NO OFFICE TODAY. OR ANY DAY.
You’ve heard of people calling in sick. You may have called in sick a few times yourself. But have you ever thought of calling in well?
It’d go like this: You’d get the boss on the line and say, “Listen, I’ve been sick ever since I started working here, but today I’m well and I won’t be in anymore.” Call in well.
— Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
"I'LL LOOK BETTER IN THE OVEN, I SWEAR."
“Is this how you celebrate Thanksgiving? By watching football?”
“Not entirely. I also eat a lot of food.”
“What about the Pilgrims?”
“Uh, I don’t know… What channel are they on?”
“They’re not on a channel. They’re dead.”
“Oh. Well they should try to be more interesting. It’s hard to get on TV when you’re dead. Unless you’re Larry King… So what did the Pilgrims do?”
“They had a big feast to thank God for killing most of them but not all of them.”
“Cool. And then what happened?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Maybe they went shopping. Christmas is only 29 days away.”
“Right.”
The Nestle Research Center in Switzerland just completed a study, and the results clearly show that eating a quantity of dark chocolate every day reduces stress. Of course, Nestle is a chocolate company—but I’m sure the data isn’t biased. Kind of like a recent study that showed cell phones actually PREVENT tumors. And who conducted that study? A bunch of cell phone companies, of course. I wish I were joking, but here’s the reality—there is no reality. There is only a perception of reality. And the guy who pays for the most perception seems to get his reality told.
Anyway, as luck might have it, I have recently conducted a few studies of my own. Here are the results:
- Chocolate tastes great. But it will make you fat.
- Cell phones are cool—I like them. But they are probably lethal.
- This blog is wonderful. If you send me a heaping pile of cash, you will be thrilled.
Actually, I will be more thrilled than you. And that fact is incontrovertible.
PNC bank sent me a notice in the mail. Apparently, I am eligible for FREE life insurance. Apparently, if I am accidentally killed, my beneficiary will receive $1000. Yes, that’s a number ‘one’ followed by three zeros. Wow. It almost makes me want to ram my car into a concrete guardrail so Jill can retire.
Hey, PNC, have you looked at the calendar lately? It’s almost 2010, and a thousand bucks isn’t what it used to be. In fact, forget the calendar—take a walk to the grocery store. One thousand dollars will get me about 220 boxes of Total. You want me to die for 220 boxes of brightly packaged wheat flakes? Or how about milk? I can get about 70 gallons for $1000. Seventy gallons of cow cream in exchange for my life… Thanks, guys. I really appreciate the gesture. But I think I’ll be staying alive.
FULLY CHARGED FEMALE
She looked at me with emerald eyes that had once been blue. It was no big deal—I’d changed her eyes myself. And since she was a robot, it didn’t really matter what color her eyes were, anyway.
“What do you mean my eyes don’t matter?” she said. “I have feelings, you know. I have a limbic cortex the size of a cantaloupe.”
“Right—sorry.” Damn. Now she was upset.
“I have hopes and dreams,” she continued. “I have desires. I have a contrivance of squishy flesh capable of producing mind-splintering orgasms.”
“All true, all true.” I was trying to escape gracefully. I was contemplating the beauty of a splintered mind.
“And I can make a pizza faster than any goomba fucktard from Brooklyn. With or without sausage.”
Well, she really had me now. She knew all my vulnerabilities.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. ” I sometimes forget how real you can be.”
“I’m real,” she says. “I’m as real as anyone else. Because I am right here.”
How could I argue? She was totally correct.
She was right here, and I was glad.
WE LOVE YOUR MONEY. WE HATE YOUR CAR.
Jill and I went to New Hope, Pennsylvania, on Saturday afternoon to see
The F Bombs play at
John and Peter’s. The band was great. The trip could have been better.
It’s hard to park a car in New Hope. The cars are crammed along the curb a few fumes apart while nearby parking meters devour your dollars like Las Vegas slot machines. And if you’re one second late putting money in the meter, a SWAT team descends upon your vehicle and fires a fusillade of parking tickets at the windshield. Of course, you can always go into one of the parking lots and give up an internal organ in exchange for a parking space. I got a great deal—one kidney for three hours. I saw a guy who lost a couple of lungs. He must have been staying all day.
There are some cool little stores in New Hope, but it takes a while to see them because the narrow sidewalks are infested with turtle-paced people—except for the ones racing to put money in parking meters. And then there are the baby strollers. I remember when these contraptions were small. For some reason, they’re now larger than military vehicles. They have tires with alligator-tooth-sized treads, too, just in case you want to take the kid for a stroll in the Australian Outback or something.
There’s one store that sells swords and knives. Like most places that sell weapons, this establishment has a very “live free or die” vibe to it and that’s great because I’ve always wanted to be free to stab someone. Unfortunately, they have nothing to protect patrons from the Parking Police.
Screw you, New Hope. Screw you up the ass with the world’s biggest parking meter.
If a person buys something on sale that he or she absolutely does not need (which accounts for the majority of department store purchases), is that person actually saving money?
The savage had no boss. He had no bills and no morning obligations. He did not pray to coffee, donuts, or television. He did not lament his lack of air conditioning, and he did not spend his Sunday afternoons watching men in tight pants move a leather ball across a field of watered grass.
The savage died young, but he died happy. Except for that spear through his kidney.
That was a real bummer.
“So how is everything?”
“Great! I feel great!”
“Oh, so you’ve been to another one of those sales seminars? Where they talk about being positive?”
“That’s right. And it was great! I’m smiling like a simp! And I feel—”
“Great! I know! Because they taught you how to negotiate.”
“Exactly.”
“And how to deny reality.”
“Well, denying reality is the basis of all negotiation seminars.”
“Yes, you need to deny the fact that some people will cut out their eyes before they’ll give one small inch.”
“Hm, yeah, true.”
“Because they’re so stupid.”
“Right.”
“It’s like talking to a pile of rocks.”
“Exactly!”
“And really, we’re talking about a lot of people.”
“You know, you might have a point…”
“It’s usually best to just throttle them all.”
“Hey, that’s great! I like that idea! Uh, can you teach me a good choke hold?”
“Sure, I know a few.”
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FEET
Henry David Thoreau once said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Henry, I’m watching the news, and I have to say most men aren’t too quiet about it.
I also notice that commercials during football games mainly feature cars, beer, and food. So I guess advertisers think men are only interested in cars, beer, and food. Well, they’re wrong. We’re also interested in sex.
Actually, there are hordes of scantily clad women in beer commercials. So I guess they’ve got that covered—or, uh, uncovered. But the sexiest commercials aimed at men still have a far lower flesh factor than the ones I see aimed at women.
Am I talking about ads featuring scantily clad men? Not really. I’m mostly talking about more girls, girls, girls.
Reebok has a commercial featuring a long closeup of a woman’s breasts. They’ve got a serious microscope on her mammary glands, and I’m no expert but I’d guess we’re talking 36Cs (okay, I’m a bit of an aficionado). And then the camera drops down for another zoom-in shot of her buttocks. Why? Apparently, Reebok claims this new athletic shoe will place continuous, day-long stress on the female form and thereby produce this fabulous physique.
Of course, they forget to mention the girl in the ad didn’t wear the shoes while she was just walking around—no, she ran ten miles to the gym and then worked out for two hours. And then came home and ate a thimble full of a steamed broccoli.
They always leave that part out.
Uncategorized, philosophy | joeythesquash | 
November 29, 2009 9:32 pm | 
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