves. Every time I notice his muscles start to relax, I begin crying anew and his whole body stiffens like a board. I have extended the campaign to include our mandatory feeding time. I cry and scream until he gives me food, and then I promptly throw it to the floor and make him clean it up. He is so confused and frustrated that I think I can make him cry any day now. I predict victory by the end of the week.
February 25:
My crying campaign is still in full swing, but my opponent has not yet cracked. I don’t know what’s holding him together - he looks like he hasn’t slept in days and every time I begin to cry a vein pops out on his forehead. I can’t imagine that he could take much more of this, but I underestimated his endurance before. It is time to come up with a secondary attack.
March 2:
Poop! Poop’s the thing! I’m carrying around a chemical warfare factory in my britches. This Uncle Marky has a weakness for cleanliness and every time I so much as have a leisurely poo the man insists on sanitizing me and eliminating the products of my hard work. Well, let’s see how far his nerves will take him when I start engineering weaponized varieties of the substance.
I refuse to put a picture of poo on the site.
March 13:
I don’t understand it. I have emitted such vile secretions as to stagger the human imagination, yet my enemy does not relent! My latest concoction, a mixture of the prune pudding my military genius commander has been supplying me and a collection of interesting, yet unidentifiable, things I have been finding on the living room floor, seemed to show some promise at first of repelling the fiend, but he keeps coming back for more! I had actually seen his eyes water the first few times I employed the detestable stuff and I had hopes of driving him screaming from the room by this week, but now I don’t know what to think. Either he is a a masochist or a true soldier. I need to change plans because this will clearly kill me before it does him.
March 27:
In my daily voice drills, I discovered an octave above that of the normal human range. It doesn’t appear that Uncle Marky possesses this power or he would have used it against me already, although his reference to it as “screeching” reveals that he is aware of it. I’m not certain of the extent of its abilities, but I do know that I can make animals run from the room in terror with it. This may be the weapon to end the stand-off: when I used it earlier today I watched in glory as the once-mighty Uncle Marky collapsed to his knees in tears… With this ability, I may even be able to seize power from Commander Mom…
Not Ben, but Ben doesn’t have such a cool shirt.
There you have it: my nephew is an evil genius. I was always hoping to train him for the minionhood, but this exceeds my expectations and makes me truly proud. I am somewhat concerned that his malice appears directed toward me, but with proper guidance and exposure, he will learn to turn his hatred and anger upon the whole world as I have. If he doesn’t kill me first, that is.
March 23, 2009
by John Keefner - Hakudate, Japan - from below the rubble of a collapsed hirise building.
Recently the living room TV audience was treated to a triple-header movie marathon, Godzilla Vs Destroyah, Godzilla the major motion film starring Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria, and finally Godzilla 2000. There are numerous other Godzilla movies, many of which conjure up memories of a five foot inflatable version of the scaly monster my youthful uncle owned when I was about 4 years old. There are 47 listed on the Internet Movie DataBase, some of which were produced in the USA under multiple titles. Also there is Cloverfield, a Godzilla inspired movie where a monster inhabits New York and the locals flee. The novel filming technique meant to mimic home video actually induced motion sickness within the household and forever remains on the banned movie list.
With few exceptions, America has nothing to compare with battles of questionably destructive good versus ambiguously bad evil. There was the sissy T-Rex that flipped a few cars in Jurassic Park 2 (kudos to Spielberg for the Godzilla homage, otherwise WTF?), King Kong fell from a building, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man got zapped - but other than that the list is slim pickens.
“Aaaaaaa, Gojira! Run!!!!!” - Abraham Lincoln
The US simply does not have the cultural depth to fully explore the myth of a thirty story nuclear fire breathing monster. I love every Japanese person I have ever met. To the last one, they have been intelligent, funny, and interesting people. So it is a tragedy that this story is based on the evils of exploiting nuclear power with roots in the end of World War II. I think it is an interesting social studies thesis that needs to be explored from a modern perspective (Oh, yeah, here it is).
That being said, what are the non-cultural impacts of Godzilla on a country? First of all, the insurance rates in Japan must be astronomical. Thanks to the magical powers of the internet I looked, and coverage for complete loss due to Godzilla attack is available at a surprisingly attractive premium on the actuarial tables. Also, with an average of a Godzilla movie published every 1.25 years, the Japanese are very industrious to rebuild in that amount of time. It is a mystery to me why they didn’t start developing monster-proof skyscrapers or underground, stomp-proof bunkers. When a giant monster comes toddling out of the ocean, how much time is there to evacuate Tokyo, really? Maybe a half hour? I bet Godzilla’s affect on the population skews it toward a rural population demographic after a mere few decades. Also, I wonder if outside countries, such as the US, would be forced out of humanitarian need to come in and help rebuild and repopulate the country, a la the MacArthur plan? Oh, how the world would be different…
As a coal miner trudging away in the coalfields of eastern Wyoming, I often looked across the vast plains and wondered what it would be like if giant monsters trundled, arms waving with rubbery abandon in the quest to destroy yet another nuclear power plant. What would be the scar that causes such a story to develop here in my homeland?
“The sky was blood red and filled with smoke. And through it a devil appeared, its face was twisted with rage and hatred. When it was over my parents were gone. I will never forget the wretched cries of the dead…”
—Admiral Taizô Tachibana
March 21, 2009
For starters, in way of much needed clarification owing to the last post, I am not engaged to be married. I assure all of you dedicated Shrapnelites that my love life is as comically pathetic as it has always been and as humorously lonely as it will always be. And thank you, John, for the entertaining confusion thus created; I only hope that I can repay the favor after the excitement of your first child’s birth has calmed down.
My impending non-marriage aside, the always-innovative staff here at HatShrapnel has stayed up all night out-innovating themselves. Finding the burden of being the only source of comedy on the entire internet too much to bear, the HatShrapnel staff has decided to take on a second writer. My long-time friend and mid-desert torturer, John, was the only applicant willing to accept the long hours, low pay, and mandatory company uniform.
Company uniform.
John made his debut last week with his first post, an elegant foray into the world of inter-marital confusion resulting in almost everyone I know asking me about my engagement. I look forward to his continuing posts (tentatively coming on Mondays, with mine continuing on Thursdays, or thereabouts) until it becomes evident that he is clearly a more talented writer than I and his access to the site is mysteriously erased. So, Shrapnelians, welcome the internet’s first and only website’s second writer, John:
Drunk and swinging a hammer: the only way I’ve ever seen him.
March 14, 2009
by John Keefner - Soda Springs, ID - from the Home Office
After a five week hiatus, Mark swore at the beginning of the year to provide all of us with weekly shrapneltainment. Sadly, this last week, at 12:01 Friday morning, Mark failed us all. And I am further saddened to announce that it is my fault. Ok, it is my fault in the way that the hero feels bad because he failed to prevent the villain from ruthlessly killing an innocent bystander. So to make the analogy as concrete as possible, Mark did not write his post with Hatshrapnel because he was writing an e-mail to me.
You may know me as the second half of the “Mark and John Science Extravaganza.” We traveled the world proselytizing the wonder and majesty of science to the poor and ignorant countries of the world. We were defenders of the truth and high ideals on the radio every Friday and Saturday night playing music to soothe the souls of tens of thousands for several years. We explored the long forgotten wilderness and discovered that friendship was a journey and not a destination. So, when I moved out of range of a short drive to his house and couldn’t get an e-mail or phone call for more than six months, I became concerned.
Finally, at the point where I was about to start looking for a Hallmark (TM) “You Are Dead to Me” card, he actually sent me an e-mail telling me what he has been doing. There was only a single line that contained any meaningful information within it. This information is outside the scope of this website. Instead, I wanted to tell you a little about another line, the strong communication relationship I have with my wife, and why I, too, participate in the weep-sleep-repeat cycle.
Here is a line from Mark’s e-mail where he is telling me whether he’ll be around for an upcoming visit to the area:
“Depending on the school (and therefore, town) I’ve chosen by then, I may not be around and depending on the job I am finally able to find (wee!) I may be engaged.”
I read this on my phone first thing in the morning while brushing my teeth on Friday. I remember it well. There were several boring paragraphs where he apologized for falling off the face of the earth and blah, blah. I began skimming and then, having long suspected that a secret relationship has kept him distracted, suddenly discovered that he was engaged! It says so right there on the end if you skip the first part. Well, I had a mouth full of spit that needed to go away, so I gave the phone to Elizabeth, my dear wife, and tapped on the screen three times, mumbling that it was important she read it.
I was so excited, Mark had finally found that special someone he deserves and soon after he was married, there would be the inevitable discovery that he needed a good friend in order to escape his over-demanding wife. But I didn’t have time to read his email with the spit and all, and depended on Elizabeth to fill me in later.
We were planning on driving to Pocatello that morning and she had already informed me that we were late - I felt rushed to leave the house. As soon as I could spit, rinse, and get the shoes on, we climbed into the truck and started driving. About five minutes out of town, it occurred to me that I never finished reading the letter. I asked Elizabeth, “Did Mark say who he was getting married to?” She said, “No, he didn’t say. It was kind of weird, like a video game?” “A video game?” “Yeah, you know, he said he got a Wii and loves it so much it is like he is engaged to it. I really don’t understand his humor, John.”
Needless to say, I was confused, a little bit like when Wiley Coyote is standing on that precipice that fell out from underneath him the second before and only confusion inertia is keeping gravity at bay. The more prescient readers among you may already see the problem. It was the problem of non-unique logic failures, or Wiley was wondering why the ground was moving up so quickly and where the pesky bird went to when he made that last ditch grab.
I spent the next half hour reading and rereading that email to figure out what the devil that wife of mine was going on about. It turns out that Elizabeth also skimmed. She had focused on the “wee!” ; she thought it was the Nintendo Wii and was similarly confused about how I was prattling about Mark getting married when there was nothing about that in the whole letter. This kind of problem has plagued me all throughout my adult life - it is right up there with talking to myself and imagining that life would be better if yard gnomes were real and friendly.
This is the part where I close with something witty and maybe follow up with a famous and humorous quote that really gets you thinking about living life to its fullest. Forget the wit, I’ve been hit on the head too many times, but quotes, I can do quotes. Here goes:
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever. - Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss Universe contest
Amen. Oh, and puppy aspirations are made to be crushed. More on that later.