dreadcrumbs

Friday Fives

Top five reasons why no one seems to be talking to me at work today

5. The expression of my face at rest is that of "leave me alone or I will club you and eat your children"
4. Through a bizarre combination of actions, words, and beverages I've somehow rendered myself invisible
3. The grunts and whines directed at me actually are attempts at conversation, and not just idle gibbering
2. They don't enjoy the aroma of "Colon Ether"
1. The email I sent yesterday to management claiming I could "provide rather convincing blunt force trauma" to the people requiring me to fill out excess documentation was not taken as a joke

The Freezer in the Shadows

There is a small hallway around the corner from my cubicle at work that leads (I assume) to a supply closet. I regularly see the loo lady's garbage trolley outside of it, so "supply closet" seems like a reasonable assumption. It could be where she lives or runs her off-track betting business, but in either case, I can probably live my life happy without ever knowing for sure.

At any rate, for the past two or so months, there has been a refrigerator at the end of that hallway, its face turned shamefully away from passing traffic. Just sitting unplugged, perpetually mooning passersby with an uncovered freon coil.

Now, I don't work for White Trash Annuities or Redneck Mutual. I hadn't thought it was part of our corporate lifestyle to leave non- or semi-functional appliances on our "lawns." No judgement call there, because if it was my company, I'd leave stuff lying around all the time. It's just that given the way everything else seems to work here, the fact that we have a handicapped refrigerator living in one of our hallways is odd.

Part two of the weirdness equation is the sign affixed to the back of the beast saying "Do Not Remove." My personal theory, based on the non-handwritten nature of the sign, is that it is native to the fridge, and refers to the specific panel upon which it sits. I believe it was placed there by the manufacturer to prevent curious children and monkeys from unfastening said panel and jumping into the belts and cogs of the appliance, thereby gumming up the works with organs and skin.

I can't imagine everyone thinks this, though. I suspect people see the sign and think, "Oh. This refrigerator has an official looking sign telling me not to remove it. It must belong here." So the question of where the hallway monolith should really go and who should take it never gets raised.

My wife and I were planning on renting a storage unit to hold our excess "stuff" while we wait for our new house to be built, but I'm thinking now that I'll bring it all to work. Just print up a "Do Not Remove" sign and call it good.

A Tale of Failed StoryTelling

Let me relate a conversation I had with one of my readers yesterday.

"So, I did eventually put up a Microstory today."
"Yeah, I saw it! Good one."
"The title didn't give it away too much?"
"The title? Um, let me see...what was it about again?"
"...It was called 'A Man of Trephinement.'"
"Oh. Right! I clicked on the link. The circular saw thing."
"Yeah, sort of. The saw is a 'trephine.' I was talking more about trephination generally."
"Trephination?"
"Yeah, that's why I put the dictionary.com link in. Most people don't know the term for brain surgery by punching holes in the skull."
"Is that what it is? I only read about the saw."
"Oh. So did you get the punchline of the story?"
"Punchline?"
"Um, the guy and his drill?"
"The zombie hunter guy, you mean?"
"No, he wasn't a..."
"The one with the zombies in his basement, right?"
"Yeah, he had them in his storm cellar, but the other guy was asking him where they came from..."
"Right..."
"And he said he made them..."
"Right...with voodoo or something, he said."
"Well, that's what the other guy suggested, but then he heard them, and asked if they were plague zombies."
"Yeah. That was the best line. 'Those aren't plague zombies, are they?'"
"Thanks, but then the guy says they aren't plague zombies, unless you call him and his drill a plague."
"Wasn't he going to kill the zombies with his drill?"
"No. He made the zombies."
"With the drill?"
"Yes! That's why I had the whole 'trephination' hint in the title!"
"The saw?"
"No, the drilling into the head!"
"I guess I didn't know you could make zombies with a drill. I thought you had to use voodoo or something."
"But see, they weren't really zombies! That was the punchline. He made 'zombies' by brain damaging people with a drill. He was crazy!"
"Oh. See, that wasn't clear."

Oh well. That's how it goes sometimes. You can't just assume everyone saw the same Jeffrey Dahmer documentary.

Microstory Monday

A Man of Trephinement
"Okay, so, I'm confused," I say, eyeing the clumps of ochre sawdust on Adam's shop floor.
"What's to confuse?" He says. "I got zombies in my cellar." He clears a spot on the floor, revealing a padlocked door.
"Trapped in there? Where did they come from?" I ask, incredulous.
"I made 'em." He says, slipping off the lock and swinging the doors open.
"You made them? How? Voodoo?" I say, and a sound like several monkeys being strangled starts to issue from beyond the open door.
I cover my mouth, and look back from the cellar door to my host.
"These aren't plague zombies, are they?"
He laughs. "Naw," he says, walking back to his workbench and picking up a dirty electric drill. "Unless you want to call me and the Black & Decker here a plague."

Friday Fives

Because last week we did the Best things, let's do the worst things today.

Top 5 Worst things to Find in Your Waste

5. Pockets of Phlegm or Pus
4. A baby ferret
3. Razor blades
2. Anything screaming
1. A severed finger

I said "slow spread of dignity." S L O W.

The Slow Spread of Dignity

So whether you believe it or not, my internal editor, the little super-ego shaped thing that lives at the base of my skull and keeps me from writing and saying things that might be considered "out of bounds," has been getting a little more irritable in recent weeks. I'm usually able to wrestle it to the ground, gag it, throw it in the basement, and get to the business of writing about the existential hilarity of vivisection, but not always. And it's getting more difficult as I discover more about who might actually be reading this blog.

See, I started out with the knowledge that, because my wife was linking to me from her blog and site, that I might get crossover traffic from her fans. That made me a little nervous, because someone who enjoys "Princess Academy" might not have a completely positive reaction to my theories on how one might smelt knives from your own blood. Or stories about forced parasitic implantation.

Then there is the Mother factor. A little concern about my own mother, but she's already pretty accustomed to my brain, and has kind of a sick sense of humor anyway. The mother in-law, however...I may have had illusions that I was still coming across to her as a sweet, well-adjusted and perfect mate for her daughter. But the knowledge that she reads the blog coupled with the number of fecal-themed entries here, well, I probably can't count on that anymore.

Add to that the recent revelation that some of my co-workers are aware of the blog, and future entries about hallway mincers and greek spies may run scuttling away from the light of broad awareness. 

Just this morning, in fact, when the babysitter was being dropped off at our house to watch my son, her mother asked what my blog address was, having heard about it from my wife. I gave it to her, but I wonder now whether her daughter will be allowed to sit for us anymore after her mother sees my stories about severed eyelids and suicide crochets.

Then again, if I have vaguely boring titles and keep the entries as long as this one, maybe no one will actually brave the text long enough to experience that inevitable shudder of dismayed revulsion.

One can hope.

Microstory Monday

An Incident on County Road 57
In the red glow of the brake lights, I can just make out the shape of whatever it was we hit.
Dave takes a quick step toward it and then stops, skidding on the gravel. "Was...was it a person?" he says.
"Go see." I say, unwilling to get any closer myself.
He gives me a dirty look, and crunches off toward the shape. I think I see him kneel down beside it, and then I hear what might be vomiting.
Several seconds pass. "Well?" I call. "What is it?"
"Not a person," it says.