dreadcrumbs

The Only Cape In The Room

Today being Halloween, I came to work in a Robin t-shirt and a cape. The cape was from a costume, recently uncovered, that I myself wore back in '78, so it was quite small. But hey, Robin isn't known for being particularly big, so I had to offset my disconcerting bulk in some way.

And standing in my morning meeting listening to the mundane details of an otherwise crisis-fraught software release, I was struck with the realization that I felt powerful. Not my normal "you're all tiny insects that I deign to let live by mercy alone" powerful,  but a more self-esteemy powerful.

Oh yes, you can have doubts about your own self worth and still know you can Destroy The Small with a gesture.

That aside, once I realized my mood this morning was a bit different, I went to probing as to the cause.

Accomplished anything useful? No. Made anyone's life better? No. On drugs? No. Wearing a cape? Yes.

It was like the cape was a nice suit. My version of a power tie. Sure, I may have looked ridiculous, but I knew I was a superhero (or supervillain, whatever). And would be happy to face down anyone who said otherwise.

To the rescue! (BWAHAHAHA!)

Microstory Monday

Family Dinner

Gordon whines as he rabbit-punches me in the gut.
"Sick it up, Jerry!" he shouts. "Sick it up!"
"What...it..," I huff, trying to catch my breath.
"Aaagh!" Gordon cries, grabbing my collar and jamming two of his fingers down my throat. It is the taste of those fingers, something like a combination of earwax and pork, that finally makes me gag and starts the flow of bile and half-digested food.
I fall to the ground, and through watery eyes, I see Gordon scoop up a handful from the mess and immediately pour it into his mouth.
"Gah!" I cry out, still gasping for air. "What is wrong with you!?"
He just looks down at me, hands still dripping, and says nothing.
"We did say Gordon could have the last piece of pie, dear." Mom finally says. "Didn't you hear us?"

Friday Fives

The five most recent completely innocuous things I have done that seem to have disturbed my wife

1. Changed my work laptop's wallpaper to an overexposed photograph of an old well in a forest clearing
2. Knelt in the doorway to our laundry room and scratched my back
3. Asked her if she also heard someone moving around in the garage
4. Massaged the swelling in my injured leg
5. May or may not have chosen to let a family of spiders live in our bed

The Power to Name

For the past two days, my two-year-old son has insisted that he be called "Pablo." True story.  Whenever I slip up and actually use his birth-certificate name, he will say, "No. Pablo." He says it in such a tone as to imply that I am a mad fool for calling him such nonsense. Of course his name is Pablo. Wherever did I come up with this ridiculous "Max" word?

And while the natural assumption as to the cause of this mess is that he has been possessed by the ghost of a Venezuelan orphan child, he is also insisting on calling his mother, my wife, "Tyrone." Some might view this as further evidence of a complete break with reality, but I am reassured by the development, since it gives me another part of the causation puzzle. Because the only Tyrone both I and my son know personally (yes, personally. Don't ask.) is the moose from Backyardigans, and since one of that Moose's close friends happens to be a panic-prone penguin by the name of Pablo, I am able to lay to rest the "latin ghost" theory, and assume that my son is just "pretending."

All this seems like good news to me. The ability to force your own will on reality and creatively re-shape it to your liking is not only fun, but good mental exercise. Sure, some may think it the hallmark of a deranged mind, but I've long ignored those people.

The only truly distressing thing about all this is that the Backyardigan identity I have been assigned is that of the very girly hippo named Tasha. Really, by all rights, I should be Tyrone. But my wife took that one. And why not the kangaroo (I think he's a kangaroo) Austin? At least he's male. And if I absolutely have to be a girl, why not the alien-bug-indeterminate species thing that is Uniqua?

Feh. She claims otherwise, but I suspect that my wife had something to do with my new branding. Manipulating a child's imagination just to tease a spouse. Unseemly behavior, I tell you. Unseemly.

Microstory Almost-Tuesday

A Dish Best Served Cold
Throwing my hands up in exasperation, I turn my back to the kitchen table.
"They don't need to be punished!" I shout again, and wait, half-expecting some convincing reasoning, but get the silent treatment.
"They're just a bunch of stupid kids!" I say. "They make mistakes, like anyone else!"
Annoyed, I turn around, and immediately see the delicious little bundle that is my bacon cheeseburger, still sitting on its wrapping paper. There are no fries in sight.
Slumping down on a chair, I face my incomplete meal. "I just really wanted fries," I mutter. "I ordered fries."
"Like I said," the burger finally says. "They need to be punished."

Friday Fives

Five Reasons Why My Toddler Son Might Be A Robot

1. He is short
2. He has an intuitive understanding of "The Beep" as a method of information transfer
3. He doesn't understand the concept of Human Dominance and the Subjugation of Automata, and whenever I bring it up, he tries to change the subject
4. He converses freely with appliances
5. He grows more powerful every day

The Wickedest Man in The Meeting Room

So I'm in my daily team meeting at work, everyone standing around the edges of the room, prom-nerd style, listening to the facilitator make announcements. My attention waxes and wanes, and during one of those waning periods, I hear the very softspoken, skittish, and generally humorless guy next to me whisper "Satan!"

I look up at him (no, not because I think he's calling me), thinking this might be a manifestation of some joke, but he isn't smiling, just idly looking at the person speaking, maybe a little bored.

About a minute goes by with my looking around to see if anyone else heard what I heard, and am just about ready to write it off as an hallucination, when, just loud enough for me to hear, the guy says it again. This time he's staring at the floor, seemingly not paying attention to anything. I keep staring at him, and I think he notices, because he makes a little quarter-turn away from me to face the manager currently speaking.

Now, I'm all for civil irreverence. Rattling the status quo can be useful and funny, as long as it isn't fundamentally disruptive or painful. But this was just too much of a disconnect not to be disturbing. The guy never says anything that isn't work-related in a meeting, and for his first departure from this pattern to be the repetitive whispering of "Satan!" is a bit off-putting.

I couldn't be sure I heard what I did, of course, but there wasn't a real way to find out. Not that wouldn't be awkward.

DEAN: "Say, Bill?"
BILL: "Hmm?"
DEAN: "Did you just say 'Satan?'
BILL: "What?"
DEAN: "Um...were you just talking to The Devil or anything?"

I kept listening carefully throughout the meeting, certain I misheard, hoping he was really saying "It's eight and.." or "Say, tim.." or "He's Hatin'," but he didn't do it again. So I'll never know. There is a possibility that he might have muttered "Manson is my king" once, but he could just as easily have been clearing his throat.

Microstory Monday

Food for Insomnia
My phone rings at 3 AM, and I can't imagine who could be calling me.
"Hello," I say, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
I am answered with sound of what might be machinery operating at a distance. A grating sound. A chainsaw maybe, or a lawnmower. There are unintelligible voices too, talking quickly, and the bark of someone shouting.
"Who is this?" I say loudly, as if to get the attention of people far away.
There is a rustling sound like someone picking up the receiver, and the background sounds quiet a bit.
"Hello?" I say again, now curious, and suddenly there is a loud, possibly animal, shriek in the background.
"Go back to sleep," I hear a voice say clearly on the other end. "We'll be done soon."

Friday Fives

Five Things I Love About YOU

1. Your story about that time, you know the one, with the thing? That's hilarious. I can't get enough of that story.
2. Your fingers. Nobody has fingers like you. Yours are special.
3. How you act like you don't know that people are staring at you.
4. The tight ball of misery and rage you keep rattling around inside you. It makes me want to keep watching to see what happens.
5. That little sound you make while eating. It's adorable.

The Will To Sour

A manager at work who sits near me just got one of those desk-size zen garden things. You know the kind - an 8 inch square field of sand with a few rocks, complete with a three tiny sand rakes. Actually, I think one of them is more of a sand hoe.

Anyway, since this sublime stress reliever made its appearance on my coworker's desk, I haven't been able to stop thinking of ways to, well, defile it for the sake of humor. But I can't quite settle on what, exactly, to do. Putting a piece of cat feces in it is too obvious, and, despite what you may think based on my blogs, not really my style. I might consider shaping some sort of chocolate bar into an excremental shape and put it in there, but I would want to be able to eat it in someone's presence later. Plus, I can't really be assured the garden owner won't just throw the sculpted chocolate away, never realizing it was supposed to be poo.

If I was drunk, or otherwise artificially freed from my natural inhibitions, I would likely splash a few fat drops of blood and meat in the sand for the creep factor, but that would probably ruin the sand, and I don't want to destroy, I just want to disturb.

I have been thinking that if in my travels to and fro, I happen upon a nice, well-preserved bug corpse, I would collect it, and put it in the garden. But really, I don't see many bug corpses anymore. Not ones that haven't been partially eaten or otherwise un-artistically mangled. And such a thing just wouldn't do.

My current plan, if I can find enough privacy (and some non-messy method of removing and replacing the sand), is to affix a 6x6 glossy photo of Colonel Sanders to the surface under the sand, so hints of it can be seen as the sand is raked.

I'm not completely sold on the Sanders Initiative, though. If any of you have suggestions to appease the coyote spirit, please share.