Mr. Wilson, call your office, or let's kill young Dennis the Menace

Well, the weather outside is frightful, just like the song says, and it is Christmas time here in our happy little burg and it’s warm and cozy in the egregious mold pit wherein I labor for my daily bread. Yes, mothers and their little kids are coming into this dump and the kids are happy and red-cheeked and it’s all really enough to make you want to puke, especially when people who are old enough to know better bid me a good morning.  You’ll pardon me for pointing this out, but it is not a good morning, unless you’re a penguin or one of that increasingly small group of people who think that contracting pneumonia is a fun way to spend your free time.  I don’t mean to sound snappish, he said, lying through his teeth, but people who wish me a good morning when it is clearly not a good morning have a way of getting on my nerves, but I assume you’ve already surmised this.  I also think that I should not have to point out to people who are old enough to know better that their spawn, who are clearly not old enough to know better, cannot use this already more than vaguely annoying workspace to scream, shout, throw stuff, and hit each other over the head with heavy objects until the blood flows and stains the carpeting.  I know that these kids are too young to go to school, but I think that it is incumbent on parents to let their small children know that if they want to do this sort of thing in public then they will have to wait until they are old enough to go to school, where such activities are not only allowed, but in the current educational climate, actually encouraged.  Until then, my desk is not the infield of a pre-K track meet nor is anyone trapped in this place by economic necessity interested in hearing little Johnny’s imitation of a fire alarm.  Tell the kid to can it, dammit!

Turkish, Coffee, and its discontents

It has been an interesting week here in the egregious mold pit wherein I labor for my daily bread.  Since Monday, I have been an unwilling participant in an ongoing argument with an elderly and more than a little loony Puerto Rican gentleman about the proper conjugation of Turkish verbs.  I am an unwilling participant in this brouhaha because, as I have told him numerous times, I do not speak Turkish, I have never spoken Turkish, and it is entirely unlikely that I will be trying to learn Turkish any time in the immediate future.  Given this state of absolute ignorance concerning all things concerning the Turkish language, I am not in a position to debate the proper conjugation of verbs in the future dubitative tense with this gentleman.  In fact, however, I should mention that the gentleman I am having this one-sided argument with is in no position to argue the facts of Turkish verb conjugation either—possession of a small and incredibly ratty Turkish dictionary  bought for a quarter at the second hand bookstore down the street from us does not make one an expert on the Turkish language, Turkish culture, or the long-term ramifications of current Turkish foreign policy in the eastern Mediterranean region and beyond, a position, I feel, is something that Turks  of all political persuasions can agree with. If not, please let me know.  After he finished lecturing me on how wrong I was in all matters concerning Turkish verb conjugation and grammar, our Puerto Rican gentleman asked for the address and phone number of a Spanish botanica in the city, saying that he wanted to go there in order to find something to help alleviate his loneliness.  No one at his group home wants to talk to him, he said, and he did not understand why not.  I must admit that I was about to snicker when he said this, but then the chuckle died aborning; it struck me that it must indeed be a lonely life for a mentally ill elderly man without a family when even his fellow crazies think he’s nuts.

Television advertising constantly reminds the American public these days that America runs on the baked goods and coffee of a large chain of restaurants that will remain unnamed here. If you are an American, you know which chain I am talking about; if you are not, then there is no point in bringing the matter up; and if you are an advertising executive for this chain who wants to do some product placement I should point out that the advertising rates for such placement are very reasonable here.  Getting back to the facts, I was sitting at the red light waiting to make my right onto the highway that leads into the heart of our happy little burg.  Unlike many red lights, which simply serve as a device to justify cops handing out traffic tickets, this particular red light does serve a practical function. While it is possible to make the right on red at this particular red light, it is not advisable.  The lay of the land and the curvature of the road are such that in order to see if anything is coming down the highway, the hurried motorist must inch out almost halfway out onto the highway, thereby increasing the risk of having the front end of his car sheared off by some impatient doofus hurtling through the intersection before the yellow light turns red.  Needless to say, I have, over the years, been the subject of so many near-misses at this light that I no longer go inching out onto the highway; being an extra minute early for work is simply not worth risking my neck for.  This attitude, however, is not widespread hereabouts, as demonstrated this morning when the incredibly angry obese woman with a face like a cross between a Vietnamese fat-bellied pig and a rusty fire hydrant in the car behind me began leaning on the horn in order to move me along.  I was not going to move, for the reasons aforementioned, and because that moving along is not a big deal at this light. This light, unlike so many traffic lights, actually goes through its green—yellow—red cycle quickly, so motorists in a hurry are never left sitting there wondering, when is this damn light ever going to change, for long.  

In any case, after one prolonged and very unnecessary horn blast, the woman opened her window and began screaming at me. I did not shout back at her; I simply adjusted my rear-view mirror in such a way that she could see what I was saying and used a short but definite phrase to let her know that I was not going to move until the light was green.  Our automotive Brunnhilde saw what I said, and promptly backed up and went around me even as the light was changing and went roaring out onto the highway without looking to see if there was anything coming. Now, if life was fair, this avoirdupois ass would have had her avoirdupois ass smeared all over the road by a tractor-trailer, but alas, Nemesis would not have Her way with this gelatinous dolt today.  She roared off down the highway like a Macy’s Thanksgiving balloon in a high wind even as the light turned green. I went out onto the highway a moment later and without worrying about the oncoming traffic.

I saw her only a few minutes later.  She was in the parking lot of the unnamed coffee and baked goods chain whose products keep America running, trying to hoist her very substantial and circumferential self out of the driver’s seat of her car.  I laughed out loud, a not terribly polite reaction on my part, I know, but one I could not help at the time—the idea of charging blindly out onto a highway without checking to see if there was anything coming was just so stupid to me I could not believe it, as was knowing that the object of this stupidity was because this onnazumo manqué could not bear someone keeping her from her doughnuts and coffee for an extra twenty seconds.  Those guys must make a damn fine cup of Joe.  

Things that go bump in the night

Just in case you hadn't noticed, that loud sound you heard last night at around 11:30 pm EST was the electorate throwing itself under the bus. I wonder if the Affordable Care Act covers that yet?

Is no nudes good nudes?

Reuters reports that a Polish coffin company is now using nude and semi-nude models in their 2013 calendar in order to advertise their product. While babes in bikinis is a time-tested commercial strategy; when I was a young boy I often wondered about the wall calendar in my father's workshop-there did not seem to be any connection between attractive blondes and plumbing supplies that I could see, but then I was not an especially bright child; I do not believe that this method of advertising will stimulate coffin sales to any great extent. Nude women luxuriating in stylish coffins will not make the coffin's primary use any more popular than it already is and no amount of advertising can or will change that fact; like toilet paper, coffins are something you need when you need them and not before. Nude women in attitudes of erotic abandon may make what the French call the little death more interesting; indeed, you can argue that nude women and the little death were made for each other, that they go together like Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, or peanut butter and jelly; but no one is interested in dealing with the big death unless or until they absolutely have to. However, I do see a market for this sort of thing in Muslim countries, especially those countries infested with large numbers of jihadi suicide bombers. A stylish coffin could be the perfect recruiting tool in such places, especially if you can convince the customers that Miss November will be one of the 72 virgins he can expect to wait on him forever after he eliminates himself from the gene pool. Yes, I see a veritable fortune in the making there.

Man bites dog

The news has reached us here at The Passing Parade, and by us I mean me, as I am the only person in this parade, that Nevada authorities have arrested one Roxane Rubin, a native of Las Vegas, for trying to vote twice in the same election, a Class E felony according to Nevada law. What makes this event something out of the ordinary, and hence news, is that Ms. Rubin is a Republican, and therefore we can reasonably assume that she wanted to cast her ballots for Governor Romney.  Of course, if Ms. Rubin had been a Democrat and a native of Chicago, or an illegal alien living in Las Vegas, we could assume that she would have cast both her ballots for the former junior Senator from Illinois. We can also assume that if she had, it wouldn't be news.

Regarding the much expected October Surprise...

...I suspect that the events in Benghazi qualify as such, even if they did occur in September. Be that as it may, I am sure that the former junior senator from Illinois and his crew of out of their depth Chicago ward heelers were thoroughly surprised by what happened in Benghazi, although I can't imagine why they would be; it is in the nature of surprises to be surprising, no matter what month they occur in, and Fate is, I fear, notoriously nonpartisan in her disposition of favors. Frankly, I blame the institution of marriage for all of this bother;  if Mr. Romney had divorced his first wife then Our Leader would be spared the indignity of having to run hard for his office, rather than coast in without so much a care in the world, a scenario He seems to prefer, if past experience is any guide.