From PostSecret
21 August 2005
19 August 2005
Men and Other Reptiles
“We had a yard sale,” my mother told me on the phone last week.
“Don’t be sellin’ my stuff!” I replied.
I get attached to stuff, even stuff I haven’t physically seen for years. When I was in elementary school, I had this pair of black winter boots that I wore for years. My family teased me about them, and said they looked like Cossack boots, and tried to get me to wear other, newer boots. I refused. I liked the boots. I loved the boots. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just let me alone about them.
I sure would like to have boots like that again.
My family has no heirlooms. We get rid of everything. My great-grandmother’s player piano and all the rolls for it, the carnival glass, the Fiestaware - all gone. Practically nothing remains to be handed down from generation to generation. I have my grandfather’s goldstone cuff links and a few books, including an old copy of “Black Beauty” that a teacher inscribed as a gift to my great-grandfather in 1909. If I didn’t have it, it probably would have been in the yard sale stack.
“We found something of yours in with your sister’s books,” mom continued.
“Don’t sell my stuff!” I hyperventilated.
“I’m sending it to you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Something one your friends gave you,” she said. “You’ll see.”
I scritched my head over that. Something a friend gave me? Surely it wasn’t the red wax bust of Lenin, with a candle wick in the center of his bald head, that N. brought back from Russia for me. I’m pretty sure that’s one thing I did throw away. I’m pretty sure I’m still peeved that everyone else got cool Red Army flasks and slender Egyptian perfume bottles, and I got a Lenin candle. (“You’re not girly enough for the perfume bottles,” she said. “And I thought this looked more like you.” Bite my ass, N. Even after all these years, bite a little communist star into it.)
The package from mom arrived yesterday. I tore open the padded envelope and there was “Men and Other Reptiles,” a small volume of quips and quotes that “runs the gamut from subtle teasing to bitingly on-target barbs.” There's lots of Mae West, Dorothy Parker, and Zsa Zsa Gabor: “I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” sort of stuff. There are a few more amusing entries: “Show me a young man who actively embraces Republicanism and I’ll show you the world’s most boring date.”
But my favorite part is on the end leaf, an inscription to me (mammal) from D.
“Don’t be sellin’ my stuff!” I replied.
I get attached to stuff, even stuff I haven’t physically seen for years. When I was in elementary school, I had this pair of black winter boots that I wore for years. My family teased me about them, and said they looked like Cossack boots, and tried to get me to wear other, newer boots. I refused. I liked the boots. I loved the boots. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just let me alone about them.
I sure would like to have boots like that again.
My family has no heirlooms. We get rid of everything. My great-grandmother’s player piano and all the rolls for it, the carnival glass, the Fiestaware - all gone. Practically nothing remains to be handed down from generation to generation. I have my grandfather’s goldstone cuff links and a few books, including an old copy of “Black Beauty” that a teacher inscribed as a gift to my great-grandfather in 1909. If I didn’t have it, it probably would have been in the yard sale stack.
“We found something of yours in with your sister’s books,” mom continued.
“Don’t sell my stuff!” I hyperventilated.
“I’m sending it to you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Something one your friends gave you,” she said. “You’ll see.”
I scritched my head over that. Something a friend gave me? Surely it wasn’t the red wax bust of Lenin, with a candle wick in the center of his bald head, that N. brought back from Russia for me. I’m pretty sure that’s one thing I did throw away. I’m pretty sure I’m still peeved that everyone else got cool Red Army flasks and slender Egyptian perfume bottles, and I got a Lenin candle. (“You’re not girly enough for the perfume bottles,” she said. “And I thought this looked more like you.” Bite my ass, N. Even after all these years, bite a little communist star into it.)
The package from mom arrived yesterday. I tore open the padded envelope and there was “Men and Other Reptiles,” a small volume of quips and quotes that “runs the gamut from subtle teasing to bitingly on-target barbs.” There's lots of Mae West, Dorothy Parker, and Zsa Zsa Gabor: “I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” sort of stuff. There are a few more amusing entries: “Show me a young man who actively embraces Republicanism and I’ll show you the world’s most boring date.”
But my favorite part is on the end leaf, an inscription to me (mammal) from D.
18 August 2005
Hiroshima Paint
I was out last week with a friend in Ann Arbor, who was telling me about the Hiroshima stencils on the sidewalks. Walking to Sabor Latino, we looked at the shadows and counted how many stencils the artists had used.
After dinner, we walked to Wurster Park, played on the swings, and patted Henry (a shepherd mix whose tag reads, “The Greeter of Wurster Park”). We got ice cream at Washtenaw Dairy and headed back to the car.
We returned to the parking lot from a different direction than we left it. At this entrance, there was a dashed line. The line curved sinuously over the asphalt. We laughed when the line led us back to its source in one quadrant of a parking space: a huge splatter of white that looked suspiciously like Hiroshima silhouette paint.
After dinner, we walked to Wurster Park, played on the swings, and patted Henry (a shepherd mix whose tag reads, “The Greeter of Wurster Park”). We got ice cream at Washtenaw Dairy and headed back to the car.
We returned to the parking lot from a different direction than we left it. At this entrance, there was a dashed line. The line curved sinuously over the asphalt. We laughed when the line led us back to its source in one quadrant of a parking space: a huge splatter of white that looked suspiciously like Hiroshima silhouette paint.
13 August 2005
Rites of August
It’s August. Time for corn on the cob.
I come from a long line of prodigious corn-eaters. At one time, my small family, then consisting of me, my sister, mom and dad, Uncle M, and my grandparents, could easily put away two dozen ears at dinner. In recent years, as the family and times have changed, we’ve slowed down a bit.
Almost every late summer lunch or dinner included corn on the cob. With so many small farms in our region of western Pennsylvania, fresh corn was readily available at roadside stands or right off the back of a truck parked at the edge of the field. Brown paper bags originally filled with ears were soon filled with husks and silk of the palest green. We kids used to marvel at how fast my father could shuck an ear of corn, taking all the silk off in one tear. With our small hands, it took us a while to clean an ear, almost the same time as it took him to do six. We would “Ewww” over the worms and dad would cut them out with his pocketknife.
While we stacked the corn on a platter, hamburgers and hotdogs sizzled on the grill. The corn would be served as the last course. Apart from cucumbers, which my grandmother usually smothered in sour cream and pepper, there was never anything green or remotely like a salad.
The uncontested patriarch of corn on the cob was my grandfather. Pappap loved his corn, and his early August birthday coincided with the first fresh harvest. He would lean forward from his chair at the head of the table in my grandparents’ humid kitchen, grab the topmost ear from a steaming golden pyramid, and get to work. At least three sticks of butter and two salt shakers sat in strategic locations on the table. Pappap usually had his own. His preferred method of butter transference was to roll the corn right on top of the stick.
We all ate our corn the same way, like a typewriter. Left to right, carriage return, roll the top away to get to the next row. No one ever cut the corn off the cob. That would be sacrilege.
Conversation at the table centered on varieties of corn. My mother and I preferred “Silver Queen,” white, small kerneled, sugary sweet. But “Silver Queen” usually matures later, so in early August we were more likely to have what is called “Butter and Salt” or “Butter and Sugar,” for its yellow and white pattern. Sometimes I think we ate regular old field corn, waxy and with huge gold kernels that stuck to our teeth like caramel. My grandmother and father liked this best, joking that they would be happy eating with the cows. If Pappap had a preference, it never showed.
When the feasting was over, Pappap would heap his denuded cobs and destroyed napkins on his plate, exhale heavily, and wipe the butter from his glasses with the edge of his corn-splattered white t-shirt. Sometimes part of a kernel would hang from a strand of his silver hair. Picking his teeth, he’d push away from the table and say, “I need to take a shower.”
Tonight I truly felt his granddaughter, as I turned away from the table, two empty cobs on my plate, fingernail between my teeth.
I come from a long line of prodigious corn-eaters. At one time, my small family, then consisting of me, my sister, mom and dad, Uncle M, and my grandparents, could easily put away two dozen ears at dinner. In recent years, as the family and times have changed, we’ve slowed down a bit.
Almost every late summer lunch or dinner included corn on the cob. With so many small farms in our region of western Pennsylvania, fresh corn was readily available at roadside stands or right off the back of a truck parked at the edge of the field. Brown paper bags originally filled with ears were soon filled with husks and silk of the palest green. We kids used to marvel at how fast my father could shuck an ear of corn, taking all the silk off in one tear. With our small hands, it took us a while to clean an ear, almost the same time as it took him to do six. We would “Ewww” over the worms and dad would cut them out with his pocketknife.
While we stacked the corn on a platter, hamburgers and hotdogs sizzled on the grill. The corn would be served as the last course. Apart from cucumbers, which my grandmother usually smothered in sour cream and pepper, there was never anything green or remotely like a salad.
The uncontested patriarch of corn on the cob was my grandfather. Pappap loved his corn, and his early August birthday coincided with the first fresh harvest. He would lean forward from his chair at the head of the table in my grandparents’ humid kitchen, grab the topmost ear from a steaming golden pyramid, and get to work. At least three sticks of butter and two salt shakers sat in strategic locations on the table. Pappap usually had his own. His preferred method of butter transference was to roll the corn right on top of the stick.
We all ate our corn the same way, like a typewriter. Left to right, carriage return, roll the top away to get to the next row. No one ever cut the corn off the cob. That would be sacrilege.
Conversation at the table centered on varieties of corn. My mother and I preferred “Silver Queen,” white, small kerneled, sugary sweet. But “Silver Queen” usually matures later, so in early August we were more likely to have what is called “Butter and Salt” or “Butter and Sugar,” for its yellow and white pattern. Sometimes I think we ate regular old field corn, waxy and with huge gold kernels that stuck to our teeth like caramel. My grandmother and father liked this best, joking that they would be happy eating with the cows. If Pappap had a preference, it never showed.
When the feasting was over, Pappap would heap his denuded cobs and destroyed napkins on his plate, exhale heavily, and wipe the butter from his glasses with the edge of his corn-splattered white t-shirt. Sometimes part of a kernel would hang from a strand of his silver hair. Picking his teeth, he’d push away from the table and say, “I need to take a shower.”
Tonight I truly felt his granddaughter, as I turned away from the table, two empty cobs on my plate, fingernail between my teeth.
10 August 2005
Bomb Shelter Potatoes
Earlier this evening, something cracked. I’ve been feeling low for a while, but I’ve been putting on my brave face and trying not to let life suck ass through a straw quite so much. After all, life could be chewing my ass, and that would definitely be worse than a little sucking. Still, like I said, after work I broke, and I curled up in the middle of my bed and cried in a chest-heaving, nose-running way that I haven’t cried for a long time.
After I stopped, I lay there sighing and stroking the silver fur of my good and patient kitty, who was waiting for her canned food. I got up and walked to the kitchen with her wrapped around my left ankle. I spooned some gloopy, and evidently delicious, chicken-and-tuna stuff into her bowl and washed my face. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry myself or slightly sick to my stomach.
Comfort food is what I needed - something warm and filling and non-diet. Someone told me that when it comes to stressed-out eating, women tend to go more for fatty and sweet (chocolate, cheesecake) and men more for fatty and salty (French fries, pizza). Here once again, despite my obvious female features and mouth-foaming heterosexuality, I sift out on the same side as the boys. Fried chicken. Mozzarella cheese sticks. Macaroni and cheese.
Mac and cheese sounded particularly good. I opened the cupboard, replaced the blue plastic margarita glass that toppled out, and pushed aside the tea and sugar to see if I had any mac and cheese in stock. I didn’t. But I did find, scrunched way in the back, a package of instant mashed potatoes.
In the absence of macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, complete with a dammed-up lake of butter, started to sound pretty good. But were they okay? The potatoes came from my grandmother, who sends me home with bags and coolers full of food every time I visit. The last time I visited was Christmas, so the potatoes were at least eight months old - maybe older. She might have given them to me at Thanksgiving, or even Easter. It’s a bit mysterious why she gave them to me at all, since I have never prepared instant mashed potatoes for myself and have never (knowingly) eaten them at her house either.
I smoothed the rumpled bag, looking for an expiry date. There wasn’t one. I suppose they don’t expire. I suppose that’s why you can store them in your emergency kit, right next to the duct tape and plastic wrap. “With sour cream, chives, and imitation bacon,” the package read. Yummy. I boiled the water and dumped ‘em in.
While the potatoes rehydrated themselves, I sliced a cucumber from the garden and rinsed the last of the arugula that I bought at the farmer’s market on Saturday. On one side of the plate I had fresh, tasty, organic produce; on the other side, highly processed Frankenfood that openly admitted the artificiality of its bacon bits. I laid a knife between them so the potatoes wouldn’t eat the arugula before I did.
I created a satisfactory pool of butter and sampled my first forkful. They weren’t too bad, though they certainly were not my grandmother’s homemade mashed potatoes. They were rather bland and sticky, and the bacon bits didn’t do much for me. Nevertheless, I ate half the pot, pretending all the while I was savoring the finest macaroni and cheese, properly baked with bread crumbs on top.
As I sit here simultaneously working and writing this, the potatoes are resting in a cold lump in my tummy. Perhaps the bomb shelter potatoes will put me out of my misery. Perhaps I will explode like a sea gull full of Alka-Seltzer. Or perhaps it’s nothing a little vodka and tonic wouldn’t fix.
After I stopped, I lay there sighing and stroking the silver fur of my good and patient kitty, who was waiting for her canned food. I got up and walked to the kitchen with her wrapped around my left ankle. I spooned some gloopy, and evidently delicious, chicken-and-tuna stuff into her bowl and washed my face. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry myself or slightly sick to my stomach.
Comfort food is what I needed - something warm and filling and non-diet. Someone told me that when it comes to stressed-out eating, women tend to go more for fatty and sweet (chocolate, cheesecake) and men more for fatty and salty (French fries, pizza). Here once again, despite my obvious female features and mouth-foaming heterosexuality, I sift out on the same side as the boys. Fried chicken. Mozzarella cheese sticks. Macaroni and cheese.
Mac and cheese sounded particularly good. I opened the cupboard, replaced the blue plastic margarita glass that toppled out, and pushed aside the tea and sugar to see if I had any mac and cheese in stock. I didn’t. But I did find, scrunched way in the back, a package of instant mashed potatoes.
In the absence of macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, complete with a dammed-up lake of butter, started to sound pretty good. But were they okay? The potatoes came from my grandmother, who sends me home with bags and coolers full of food every time I visit. The last time I visited was Christmas, so the potatoes were at least eight months old - maybe older. She might have given them to me at Thanksgiving, or even Easter. It’s a bit mysterious why she gave them to me at all, since I have never prepared instant mashed potatoes for myself and have never (knowingly) eaten them at her house either.
I smoothed the rumpled bag, looking for an expiry date. There wasn’t one. I suppose they don’t expire. I suppose that’s why you can store them in your emergency kit, right next to the duct tape and plastic wrap. “With sour cream, chives, and imitation bacon,” the package read. Yummy. I boiled the water and dumped ‘em in.
While the potatoes rehydrated themselves, I sliced a cucumber from the garden and rinsed the last of the arugula that I bought at the farmer’s market on Saturday. On one side of the plate I had fresh, tasty, organic produce; on the other side, highly processed Frankenfood that openly admitted the artificiality of its bacon bits. I laid a knife between them so the potatoes wouldn’t eat the arugula before I did.
I created a satisfactory pool of butter and sampled my first forkful. They weren’t too bad, though they certainly were not my grandmother’s homemade mashed potatoes. They were rather bland and sticky, and the bacon bits didn’t do much for me. Nevertheless, I ate half the pot, pretending all the while I was savoring the finest macaroni and cheese, properly baked with bread crumbs on top.
As I sit here simultaneously working and writing this, the potatoes are resting in a cold lump in my tummy. Perhaps the bomb shelter potatoes will put me out of my misery. Perhaps I will explode like a sea gull full of Alka-Seltzer. Or perhaps it’s nothing a little vodka and tonic wouldn’t fix.
08 August 2005
Predigested
I receive a gift subscription to Reader’s Digest on a yearly basis. The jokes and Mary Roach’s column are usually good for some mild amusement. The rest of it...meh. After reading it for most of my life, I’ve come to understand why they call it a digest. It’s the intellectual equivalent of unflavored yogurt. Bland, pallid, and already partially digested for you.
The pap has become more and more pre-chewed over the last few years, and the conservative bias really shows. Or maybe I’ve just gotten more discerning or too big for my britches. Snippets even shorter than the articles now take up the first few pages. I’m not sure who finds the “Word Power” feature a challenge, with words like “emit.” “impending.” and “dissenter.” But I think I will look up “tchotchkes” in the American Heritage Dictionary 1) Just to see if its there and 2) If an Indo-European root or any cognates are listed.
The August 2005 “special” 1000th issue is particularly rich. They’ve focused on “14 Amazing Trends That Will Change Your Life.” There’s an article on data mining and ineffectual ways to try to shore up your eroding privacy. There’s an article on self-scanners in grocery stores and automated customer service telephone calls. There’s an article on using religion to market more tchotchkes to people. Like it’s a good thing. I guess God’s a capitalist. (And a Penn State fan - that’s why the sky’s blue and white.)
And then there’s this charming piece of spin, the one that nearly made me spit a Cheerio across the room: #5. “Making Your Job Work for You: With the coming labor shortage, you’ll have more freedom, more flexibility, and maybe even a fatter paycheck.”
Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha haa ha ha!
How do you know your two benefitless jobs are providing you freedom, flexibility, and a fat paycheck? Elaine Chao, Jack Welch, and Citigroup say so.
Personally, I think they should have included Janis Joplin: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."
According to wikipedia, the University of Guelph “stated publicly that they carry the magazine only as an example of propaganda.”
Those Canadians! Ha ha!
*sigh*
The pap has become more and more pre-chewed over the last few years, and the conservative bias really shows. Or maybe I’ve just gotten more discerning or too big for my britches. Snippets even shorter than the articles now take up the first few pages. I’m not sure who finds the “Word Power” feature a challenge, with words like “emit.” “impending.” and “dissenter.” But I think I will look up “tchotchkes” in the American Heritage Dictionary 1) Just to see if its there and 2) If an Indo-European root or any cognates are listed.
The August 2005 “special” 1000th issue is particularly rich. They’ve focused on “14 Amazing Trends That Will Change Your Life.” There’s an article on data mining and ineffectual ways to try to shore up your eroding privacy. There’s an article on self-scanners in grocery stores and automated customer service telephone calls. There’s an article on using religion to market more tchotchkes to people. Like it’s a good thing. I guess God’s a capitalist. (And a Penn State fan - that’s why the sky’s blue and white.)
And then there’s this charming piece of spin, the one that nearly made me spit a Cheerio across the room: #5. “Making Your Job Work for You: With the coming labor shortage, you’ll have more freedom, more flexibility, and maybe even a fatter paycheck.”
Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha haa ha ha!
How do you know your two benefitless jobs are providing you freedom, flexibility, and a fat paycheck? Elaine Chao, Jack Welch, and Citigroup say so.
Personally, I think they should have included Janis Joplin: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."
According to wikipedia, the University of Guelph “stated publicly that they carry the magazine only as an example of propaganda.”
Those Canadians! Ha ha!
*sigh*
05 August 2005
Dumb Quotes
I noticed this morning that most of the "smart quotes" in my previous post curl in the wrong direction, away from the words they are supposed to embrace. This must have happened because I cut the text from MacJournal and pasted it into Blogger.
It irks me. I'm irked that something so trivial irks me, but irk me it does.
It irks me. I'm irked that something so trivial irks me, but irk me it does.
04 August 2005
Lil' Kim and the Twins
No, I did not write the letter to Dear Prudence asking for advice on how to handle comments about one’s short stature. Although I’m 4’11“ too, it didn’t wreck my self-esteem (I had family for that). Still, I know of what the letter-writer speaks.
I’ve had people use my head as an armrest, for instance. While out walking or in a crowd, I am evidently invisible and get run off the sidewalk or stepped on. Then there’s being physically picked up and whirled through the air, without warning, against my will, while in a restaurant or mall parking lot, which actually happened once or twice on first dates. The boys were astonished that I didn’t want to go out with them again. ”But you’re so little and cute,“ they whined, as if a woman’s littleness and cuteness validated their ”just not able to help myself“ excuses and I should be flattered by their violation of my space.
Of course, there’s a fine subjective line here. Being teased and called ”Shorty“ and being whirled through the air can be fun within the proper context. And if I don’t see that piano or dollop of condor guano headed down from the sky - please, pick me up and move me.
For most people I encounter, the novelty of my lack of height is dissipated somewhat by the novelty of my huge boobs. By some genetic quirk my pygmy body’s got ta-tas better fitted for an Amazon. (Well, the left one anyway, they’d cut the right one off.)
I deal with infinitely more comments about my bosom than about my height, all of them rude, most of them from supposed adults, and women are as bad as men.
Prudie advises the cute little lady that folks probably don’t realize they’re offending her and to list examples of some contemporary stars who share her height. This sounds sane and reasonable and grown-up and it’s not what I do.
Maybe I have too much choleric humour, or maybe it’s because my Mars is in hot-tempered Aries, but folks know when they’ve offended me. ”Better than fat legs,“ I hissed at one woman, giving her a scornful head-to-toe glance. ”The twins are fine, I’ll have a Coke,“ I said with a vicious smile, to a waiter after he asked my breasts what they’d like. If he looked at them after that, it was surreptitiously.
Yes, they’re amazing, wondrous even. I know everyone will look at some point. Just don’t stare. And if you know what’s good for you, do not - ever, ever - ask if they’re real.
I’ve had people use my head as an armrest, for instance. While out walking or in a crowd, I am evidently invisible and get run off the sidewalk or stepped on. Then there’s being physically picked up and whirled through the air, without warning, against my will, while in a restaurant or mall parking lot, which actually happened once or twice on first dates. The boys were astonished that I didn’t want to go out with them again. ”But you’re so little and cute,“ they whined, as if a woman’s littleness and cuteness validated their ”just not able to help myself“ excuses and I should be flattered by their violation of my space.
Of course, there’s a fine subjective line here. Being teased and called ”Shorty“ and being whirled through the air can be fun within the proper context. And if I don’t see that piano or dollop of condor guano headed down from the sky - please, pick me up and move me.
For most people I encounter, the novelty of my lack of height is dissipated somewhat by the novelty of my huge boobs. By some genetic quirk my pygmy body’s got ta-tas better fitted for an Amazon. (Well, the left one anyway, they’d cut the right one off.)
I deal with infinitely more comments about my bosom than about my height, all of them rude, most of them from supposed adults, and women are as bad as men.
Prudie advises the cute little lady that folks probably don’t realize they’re offending her and to list examples of some contemporary stars who share her height. This sounds sane and reasonable and grown-up and it’s not what I do.
Maybe I have too much choleric humour, or maybe it’s because my Mars is in hot-tempered Aries, but folks know when they’ve offended me. ”Better than fat legs,“ I hissed at one woman, giving her a scornful head-to-toe glance. ”The twins are fine, I’ll have a Coke,“ I said with a vicious smile, to a waiter after he asked my breasts what they’d like. If he looked at them after that, it was surreptitiously.
Yes, they’re amazing, wondrous even. I know everyone will look at some point. Just don’t stare. And if you know what’s good for you, do not - ever, ever - ask if they’re real.
03 August 2005
Brutal Newsweek-Slapping Spree Leaves 34 Dead
Despite having the windows closed and the a/c cranked for, oh, the entire summer, a posse of flies somehow broke into my apartment. I came home today to find the kitchen windows abuzz with an absolute horde of fucking flies. Well, okay, they weren’t actually in the act of fucking, but they obviously had reproduced sometime recently, because there was a shitload of ‘em.
There are Jains who adhere so strongly to non-violence and non-killing that they wear masks to avoid breathing in tiny insects. I admire the strength of their principles. The flies should go find a Jain’s house.
The latest copy of Newsweek was the closest thing handy. I subscribed when a coworker’s daughter was selling magazines for the Girl Scouts. I usually read the political cartoons, captions, and graphics, then skim the rest of the articles in about fifteen minutes. Along with the Ann Arbor News and cat food cans, Newsweek is good for recycling. And bug-killing.
Within seconds I had perfected a fly-splattering, wrist-snapping technique. The green bottle flies were only stunned by direct blows and I quickly found it was best to hit them at an angle with the magazine folded in half. This ruptured their exteriors, and even if it didn’t always kill them outright, it at least left them dangling from the window panes, stuck there by their giant exploded eyes.
Five minutes later, the carnage was over. The cat came back out from under the desk while I collected the casualties and scrubbed the guts off the windows. The pages of Newsweek bear multicolored stains and a hairy leg or two. My only regret is that it wasn’t George Will’s turn to write “The Last Word.”
Update: 11:30 pm. The body count now stands at 41.
There are Jains who adhere so strongly to non-violence and non-killing that they wear masks to avoid breathing in tiny insects. I admire the strength of their principles. The flies should go find a Jain’s house.
The latest copy of Newsweek was the closest thing handy. I subscribed when a coworker’s daughter was selling magazines for the Girl Scouts. I usually read the political cartoons, captions, and graphics, then skim the rest of the articles in about fifteen minutes. Along with the Ann Arbor News and cat food cans, Newsweek is good for recycling. And bug-killing.
Within seconds I had perfected a fly-splattering, wrist-snapping technique. The green bottle flies were only stunned by direct blows and I quickly found it was best to hit them at an angle with the magazine folded in half. This ruptured their exteriors, and even if it didn’t always kill them outright, it at least left them dangling from the window panes, stuck there by their giant exploded eyes.
Five minutes later, the carnage was over. The cat came back out from under the desk while I collected the casualties and scrubbed the guts off the windows. The pages of Newsweek bear multicolored stains and a hairy leg or two. My only regret is that it wasn’t George Will’s turn to write “The Last Word.”
Update: 11:30 pm. The body count now stands at 41.
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