Compulsive Acts of Writing

The Explosive Vacation

2009-06-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

It was a rare sunny day in late March in Oregon, and my spirits were high as I entered the used bookstore. I had no particular book in mind to buy and enjoyed a few quiet minutes browsing through the cozy store, relishing the proximity of so many printed words. Finally, I knew I had to leave, so I bought a well-worn copy of a bestseller from some years past. Back on the street, I walked past the downtown shops toward the park where my wife and children played with friends.

I thumbed the pages of my acquisition as I walked, looking forward to indulging in some recreational reading during my coming week of vacation. At the time, nothing about my purchase seemed portentous, and I gave no thought as to what supernatural impulse might have compelled my hand to reach out and grab that one particular book. However, soon the significance of my selection grew and grew until it attained what might rightly be called cosmic importance, for that whimsical decision eventually proved not only the existence of God, but the existence of God’s Sense of Humor.

Shortly after rejoining my family, the initial tremors of the cataclysm to come shuddered through my son. He began complaining about his stomach being upset and then vomited in the parking lot at the mall. His mother and I fervently hoped that his illness would be mild and short lived, since we still had a considerable amount of visiting and traveling to experience on this family vacation before ever seeing home again. But my son is five and prone to overreacting when it comes to pain and sickness, so we allowed ourselves a measure of optimism.

That night I felt my optimism waning considerably as I made obeisance at the porcelain throne of my sister’s bathroom. Still, by the morning I felt well enough to drive the minivan as we headed off across the state to my parent’s house. My son felt much better, and I no longer felt like throwing-up, but soon new convulsions began racking my body.

Not content to just empty my stomach, my body next determined that all foreign substances must proceed out the nearest exit, and fast. Humility, I discovered, is quivering outside an occupied restroom in McDonald’s, slowly realizing that your journey will have to continue without the company of your present pair of underpants.

Some good did come from that trip, in that I was able to make a thorough evaluation of Oregon’s many rest area facilities. I now know their layouts and can speak knowledgeably on such topics as the quality of their toilet tissue, the precise timing of their automatic flushing mechanisms, and the exact number of tiles on the floor of an average stall.

We eventually made it to my parent’s house, though the last ten minutes I drove like a man racing to save his life, or in this case, his dignity.

The three days we spent with my Mom and Dad contained many joyous and happy times of fun and fellowship. However, all those cheerful memories are punctuated by the recollection of countless gut-wrentching spasms. Remembering that visit is like hearing a beautiful symphony of laughter and merriment which is constantly broken up by the discordant whoosh of a toilet flush.

I have been sick before, but the gastrointestinal distress which assailed my body that week was like no ailment I had ever felt nor dreamed could exist. The virus that waged war on my members was no average bug, but rather some apocalyptic germ of doom. Its genetic make-up, no doubt, was a mere gene or two removed from Ebola, and I often felt that I might die, sure as I was that all my insides were liquefying into a foul soup.

My sole source of solace during those long hours in the bathroom proved to be my new book. It not only saved my time from being completely flushed away, but in a strange way, it comforted me and gave my misery a real voice.

When the time came to leave, we decided to take a new way home, driving to Southern California through Idaho and Utah. The computer said that it was a shorter distance, which sounded good to us. Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details.

What the computer failed to reveal to us was that the governments of Idaho and Utah care nothing for the well-being of freeway travelers. Specifically, they have never felt the need to build rest areas. I am sure they don’t think that their state is one big toilet, but it is the practical outworking of their inaction.

My own dilemma seemed to be waning, and I could function for a good three hours before my body began clenching. Unfortunately on the road my son’s sickness staged a violent comeback. We drove through the night, wanting the children asleep for as much of the 20-hour trip as possible. Of course, natural disasters keep no hours, and eruptions occur at all times of the day. I pondered this truth at 2 am, as I stood by the side of some nameless off-ramp in the middle of nowhere Utah, holding my convulsing son as bodily fluids evacuated his body through both entrance and exit simultaneously.

We left Utah something of a present that night, but really it was more than that. I hope they view it as a suggestion; a comment card deposited by a passing visitor. Our message contained no words, yet no magic glasses are needed to interpret it correctly. Its central theme is really a question: the next time you get ready to spend $10 million for building a new tabernacle, why not set aside a couple grand and dig a few pit toilets?

I could chronicle the rest of that explosive night on the road and following morning of suffering, but I am sure you have heard enough to get the idea. Suffice to say, never before has the sight of a gas station caused me to break out into the Halleluiah chorus.

But to understand the real touch of irony imbedded in this whole experience I must take you back to that small downtown bookstore. For it is there that God manifested His sovereignty in a most unexpected way. As I perused the myriads of books and considered the single volume I might read for pleasure on my vacation, my wandering eye happened to stop on a certain title. So I bought it. What book was it? What book became my trusty sidekick as I discharged hour after hour on that cold, white seat?

The author was Simon Winchester, and the book was “Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded,” a thorough and descriptive account of one of the greatest volcanic catastrophes ever experienced by man. And while I read such chapters as “The Paroxysm, the Flood, and the Crack of Doom,” I knew God was real and that He was laughing.

Temporary Insanity

2009-03-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

I always thought that sanity was like hair, in that once you lost it, it never came back. So when my wife lost her mind last summer, I started shopping for reasonably priced wall padding. Fortunately, though, my wife did regain her sense, and is today practically 100% sane again. It was an amazing recovery, especially considering the severity of her mental breakdown which expressed itself in reoccurring hallucinations of invading family members.

I remember when it all began. I had come home from work, and my wife was telling me about her day. I don’t recall much of what she told me, but I am sure she didn’t mention anything alarming or portentous like, “I hit my head really hard,” or “The potato peeler slipped and ruptured my cerebral cortex.” Indeed, she gave no hint of warning that she was about to slip off the edge.

We were just finishing our conversation when she added, “Oh, yeah. I saw some aunts today.”

This in itself is not a worrisome statement. My wife has half-a-dozen aunts and several of them live close enough to be seen at any given time.

“That’s nice,” I said unconcernedly. “Which ones?”

“The same ones I always see.”

I thought it an odd answer, and I felt unsure how to reply, so I let the matter drop.

Later at dinner, however, my wife started the discussion again. I remember that night my wife was trying out a recipe she had recently discovered for a sweet-and-spicy potato soup.

“What are you going to do about our aunts?” She asked me.

“What are you talking about?”

“The aunts that were in our house today, what are you going to do about them?”

“What do you mean? Why were they here?”

My wife gave me an exasperated look. This is a look she has mastered after our seven or eight years of marriage. “Why? I’m sure they were looking for food.”

I stared at my bowl of potato soup. I wasn’t so sure they wanted our food. “Well, I guess if they’re in need we can spare some.”

“Are you crazy!? I don’t want a bunch of aunts in my house!”

I was in agreement on that point but then some tragedy occurred with one of the children and our discussion ended. In the days that followed, though, the situation began escalating. My wife started complaining almost everyday about her aunts.

I didn’t understand why this was a problem. “If they are bothering you,” I told her, “just don’t let them in.”

“How can I stop them? They don’t exactly knock, you know. They just come on in!”

This was a startling development. I couldn’t imagine any of my wife’s aunts behaving in such an impolite and overbearing manner.

“Maybe they’re just lonely. Have you tried reaching out to them?” I asked cautiously.

“Lonely!!” She cried. “They are the most social creatures on the planet!”

I remembered last Thanksgiving and couldn’t help but agree. Just then the baby started crying. My wife left the room, grumbling something through clenched teeth.

Finally, one day I realized what the problem was. My wife wasn’t seeing her aunts or my aunts. She also wasn’t seeing uncles or cousins. In fact, she wasn’t seeing any relatives at all. She was hallucinating.

It dawned on me one day when she hauled me into the kitchen to show me the aunts.

“Do you see them?” She demanded. “They’re all along that wall.” She motioned with a big bread knife, waving it back and forth menacingly at the blank wall.

I had trouble taking my eyes off the knife. “Uh, yeah. I do see them. I do!”

“I can’t figure out where they are coming from,” she continued, “but I know what they’re after. The water!”

She turned to me, still clenching the knife, obviously waiting to hear my assessment. “I guess today they’re thirsty,” I squeaked.

“Listen,” she said sternly, “this is not a joke. I will not live in a house with these aunts. Do something!”

I didn’t know what to do. If we were Catholics I would have called the priest for an exorcism, but our church isn’t even charismatic enough for “laying on of hands”, so I was on my own. I tried demonstrating empathy toward my wife’s problems, but I guess I’m not a good enough actor, because all it did was make her more angry.

I kept asking my wife what she wanted me to do, so one day she finally told me to “Just figure out how to kill them.” That sounded good. I definitely had no qualms about killing imaginary beings, but unfortunately I also didn’t have the slightest clue as to how I might go about it. I figured that since this dilemma was all in her head, I would have to play by her rules to find a solution, so I starting probing her psyche with subtle questions that might elicit hints to help me.

“So how do you want me to murder your aunts?”

“Figure out where they are coming from and kill them before they get in our house.”

I was confident that I already knew the source of the ghostly relatives, but I also knew accusing my wife of being crazy would get me nowhere. Whenever I do that she just says, “I know” and points to her wedding ring. Instead, I told her I’d look into it.

My looking into it consisted mainly of searching the web for information on known mental disorders. Somehow, I’d always end up looking at video games on eBay. My lack of progress must have frustrated my wife, so she started fighting back on her own. Her weapon of choice: the vacuum. In retrospect it kind of made sense. Of all our appliances, the vacuum most closely resembles those photon blasters they used in “Ghostbusters.”

My wife took her war to the extreme. I started purposely avoiding asking about her day, because she would inevitably begin regaling me with accounts of her “aunt” battles. The fighting took place all over the house and involved fantastic numbers of enemy combatants. One day she sucked up fifty in the laundry room. The next day it was a hundred in the girls’ room, followed next by two hundred in the kitchen.

I was supportive and hopeful. “Great job, Honey. Do you think now you’ve got them all?”

“Are you kidding? Go look outside; they’re all over just trying to find a way in.”

“Of course,” I sighed, “of course.”

I didn’t know how much more I could take, and I was contemplating making a call to whoever it is you call when need someone taken away in a straitjacket, when finally one day my wife snapped out of her psychosis all by herself. Well, kind of.

“If we don’t get rid of these aunts they’ll have to take me away in a straitjacket,” she said.

“Really?” I said nonchalantly, “Do you know their number?”

She continued. “I called the Terminator and he will be here in the morning.”

“That's fantastic,” I said. After all, who better to get rid of imaginary family members than a fictional movie character? Of course, this meant that her delusions were becoming more expansive, but I hoped for the best. Maybe she would allow me to leave dirty dishes in the sink again.

When I got home the next day, my wife was all smiles as she reported to me the success of the Terminator. He had taken his gun and sprayed the outside of the house.

“Gee, I hope the bullets didn’t leave a too many holes in the stucco,” I joked under my breath.

Fortunately my wife was too excited to notice my sarcasm. She hadn’t seen a single aunt all day.
It was the most relaxing evening we had experienced for some time, though my wife did suffer one additional episode. While she was helping our youngest boy wash his hands for dinner, she suddenly let out a loud shriek. She slapped at his back and then stomped violently on the floor.

I jumped up and ran over to her. “What’s wrong!?”

With a look of horror she pointed down at the tile.

I peered down. “What? That dead bug?”

I blame her reaction on the stress of her recent mental divergence, since I can find no rational explanation. After all, how can she can spend all day mopping floors, preparing raw meat, and changing dirty diapers, and still run from the room in tears at the sight of one dead ant? But no matter, I love my wife, even though sometimes I don't understand her.

To My Valentine

2009-02-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

Together At Thirty

If yesterday seems far away
And tomorrow now here to stay;
If as you walk life’s one-way street,
Too quick the road beneath your feet;
Remember Christ makes all things new,
And in His arms naught pales that true.
(A desert flower tasting dew for three decades,
Is a bloom of precious beauty that never fades)
So since we know His love divine,
We need no help from twenty-nine.

A Special Visit to the Doctor

2008-07-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

Two memorable events occurred in my life yesterday. I experienced an earthquake, and I got a physical from the doctor. As sovereignty would have it, the two experiences coincided.

Before yesterday, I hadn’t visited a doctor in about 10 years, save one emergency room stitch-up on my left hand, and I’m pretty sure that lady was a nurse. My lack of familiarity with medicine isn’t because of any bizarre phobia, but due to the fact that I am as healthy as a horse. And I mean a healthy horse, not one of those that they’re about to shoot and turn into glue.

The reason for my visit was initially because of an impending, semi-voluntary surgical operation, the precise variety of which is too sensitive to mention in print. It turned out I didn’t need to have a physical for said procedure after all, but my wife had already made the appointment, and I was curious to see if my total avoidance of the medical community had any ill effects on my health (I’ll just tell you now; it didn’t).

My odyssey to the doctor’s office began with the usual harrowing experience that is driving on the freeway, made all the more exciting by the fact that my vehicle is in weight and volume only slightly greater than a casket. I managed to avoid the visage of death only to be blindsided by another sinister fiend, despondency, visited upon me in the form of looking for an open parking space at the medical office. I completed several circuits when into my mind sprang a vision consisting of a complex mathematical formula which quantified the cost of walking an extra 20 feet and compared it to the value of gas, the value of my time, and the value of air-conditioning (a feature which my car does not have and which might also explain why I was seeing things). So I parked on the side of the road in the dirt.

Once inside the medical office complex, hereafter to be referred to as the labyrinth, I wasted an hour of my life just waiting to see the doctor, but I’m told that’s normal. Apparently, while healthy people only visit the doctor once every decade or so, weak members of society are in a continuous state of visitation, always asking, “When is my next appointment?” Several times I felt like knocking people to the floor and shouting, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” But I refrained.

Eventually, after I had completed a 500 point dot-to-dot, I found myself sitting on a strange, padded table wearing my nothing but my shorts and a “gown.” The doctor came in and the exam began.

Half-way through the exam the building began shaking. The doctor said, “This feels like an earthquake,” a statement which instantly brought to my mind a list of the worst possible times to be wearing nothing but boxer shorts. I discovered my current situation near the top.

As the earthquake continued and escalated in intensity, the doctor took a couple of steps toward the door, and I, my state of undress notwithstanding, took a couple of steps right behind him. I had one eye on my pile of clothes and was about to test the universality of that old adage, “puts his pants on one leg at a time,” when the shaking stopped.

The doctor and I verbally confirmed to each other that what we experienced was definitely an earthquake. As we calmed down, he proceeded to make comments on the intensity of the event and our probable distance from its epicenter, proving in the end very little except that possessing a medical degree in no way makes you a seismologist.

Once everybody’s heart rate had returned to normal, the exam continued, in all its glory. Soon thoughts of anything other than the actions of the man sitting in front of me fled my mind.

When it was over he said that I was fine, shook my hand, and I thought the ordeal was finally finished. But then he said something to me that no male doctor should ever say to a male patient whom he has just given a physical. His words sent chills of fear down my spine and exploded in my brain absolute horror of a kind that made my previous concerns of ultimate public humiliation and being crushed to death in a collapsing building seem silly and childish.

He said, "We have a special bond now."

My stunned shock must have been visible, for he quickly added, “We’ve been in an earthquake together.”

What? Oh yeah, right. The earthquake. The earthquake is our special bond. Our one and only special bond.

So ended my ten year respite from doctors. I think next time I’m going to try for twenty.

A Dismal Day Perspective

2008-05-19T21:36:00.001-07:00

(based on actual events)

Countless clouds disgraced the sky,
That damp December first.
The day on which the crash occurred,
that day God might have cursed.

It all began inside the house
where played my progeny.
At mimicking insane baboons
who thought I was a tree.

I thought to speak and say, “Enough!”
I might have said, “No more!”
Instead I chose to save my breath
and shove them out the door.

But energy confined by fence
too slowly dissipates.
My nerves needed their Captain Crunch
to burn at faster rates.

Another scream assailed my ears
as answer came to mind
Their bikes will take them far away
And leave silence behind.

My wife thought it a fine idea
except one small detail.
If I did not escort those two
she’d have me sent to jail.

With helmets strapped under their chins
and wheels under their feet,
I loosed them from their backyard cage
to terrorize the street.

As they were zooming back and forth
in mad trajectories,
I climbed upon my own old bike,
despite complaining knees.

I started riding toward the kids,
racing quick as I could.
I felt the wind against my scalp
where once my hair had stood.

I flew right past my little girl,
and laughed at her slow speed.
My little boy then cut me off
a suicidal deed.

I knew I could not turn in time
and we were bound to meet.
So I tried hard to brace myself
and prayed for soft concrete.

It all occurred so fast I heard
a screech, a bang, a pop.
Yet still my pace remained unchanged,
too bad my bike had stopped.

When finally I came to land
I rolled a dozen feet.
Still I sustained no injuries
here worthy to repeat.

My son for sure was crying loud
as though he lost a limb,
but careful search only revealed
a single scratch on him.

We pulled apart the battered bikes,
and found them good to go.
Though as we peddled to the park
they told me take it slow.

Now providence, a pardon please
for climate cursing chants.
Thanks to that dreary day we dressed
in sweaters and long pants.

The moral of my rhyming poem,
Is not about bald men.
Instead thank God for dismal days,
Before you say amen.

Past Days of Thick Glory

2008-01-18T22:04:00.000-08:00

On the dresser in my room is a picture of me from high school. I am standing on a football field, fully geared up in my uniform and pads, holding my helmet under my arm and trying hard to look cool or tough or probably both. I'm not sure how it got there, and I've never paid much attention to it, but it does occasionally stir up feelings deep in my soul. Specifically it makes me feel old and out of shape.

The other day my four-year-old son was in the room, and I noticed him looking at the picture. Right away my head swelled with pride as I recognized an opportunity to increase my manliness in the eyes of my oldest son. In response to the question I knew he was about to ask, my mind hastily began composing an explanation/epic poem that contained such an abundance of terms like "raw muscle," "pounding fury," and "fullback wedge," that any male who heard it would spontaneously start sweating testosterone.

“Do you see that picture of me?” I prepped.

“Yeah,” said my child. Then he said something else.

However, before I reveal what he said, I feel the need to note certain truths concerning my son. First of all, he has little experience with sports in general, and practically no experience with football in particular. In our house we don’t play sports, we don't watch sports, we don’t talk about sports. We don't even watch television. Any knowledge he might possess about football is limited to what anecdotal bits and pieces he has picked up from the very limited exposure of popular culture allowed him. I've never talked to him about it, and I doubt any other family members have either, since my in-laws are more baseball oriented (a fact I try not to hold against them).

So there was my son, staring at a picture of his father adorned in a bizarre black outfit with a large white #45 emblazoned on the chest, exhibiting monstrous shoulders and casually cradling a helmet that looks like it belongs in a medieval torture museum, and what catches his attention? What arouses his curiosity?

“It looks like you had hair,” said the boy.

I’m not sure what was more depressing, the fact that existence of hair on my head was the one and only element in the photo that elicited a comment, or the fact that he felt it necessary to insert the word “looks” into his statement. I guess my preschooler didn’t want to sound totally stupid by making any definite assertions concerning something so outrageously unbelievable as the existence of hair on my head. Apparently, he felt it just as likely that the stuff on my head was not hair at all, but something else entirely, like a quirky glare from the camera flash or perhaps a small furry animal that had taken up residence on my cranium.

The pride of remembered manliness dissipated as quickly as body heat through a scalp. “Yes,” I responded slowly, “I had hair and uh, furious muscles - now get out of my room.”

The Sprinkling: A Baptist Horror Story

2007-06-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, I would like to apologize to anyone who has ever had the misfortune of taking a "shower" in the main bathroom of my house. I can only hope that someday, perhaps aided by intense psychotherapy, you can erase from your mind the agony of such an inhuman ordeal.

The fact that my house held such unspeakable horrors only came to my attention recently when my wife and I decided to improve our master bath. This decision occurred right after the toilet paper holder ripped out of the wall and joined its partner the towel bar on the floor in the corner. Gravity had finally achieved victory over these valiant warriors who had selflessly protected the clean and dry from the filth and corruption of the floor. My heart was grieved for these fallen fighters, but in my sorrow I purposed to honor their memory by recruiting new soldiers to raise up their fallen mantle. Moreover, it really inconvenienced me and my wife.

Wasting no time, I drove to the hardware store. My plan was to buy a bunch of new things for the bathroom, take them all home, and then come up with a plan. It sounded easy, until I recognized a major flaw in my strategy; namely, I was going to be the person doing all the work. I briefly entertained the notion of storing the toilet paper in a coffee can, but decided against it (too many bad memories).

So I made my way to the “indoor plumbing” bathroom fixtures. I admired the beautiful sets of crystal and brass, pretended to consider them for a moment, then hung my head and duly shuffled to the other end of the line. These fixtures were made of imitation wood, and upon close examination I was immediately struck by their uncanny resemblance to the two I had so recently tossed into the trash. This perceived similarity was no doubt heightened by the disturbing fact that the fixtures on display were already falling apart. I purchased them anyway, comforting myself with the thought that at least I wouldn’t feel so bad when I fouled up the installation.

I got the stuff back home and promptly lost interest. Unfortunately, this pause gave my wife time to contemplate more improvements, and soon our bathroom makeover came to include new paint, a new bath mat, an actual shower curtain to replace the army surplus tarpaulin, and glass in the window. Naturally, all this added greatly to the time, cost, and complexity of the project. As a result, the master bath was out of commission for several days. It would have been much longer (indeed I had anticipated being able to avoid other pressing maintenance issues by prolonging the project all summer), but my ambition increased exponentially right after I finished taking my first shower in the other bathroom.

My bathing experience began normally, without any hint of the perversity to come: I turned on the faucet, I checked the temperature, and then I switched the water flow to the shower. At that point a phenomenon of plumbing occurred. The torrent of water that had been pouring from the faucet was redirected, certainly, but to regions unknown. The one sure thing was that only a tiny fraction of that blessed flow ever found its way out of the shower head.

As I waited expectantly, my mind slowly came to grips with the severity of the situation. I suddenly realized that the initial, heavenly blast of heated liquid wasn’t going to materialize, and that the ¼” rivulet of water that I saw dropping straight down from the shower head wasn’t the result of excess condensation after all, but was instead the closest thing to a shower currently available in my house. I instantly fell to my knees and prayed fervently for the Lord’s immediate return.

The next few moments were marked by a lack of trumpet sounds, so I sighed and ducked under the seepage. I found that washing was not totally impossible, but could be carried out by slowly turning in a circle, cleaning one small strip of flesh after another. As my patience wore thin, I attempted to get my whole body wet at once by spinning in a circle, but I quickly discovered that it was not the safest exercise to attempt on a smooth and (slightly) damp surface. I wanted to cry as I stood there; not only because of my newly twisted ankle, but also because the tears would have really improved my ability to soap up.

For the sake of historical accuracy, I shouldn’t call what happened that evening a shower. A more precise term would be dribble, or trickle, yet these fail to convey the torment involved. I’ll call it an annoyance. As in, I found myself standing naked beneath an annoyance of water, wondering who murdered my good friend water pressure and estimating how far I could stretch the garden hose.

Needless to say, I came out of that shower a changed man. Not an especially clean man, but a changed man nonetheless. That very night I removed that sadistic shower head, beat it to pieces with a hammer, threw the pieces in the trash, and burned the trash can. As toxic fumes of burning plastic wafted into the dark sky, I vowed never again to take for granted the glorious joy produced by streams of hot water, and I begged Heaven to forgive me for allowing so many poor souls to suffer through that unholy sprinkling.

Fiddling with Theology

2006-09-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Theology is regarded by many as a bastion of scholars; a subject too lofty and abstract to affect the simple life of a layman. However, this is entirely untrue. Though often unrecognized, theology pervades every facet of our lives and manifests itself throughout all levels of society.

To prove the ubiquitous nature of theology and its relevance to even the most ignorant of men, we should examine the medium in our society which is often considered the least capable of accurately conveying complex ideas; that is, a medium produced by and directed to people who loudly take pride in their lack of education and cultural progression: namely, country music.

For this seemingly Herculean labor, let us consider the highly-regarded (in certain circles) ultra-country super-classic, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

(city slickers who don’t know the lyrics by heart click here)

On the surface, this song-turned-legend is a lively fiddle-piece commemorating one brash young man’s victory over evil. Closer examination, however, reveals a decidedly darker story concerning human pride and devilish deception.

The song’s opening provides us with the first clue as to its deeper meaning by marking Satan as the focus of the story. Johnny might mistakenly be viewed as the protagonist, but really we are told important character facts only concerning the Devil, such as his state of mind (“in a bind”), his motivation (“he was way behind”), and his objective (“a soul to steal”). Indeed, the entire story develops directly from the actions of Satan.

While Satan should be viewed as the main character, we do learn several things about poor Johnny: He is young, he can play the fiddle well, and he is lacking in common sense. The first two characteristics are directly mentioned in the song lyrics, and the third can be quickly inferred. In the first place he is “sawing” on his fiddle in the vicinity of a “hickory stump.” This imagery of both style and setting instantly moves Johnny out of the sphere of Carnegie Hall and into the realm of “Deliverance.” In addition, while Johnny apparently recognizes the Devil, he fails to grasp the gravity of the situation, and rather than fleeing in stark terror, engages first in banter and then in contest with the great deceiver.

Satan, of course, is no match for this Southern redneck. He has spent thousands of years tricking men, and he instantly exploits a weak spot in his foe, which is Johnny’s noticeable musical talent. Satan recognizes pride of ability and builds on it with a compliment (“you play a pretty good fiddle boy”). This is followed by the introduction of the bait (the golden fiddle) and capped off with a provoking jab at the inflated ego (“I think I’m better than you”). The obvious goal of this little speech is to spur the foolhardy youngster into a fight in which no clear-thinking man would engage.

Johnny then recklessly agrees to a fiddling contest with Satan. Tragedy seems inevitable. Then, surprisingly, Johnny wins the contest! He bests the Devil, wins the golden fiddle, and retains possession of his soul. Or at least, that’s the way it would appear.

One very important questions immediately come to the mind of any sharp observer. How could Satan, an extremely powerful supernatural entity, lose such a simple competition to a boy in the backwoods of Georgia? It is inconceivable, unless, perhaps, the Devil wanted to lose. In which case we must ask ourselves another important question: What exactly did Johnny win?

The obvious answer is that Johnny won a golden fiddle. On further thought, it must be recognized that he also won something less tangible: pride. In fact, as Johnny ran home clutching his prize, his ego must have hovered at the verge of explosion. He was better than Satan. He was “the best that ever been.”

Theologians point to pride as the basis of man’s sin. When man thought that he might be equal to God, he ate the fruit, gained the knowledge, and pitted himself against his creator forever. Fast forward to Johnny, running through the woods, and the folly of man is still raging. A young man capable of defeating Satan on his own is a young man bursting with arrogance. This is a young man who certainly doesn't need God to save his soul from hell.

And what exactly will Johnny do with a golden fiddle anyway? Wouldn’t the Devil had been better off to conjure up a Stradivarius? Satan obviously didn’t care about winning (there weren’t even any judges, or defined terms for winning). By calling the fiddle “golden,” we can only assume that it was of significant material value. So now a excessively-confident young man has within his grasp a small fortune. Johnny's future is shaping up to be grim enough for several more tragic country songs.

It becomes quite clear that Satan never had any intention of winning the fiddling contest. He was battling Johnny on a decidedly different level, and winning every step of the way. Johnny’s limited spiritual knowledge even tried to warn him (“it might be a sin”), but he paid it no heed. Poor Johnny thought he had saved his soul, not realizing that the moment he willing wagered it for fame and fortune was the moment he had lost it forever.

In retrospect, the deceit of Satan is nothing at which to be surprised. After all, from the very beginning of the song we were informed as to Satan’s objective. His aim wasn't to purchase a soul or win one in a fair competition. He was out to “steal” somebody’s soul, and that is precisely what he did.

As you can see, no element of our culture sinks low enough to escape theology, if you take the time to listen and evaluate. The relevant question is actually: how worthwhile is that theology which is being espoused? The answer to that question might be surprisingly complex, even if you're just listening to an uncultured country song.

Why Good Things Happen to Bad Dogs

2006-06-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

I used to love dogs. I thought that a dog was the greatest friend and companion any man could ever hope of buying at a reasonable price. But my admiration of the canine species dropped drastically after I suffered the sad misfortune of meeting the dog called evil (or Cozy).

By the time my son turned two, my wife’s biological forces had re-energized themselves to a point where she would speak wistfully of being pregnant. Much to my relief, staying at home all day with two young children seemed to be enough to dampen her inexorable hormones. Instead of more diapers and pacifiers, she decided she needed to have a dog.

We talked it over many times. I didn’t want to burden our household with the extra responsibilities of caring for an animal, but my wife insisted that she would bear the burden. She actually said to me, “I will clean up all the messes in the backyard,” with complete and absolute sincerity. At that point I began to realize what I was dealing with. Still, I would calmly and rationally set forth a logically unassailable litany of reasons why acquiring a pet would be a “very bad idea.” My wife’s rebuttal consisted chiefly of crying. Such lopsided arguments left little doubt as to the final outcome.

My wife located our future pet at a rescue mission in a neighboring city. She led me to believe that the facility was called a rescue mission because it saved animals from Cruella de Ville type owners. Now, I suspect that the term “rescue” is how previous owners refer to the place when recalling the day they drove up, shoved their brutes out the door, and sped away, weeping tears of joy.

The lady at the home for disturbed dogs told us that our beast, a Dachshund, came from an abusive home. She cleverly did not specify the direction of the abuse, nor delve into the animal’s ancestry, which I am sure includes Nazi breeding experiments. For our part, we only had to pay a mere $100 to adopt a four-legged sociopath.

The dog, sensing a sure thing, took to my wife immediately. This was fine by me; I assumed we would simply tolerate each other. My wife’s new best friend, on the other hand, recognized right away that I was her main rival for my wife’s affections, and began to strategize accordingly.

At first I was confused and bothered by this canine’s attitude toward me. She avoided me whenever possible, she treated my attempts at kindness with contempt, and she refused to fetch either my slippers or the paper (instead pretending to not understand what I asked of her). This subversive behavior quickly produced bitterness in me, and soon the mutt and I became adversaries.

My fuzzy foe and I have since mastered our sinister game. Whenever my wife is around, she is a model pet, sitting on laps and begging for scraps of food. Likewise, I pat her on the head and say things like, “Here, Cozy. Have some more of my chicken, but not the bones!”

Once my wife is gone, however, all pretenses are tossed aside. As soon as the garage door shuts, I hurry to find her so that I might have the satisfaction of tossing her carcass outside. Unfortunately, she has an uncanny knack for knowing when my wife is leaving, and she invariably ends up beneath one of the beds before I can get to her. I try to coax her out with food, such as chocolate-covered rat poison, but she doesn’t seem to trust me.

Just for the record, I have never hit the dog (with anything very painful), though at times she vexes me to the point of true wrath. For instance, anytime she is in my bed along with my wife and I dare approach, she begins barking and snarling like a wiener-shaped demon. This is especially annoying at five in the morning when I am trying to give my wife a goodbye kiss as I leave for work.

My wife thinks that the dog is protecting her, but I know the truth. Cozy and I are sworn enemies, and she hates me. I know she isn’t protecting my wife, because if I call her bluff and climb into the bed, she immediately loses interest and goes right to sleep. For her, sleeping next to my wife without me represents the single greatest victory over me she can ever hope to attain. Like a true villain, she has pinpointed a source of pleasure in my life and now continually attempts to usurp it.

So why does this battle still rage? As master-of-the-house and provider-of-all-therein, what force on earth could compel me to give shelter and cans of expensive food to my mortal enemy? I don't know, but my wife must, because right now she is napping next to that devil dog in our bed, she is several months pregnant, and I am in the backyard with a shovel, scooping up dog messes.

For Want of A True Fan

2006-04-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

I’m willing to bet that the second person to ever make use of indoor plumbing was the first person to envision the need for increased air circulation in bathrooms. That idea eventually realized itself in what should have been the crowning achievement in mankind’s struggle for personal comfort and dignity - the bathroom fan. Alas, like the term “attractive” in personal ads, what bathroom fans actually deliver is far less than what you hope and expect.

To put it simply- fans don’t work. The concept seems as simple as it is desirable: move bad fumes out of small rooms. * Yet, incredibly, the designers who ultimately built these devices seem to have completely missed the mark. The only explanation I can come up with is that these mechanical engineers must live alone and have never had to use a public restroom in their entire life. Why else would they waste time and energy creating fans that amount to nothing more than white noise generators? The faint whirring sound is relaxing, but trust me, I’m not in a public toilet to relax. In fact, I don’t even think it is safe to be relaxing when sitting or standing in a dimly lit, windowless room with your pants down.

Bathroom fans in personal residences are even more ineffective, if such a thing is possible. Just ask yourself the following question: If I hear the buzz of the fan as I approach the bathroom, which of these phrases is more likely to go through my mind?

A) The fan’s on - I’ll just walk right in and take a protracted breath through both nostrils.

B) The fan’s on - I should either come back in three hours when the paint has finally absorbed enough methane fumes so as to render the air non-explosive, or I should run out back and hope the neighbor lady isn’t gardening.

Still, turning on the fan at home is considered a courtesy for the next user, though not because of any cleansing effect. The room’s tiny amount of available cubic air space exponentially compounds odor problems, and the powerless fan can do naught but sound a general alarm. The muted rattle of an active fan heard through the bathroom door screams in the ears like a ambulance siren, immobilizing a person as they reach for the doorknob while simultaneously triggering a moderate case of hyperventilation. Together, these two actions comprise the body’s automatic survival instinct (a quick increase in the blood’s oxygenation level improves the body’s ability to function while not breathing).

I have decided that bathroom fans represent a major engineering paradox. They constitute the single greatest exception to the rule: form follows function. Their design is driven solely by aesthetic concerns, when in reality these vital appliances are of a type where function should be absolutely paramount. Is it too big? Is it too loud? Who cares? I’ll gladly wear ear plugs and hunch over, just give me fan that can get rid of malodorous odors as fast as my body does.

In past essays I might have indulged in slight exaggeration once or twice. But here I challenge you to challenge me. Go in a bathroom and turn on a fan. Then, take a hand full of the smallest, thinnest, and lightest confetti you can find and toss it into the air. Wouldn’t you expect to observe some faint air current in the room? A tiny breath of movement that might gently tug the confetti in one direction or another? What then, must you conclude when you see the practically weightless particles slowly drift down the floor, completely undisturbed by any force other than gravity? To be sure, it is a startling, and depressing, experiment.

During my own personal lavatory musings, I am often reminded of my eighth-grade woodshop classroom. Saws, drills, sanders, and similar wood-shaping machines filled the room. Half-a-dozen boys operating these devices would quickly fill the room with clouds of explosive sawdust. Somewhere along the line they may lost a class or two, but by the time I got there a giant ventilation system hung from the ceiling like a huge metal octopus, sending out long vacuum tubes to all the power equipment in the room. My instructor turned this beastly machine on everyday, and it really worked. The tubes didn’t just suck up sawdust, they’d routinely suck up actual chunks of wood, articles of clothing, and unwanted textbooks. This machine created such a vacuum in the room, that the first person to leave after class had to be careful. The incoming rush of air not only destroyed hairdos, but if any of the smaller students happened to be loitering outside in the hall, they would be thrust through the door like undernourished missiles.

That powerful shop ventilation system/underclassman torture device is a perfect example of what they ought to install in public restrooms. It was loud enough to drown out screams of pain, and it made your ears pop when you turned it on.

I have a dream, that someday, in my bathroom there will hang on the wall above the switch for the fan a sign that reads, “Warning! Before operating fan make safe all loose objects in room, empty clothing pockets, and tighten shoelaces. Children under 50 pounds are required to use a toilet seatbelt.” That will be a true revolution, and a satisfying ending to a story that began long ago, with that first poor soul who sat on the toilet and tried desperately to just breath through the mouth.

*My wife informs me that fans also serve as dehumidifiers. In fact, she believes it to be their main function. Can it be true? Perhaps that is why I have been so unsatisfied with them my whole life. In any case, I am sure my proposed modifications with increase their efficacy in that area as well. In fact, with the amount of air movement I advocate, we might never need to towel-off after a shower again.

It's Good to Serve (Yourself)

2005-12-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

When describing life in Southern California, I find the adjective ‘clogged’ quite helpful. As in, the sky is clogged with toxic pollutants, the roads are clogged with suburban utility vehicles, and the Wal-Marts are clogged with people who enjoy shopping at Wal-Mart. But, to be fair, there is one thing I have come to like, nay, love, about Southern California - self-serve gas stations.
Now, in reality, I think only two states in the nation don’t allow self-serve gas stations (Oregon and New Jersey). It just so happens that God, in all his infinite glory and wisdom, deemed that I should be one of His most blessed creatures, and thus granted me many rare and magnificent gifts. These include the remarkable benefit of a birth and childhood in one of the best regions of the world, which also happens to be one of those two states (hint - no one ever blessed by God was born in New Jersey).
To those of my readers who live in one of the two aforementioned states that currently disallow self-serve gas stations (some of whom I deeply envy, and some of whom fill me with a heartfelt mixture of pity and sorrow), let me explain to you why I enjoy not having to sit in my car and wait for some minimum-wage parolee to hobble over and pump my gas.
In the first place, not having to deal with an attendant keeps sinful feelings of arrogance and pride from reflexively springing into my mind. When I pull up to the pump, I can jump out, slide my card, and begin pumping before the bum on the sidewalk can even begin shuffling toward me with his hand out. In Oregon, on the other hand, you have to sit in your car and wait while the bum comes over with his hand out, because he is the “qualified technician” to whom you will be giving your cash or credit card. Probably, those attendants really are very experienced when it comes to using dangerous chemicals, and that fact no doubt has a lot to do with why they are pumping gas.
Secondly, it gets me out of the station faster. Don’t misunderstand, there are plenty of businesses in which I enjoy loitering, such as bookstores, candy shops, and anyplace that has an enclosed play-area for abandoning your kids, but not gas stations. The prevalence of vehicular ownership throughout all levels of society has turned gas stations into a veritable cross-section of our culture. Unfortunately, the state of our culture is such that seeing it naturally inflicts fear and distress upon decent citizens. The sooner I can fill up the tank and drive back into the relative comfort and security offered by narrow roads teeming with speeding, multi-ton masses of steel coursing with flammable liquids, the better.
Finally, pumping your own gas goes a long way toward establishing humility. For example, one day while you are filling your tank the pump might click off at $19.65. Your obsessive-compulsive personality might then insist that you top off the tank in order to reach a safe, round number like 20. Doing this might result in a fair amount of gasoline spilling out of your tank, down the side of your car, and onto your pants and shoes. This might occur in the middle of the day, in front of typical gas station denizens whom in your estimation have either lost, or are in the process of losing, the game of life. Half-a-dozen freaks giving you looks that suggest you are a brainless bozo might make you feel a little less sure concerning your pre-eminence among your fellow man. At least, until the next time you visit Wal-Mart.

Is it my Turn?

2005-11-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

To all residents of Southern California who think driving (that is, navigating public roads in a motor vehicle) is not the most frustrating and hazardous activity in which anyone has ever voluntarily engaged, I submit for your consideration the four-way stop.

My understanding of the progression of technology forces me to recognize that at one time every intersection was a four-way stop. A driver would pull up, look both ways for horses or horse manure, and simply drive on. The worst possible scenario consisted of four cars simultaneously pulling up from four different directions. No doubt in this idyllic age of knowledge and chivalry, each driver understood exactly how to proceed, and the four drivers, each in turn, puttered along their way with a wave and “Good day,” to their fellows.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and you find that the cars are immensely faster, the people are incredibly slower, and anyone behind a wheel is basically insane. Gone are the traditional four-way stops. Now, when two roads meet in Southern California, it is an intersection consisting of two lanes in each direction plus left-hand turn lanes. When twelve cars pull up to an intersection together, the resulting eruption of chaos and confusion would give any detached observer the impression that a pack of deranged chimpanzees had just escaped the zoo and raided a used car lot.

Knowledge no longer enters into the equation, because even if you have a complete grasp on all the intricacies involved with the regulatory nightmare presented by a twelve-way stop, you can rest assured that none of the other eleven drivers possess even the slightest clue. Instead, in such situations it is better to automatically assume that you alone are the only person with a valid license who is not drunk, legally blind, psychotically enraged, or five minutes late to their own wedding.

As for chivalry, it is as dead as the dodo, and then some. By which I mean, that if just for fun God made a live dodo spontaneously appear in Southern California, there is chance, albeit extremely remote, that someone would actually recognize it and exclaim, “There is a dodo!” Chivalry, on the other hand, is so far removed from the context of current road etiquette that if anyone were to actually engage in it, the action would inevitably be interpreted as a hostile maneuver and reacted to as such. In fact, the if you ever suspect that another driver is being kind to you, the really chivalrous thing for you to do is to yell at them, shake your fist out the window, and then ram them with your vehicle. Such extreme actions are required, not only to correct the obviously foreign driver’s faux pas, but also to help them obtain the blind rage necessary to actually reach their destination before it is torn down and replaced by housing developments.

Such realizations as to this state of road affairs might lead you to fear; fear for your vehicle, fear for your life, and fear for the lives of the young children you are shuttling to pre-school. But, you cannot give in to fear. In fact, at the moment of truth, when all ten cars pull up to a stop (at least two drivers won’t stop, because either they are fleeing the cops, or they are the cops) the only hope you have of ever crossing the intersection and completing your journey is to become your enemy. Drain from your mind all thoughts of insurance rates and human mortality, and then flood your brain with every selfish and evil emotion you can dredge up. When hate saturates your soul to the point that you can twist your head around 180-degrees and scream at your children to shut-up, then you are ready to attempt the impossible. Lay on the horn, hit the gas, and speed through the intersection.

Was it my turn? Was it their turn? Don’t bother playing that game; nobody around here knows the rules or would bother to follow them even if they did. In this jungle of black pavement and white lines, the only rule is drive like a maniac, or be driven over by one.

Left Hanging

2005-10-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

I felt desperate to watch a play--any play. I wish I could blame my desperation on a deep, intense desire to witness art in its purity. Instead, I was driven by a deep, intense desire to pass my Drama class and witness the purity of an ‘A’ on my transcript.
It was spring, and many productions were being performed, but my options had been so limited by procrastination that I was forced to attend a presentation at a small state college on opening night. My girlfriend went with me, and as we entered the auditorium I became more and more excited. To my disappointment, however, I soon discovered that even with the lights out the theater was not dark enough for making out. My destiny, it seemed, was to watch the play.
The plot had been lifted directly from a 17th century French play, but the script had been recently reworked. The most notable alteration was that the modern author had written the entire play in rhyming couplets. At first, I was amazed at the great pains the author must have gone through to write this way. By the end of the play, however, I was more amazed at the great pains I had gone through because he did.
The story itself was classic. There was love and lust, passion and heartbreak. There was romance and revenge, deceit and treachery. There were women dressed as men and men acting like women. There was swordplay and wordplay, mysteries and mistresses. It reminded me of something Shakespeare might have written, had he been a mediocre playwright obsessed with irritating rhyme schemes.
In spite of myself, I became fairly interested and by the end I was curious to see the resolution. Alas, fate stood against me.
At the dénouement, emotions were running high. The wronged woman, enraged at the treachery of her husband, hungered to watch him die. The misguided husband, destroyed by the emergence of new evidence, begged to be killed. The other characters stood by, horrified at the wife’s sudden viciousness, and tried unsuccessfully to sway her from going through with the execution.
Ominously, a large, upside-down L-shaped gibbet silently rose upright on the top half of the two-level stage. No one spoke as the husband followed the guard to the dangling loop of rope. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and the noose dropped around his neck. Finally, the hangman secured a black hood over his head, and the husband prepared for death.
Cool, I think. They’re really going to hang this guy! Of course, I can see the little accessory on the back of the noose that attaches to the husband’s hidden harness, but it will still look eerie.
The wife yells out the doomed man’s sentence and, to the accompaniment of dark music, she kicks out the support stool from under him.
All eyes focus on the husband. Naturally, everyone assumes he will be saved, but no one, including the cast and crew, suspects what form his reprieve will take.
The husband, hanging by the rope, swings out toward the audience. But he doesn’t stop. He just keeps going and going and right behind him comes the large wooden gibbet. A horrible cracking and ripping sound screams from the floorboards on the upper-stage as the gibbet breaks away from its anchoring. The hapless husband, handcuffed and hooded, is falling and falling toward the lower stage. Miraculously, he lands on his feet and struggles to remain upright. His wobbly legs hold, and, for a second, total theatrical disaster is averted. Enter the gibbet, which is also falling and falling. The giant wooden prop lambastes the luckless man on the back of the head.
The husband lets out a pitiful cry and stumbles away. Not far, of course, since he still wears a noose on his neck and cuffs on his wrists. Reaching the end of his rope, he collapses and moans for fully five seconds. Suddenly, all of the lights come on, and stagehands rush out to assist the fallen man. The men untie his hands and remove the hood and noose. The husband valiantly, if a bit shakily, climbs to his feet. He gives the audience a wave and a grimace, and stoically limps off stage right.
Meanwhile, the other actors still have not moved from their positions next to the jagged hole where the gibbet used to be. They are still in character (or more likely in shock), waiting for the husband to shake of his surprise attack and start spouting rhyming couplets. Instead, a black-clad stagehand comes out and quietly apologizes. “We hope you enjoyed the show,” he says. As for an explanation of the true ending, all we hear is “He lives.”
My girlfriend and I left the theater not sure if we should be angry or sad. We expressed our mixed feelings by laughing hysterically the entire way home.
I used to wonder about the scripted fate of the unhappy husband. But, in retrospect, I doubt any contrived ending could have been so exhilarating as the failed hanging. Besides, I now have a whole new understanding of suspended action.

(I wrote this in college, and yes, my then girlfriend is my now wife)

Flora versus Fauna

2005-10-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

Anyone who watches science fiction movies is most likely completely convinced that someday humans and machines will fight each other in an epic struggle for survival. I doubt it. I may be a poor prognosticator in general (hence, no lottery fortune), but I daresay that I have seen the future, and behold, it lies no further from me than my own backyard. Yes, I have seen the truth; the great battle for the earth won’t be flesh versus steel, but animal versus vegetable.
At first, I thought nothing of it. After all, privacy fencing surrounds my entire backyard. So, when my procrastination and forgetfulness blended together and began to encourage aberrant growths here and there, nobody knew. Besides, my front lawn, with its automatic sprinklers, gleamed at all who passed like a rich green halo. So I tarried. Meanwhile, the weeds, that varied gang of plant delinquents, not satisfied with a square inch, determined to take over the whole square-eight-hundred-feet-or-so of space behind my house. Still, I didn’t care. After all, there were no weeds growing between my recliner and the TV. Finally though, things began to disappear - tools, toys, toddlers - and eventually my wife resolved that I should fight.
I am not by nature a violent man, but, when once spurred to action, I am as ferocious as a starving lion fighting for a tasty T-bone (at least, that’s how I imagine I would react if anyone ever stabbed me with a spur). As it was, when I went out back to face my leafy foes, I just felt bored and a little inconvenienced. I didn’t think the weeds would put up much of a fight. After all, they can’t move; they don’t think; what resistance could they possibly muster? God made these hapless non-animals for scenery and food. I chuckled to myself as I grabbed my first weed in the iron grip of my prehensile muscles.
“That’s a pokey,” explained my three-year-old as I wept by the sink, cold water streaming over my throbbing hand. God, it seems, endowed even his most helpless creations with a little defense (or, in this case, about a million little razor-sharp defenses).
I lost the first battle, so naturally I wanted to quit. Nevertheless, I am not the type of man to quit when others are watching (i.e. my children), so once again I entered the fray, albeit with a newfound twinge of respect for my adversaries. Even so, I laughed condescendingly at my out-classed foes, still relying on their old, outdated defenses, totally incapable of the rapid changes demanded by conflict. I could taste my imminent victory as I began again, this time attacking from beneath a thick layer of tanned cow hide (naturally, no cotton would be acceptable in this war). I ripped vegetation from the ground with both gloved hands, reveling in my species’ superior adaptability.
After about one-hour in the Southern Californian sunshine, I had cleared off roughly three square-feet of ground and lost roughly one-third of my body weight in sweat. Fortunately, when I finally passed out from heat exhaustion I landed face first on a stingy (pokey’s first cousin). The severe agony revived me and produced an adrenaline rush of the type that temporarily imparts superhuman strength, typified by lifting large automobiles, producing sheet-metal origami, or, as in my case, actually stomaching several swallows of San Jacinto tap water.
I took time out for a brief convalescence wherein I crawled bodily into the chest freezer, but after my delirium had subsided I determined to restart the hostilities. However, I did not return with empty hands, or empty gloves for that matter. Instead, from out of the garage I pushed before me the nemesis of every grass blade and misplaced plastic toy in the yard - the lawnmower. Those sorry soil intruders had never confronted such an efficient piece of mechanized warfare. Within minutes every stalk and stem had been hacked into oblivion by merciless blades of death. Or so I thought.
It is interesting to note that if you take any animal on the earth, hack off 90% of its body, and chop the pieces into a fine compost, you can rest assured that it is dead. Really, really dead. Then there are plants. They are basically indestructible. Like some race of sun-sucking zombies, major amputations barely even slow them down. Within two weeks of my seemingly devastating attack with the mower, those chlorophyll junkies had all returned, taunting me with bigger leaves and taller stems. Apparently, I only succeeded in giving the ground a good shave, and now everything was growing back thicker and fuller.
Outraged beyond all sense of reason, I raced to my local garden center and purchased everything I could find whose label contained the word “killer” or was decorated with that cool biohazard symbol. Back in my garage, I recklessly brewed up a batch of the most toxic herbicide any human, sane or otherwise, had ever concocted. The fumes alone eradicated all the mold in the house, cleared up my foot fungus, and melted some plastic seaweed in the fishbowl. I filled up two industrial sized spray bottles and went to finish off the weeds.
I gazed upon my enemies out in the yard, verdant and thriving in the sunlight, and I hesitated. These plants were, after all, part of God’s handiwork. I noticed a dandelion by the fence, so green, so happy. I saw it tremble in the breeze. Then I saw something else. I saw it growing. I immediately snapped out of my reverie and commenced firing. Even the hardiest of my opponents began shaking spasmodically after a single hit of my pure concentrated poison. I only needed one squirt for each, but I thoroughly doused them anyway. Within two hours nothing but withered brown husks covered the ground. In my blind rage, I even exterminated the feeble patches of grass. With red, puffy eyes I surveyed the blighted field of my victory, and after wiping the foam from my mouth, I released a hideous screech of triumph.
Now my plan is to till the ground and sow it with a mixture of salt and battery acid. Following that I am going to cover the whole of my property with six inches of concrete, and seal the cracks with molten lead. Sure, some simple people might think that I have gone to far, and decry my extreme measures, but they haven’t seen the truth. Humans and plants are on a collision course, both racing for supremacy of the planet. The question is, in the coming battle which side will you be on? But before you answer, let’s take a quick peek at your backyard.