The 10 Days of Old February

I've mentioned it a few times that our plan for destroying February actually preserves 10 of its days together. It's really been quite a process hammering it out, as the team often couldn't see eye to eye. We blamed our disagreements on February itself, since, obviously, it always brings out the worst in people. As a great example, I happen to have a headache tonight, very uncharacteristic.

The other days will divided up among the other months. But 10 days, right in the heart of it, starting midway, will remain as a kind of stump. Like when you cut down a tree and leave a stump. Then everyone who passes by taunts that filthy stump, "You're not so tough now, are you, tall tree! You thought you were such a big tree, baddest tree in town, quick to lord it over the rest of us! Now look at you! You're hacked to the ground! Just a worthless stump, no glory, no grandeur, nothing to brag about now, is there? Ha! Of course not! Your day of pride is gone!"

Anyway, the team probably needs no introduction. I insisted on the best, men like myself of impeccable judgment. There's of course one holy man, Pastor Wadd, from my church, who counsels men daily on the folly of sexual addiction. The others -- maybe I could've gotten better, but it's only February we're working on -- are men I knew I could get on a minute's notice. They've never been chosen for anything so it's only right. Each one tends to shoot first and not ask questions. Men after my own heart. Only the best. You've never heard of them so I won't list their names.

I explained the parameters of the task to them. A 10-day stump of old February, with those 10 days being the foul haunt of every crazy thing. Pastor Wadd, naturally, wanted to get his specialty in, as you'll see in the list. I actually spoke against it, because I don't like blue material, but he insisted on the righteousness of his work. Also among the parameters was that each day should be thematic, lifting to the fore the foulness of the month we've destroyed.

First, the 10-day period will be known as "The Scourge of Time." The 10 days will be known as:

1) Trash Talkin' -- I personally like trash talkin'. Depending on your capacity for rage you can really work up a head of steam. As I've confessed before, I even trash talk melting snow: "You heaped yourself in enormous drifts and thought you were so tough! But look at you now, little more than a silly dusting! I need a spoon to scoop you, not a shovel!" The first day is for all of us to trash talk each other, giving them what for.

2) Dry Heaves -- I feel a sickness coming on. I'm queasy, a little lightheaded, down in the gut. But there's nothing there, I haven't eaten since the day before Trash Talkin'. No appetite, worrying about what they'll say about me. So I go around, just dry heaving, which is actually more painful than coming up with something. Because it just goes on and on. With everyone doing it. If you can't think of anything to heave about, I'll be writing some very gross things that day as a public service. Grapes that seem like they're eyeballs, etc.

3) Shivs a' Flashin' -- This is the day that we open every jail and prison and let the prisoners go free! Everyone from simple murderers all the way up to the tougher bastards, given to outright meanness. Of course they'll be up to some mischief. But since we want society to survive, they'll be on their honor to not commit any terrible crimes, and, this is something we'll insist on, they have to promise to return to prison the next day.

4) Piss 'n' Vinegar -- The term's fairly self-explanatory. Lots of piss 'n' vinegar. Whether you want it to be just sassiness, or actual piss and vinegar. There'll be lots of beer drinking and salad eating. Don't forget to watch your step, the gutters will certainly be running yellow that day.

5) Sexual Addiction Counseling Day -- Pastor Wadd's day. He has a curriculum called "Solomon's 1000 Wives." The gist of it's something like this, that all of us have appetites, some small, some medium, some huge. But one man can only handle so much. Wisdom is knowing your limits, then whittling it down, by personal discipline, to one man-one woman. Take me, I could probably handle a convertible full of girls, give or take, but I know better.

6) Mass Maypole -- I've always thought the maypoles of olden days were something on the very edge of impropriety. They have the ribbons, they're going back and forth, and it's all quite dainty. But speed it up, intensify it, and it'd be explosive. It'd be an insane sight. It might even erupt into something that'd make Solomon look like amateur hour, such a bacchanalia, maypolers falling into one another's embrace.

7) Gross Out! -- This is more a day for the kids, sticking their tongues out at each other, disrespecting adults with hand gestures, and making foul noises with their hand under their armpit. I tried that the other day, and something's wrong, I can't do it anymore. I guess my flesh up there's a little too saggy to get the good suction. And to think I used to do "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" at school assemblies. I even shaved my armpits, hoping to get it back, but no.

8) Cocoon Nightmare -- Anyone originally born during any of these 10 days has been excluded and kept cooped up at home. As though they were in a cocoon the whole time, but storing up enough orneriness and cussedness that when they come out they make it memorable. The rest of us are laying low today, having survived so far and not wanting to tempt fate. It's not called Nightmare for nothing, because their pent-up energy is dangerous. This is actually the day when any dishonorable prisoners from Shivs a' Flashin' are scared straight and head back to the safety of the pen.

9) Mardi Gras -- The great day of celebration, for any devilry that no one's done thus far. Parades, flashing yourself, getting beads, the whole thing. I've never been to Mardi Gras so I'm not sure what goes on. But I'm sure this won't be the usual tame brand.

10) Lent -- The old five-week period of penance and spiritual disciplines is compressed into one day, everyone's faults by now being crystal clear. No measly daub of ashes on your forehead -- Oh no! -- this will be like the Desert Fathers, flagellation with whips and glass shards, nails, the whole works, gargling firecrackers. The life we've lived these 10 days is such that if Lent has any value whatsoever, this is when it'll be proved.

REDRUM, He Wrote

The paper had an interesting story today -- and photo -- of a guy charged with murder. That's everyday stuff, of course, but what made this interesting was the tattoo on his neck. Looking at him straight on, he had REDRUM tattooed, reversed to see it better in a mirror. And it was huge, estimating it to be a 1000 pt outline font. Counsel has moved to allow him to cover it or have it removed, lest the jury find him YTLIUG and he's YAWA TUP.

Whatever happens to that guy, I'm sure you'll join me in wishing for him a completely fair trial, with the prosecution prevailing only if they prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that he has REDRUM on his neck, in my opinion, doesn't say anything incriminating necessarily.

There could be lots of reasons -- from an artistic bent to sheer antisocial cussedness -- for his tattoo. I know a lady with a pretty flower on the back of her leg, and that doesn't mean she's good at gardening. In fact, she lacks a green thumb.

I've always been that way about fair trials. As an average citizen, I read the paper and form opinions. But these accounts are always lacking some of, usually most of the evidence. In a different case, this other guy charged with murder, who is allegedly a hothead, went with some folks on a pleasant outing in the country. Apparently something turned sour, as everyone but him was brutally murdered, including a toddler whose body was found in a creek. Of course my first thought is Bigfoot. Then I start considering this guy. But if I'm on the jury, or I'm the judge, I go for the reasonable doubt conclusion.

I think I would've made a great judge. We've got a pesky defender or prosecutor, moving for a bathroom break. I go, "I'm the judge, I'll say when we have a bathroom break ... bathroom break! 10 minute recess. Be back in 9. If you take 11, you'll spend the rest of the trial in stocks. And anytime I see a juror even start to nod, it'll be one lash of the cat 'o nine tails for you. OK, sorry, I went long, be back in 8."

Other than messing with them like that, I'd be impartial and good. Soaking it in, proud when the bailiff calls out, "All rise! The honorable Tobias G. Slump presiding!" I look out, nod, have everyone be seated, wink at the cute bailiff, which whom I've just been in quarters, and admire the defendant's interesting tattoo, a guy sneaking a canoe out of Walmart, coincidentally the same crime he's charged with. The final verdict: Innocent! (I believe the defense, that the canoe was put in his truck by person or persons unknown, invisible to video surveillance.)

It's my prayer -- which I expect to be answered -- that someday soon we shall get past all this. For you see, I fervently believe in the perfectibility of man. Call it the new heaven and new earth, call it the Millennium, or just call it the pink-starred la la land I'm favored to live in. But I see a day when there's no REDRUM, drug-dealing, bank robberies (even by bankers), or the stealing of canoes.

In my new world, every person is so content in their being and Ultimate Being, in fact we're One! Each of us will follow -- by a redeemed nature and social setting -- the Golden Rule. Or, to refine that statement, our will won't will evil, our wont won't be toward evil. All mankind will possess their own person in peace, dwelling peaceably under the communal fruit tree, nothing really their own except maybe a nice shirt, a pair of pants, suspenders, and shoes that shall never wear out.

Pure Cussedness

I'm meditating today on pure cussedness, the living of life with jagged edges and weird angularities. God dammit! Sweet acidophilus! Pro shiatsu! Shitfire!

Ha ha, were ya expecting a few F bombs? I got em on board, and I probably won't but I could strafe the landscape with em. Most of my followers are women. But it's hard to picture a life of pure cussedness without em.

Whether cussing and cussedness are actually related, I don't know. Why don't you Google it, get the usual million hits, and shove it-- I mean, file it -- where the sun don't shine?! Am I really supposed to care? I'm cussed enough tonight not to.

Pure cussedness means never having to say you care. It's too busy kickassing its way through life and the day. Look at Popeye. He's got about 40 cans of spinach flattened under his shirt, so he's half metal. Anyone  hits him, his chest puffs out like a battleship and he wins again!

Have I ever had my moments of doubt on pure cussedness? Moments? More like decades. And what's it done for me, being Mr. Softy and very congeal? (Ha ha). Pro freaking shiatsu, nothing! I'd like to kick the sweet acidophilus of the guy that turned me off to it.

Grandpa had pure cussedness, and if it wasn't 100% pure it was dam close. He was known for about five things: 1) Hunting, fishing; 2) Digging the meat of the goodie out of hickory nuts all winter; 3) 4) I can't remember 3 and 4; and, 5) Cussing. No doubt he'd kick my sweet acidophilus if he ever heard me say acidophilus, and not the purer "ASS." And for the most part he didn't care, except, as I said it before, he would not drop an F bomb when women or girls were present. Us boys got that extra thrill, which is nice. I felt special as a guy.

Here's a true incident, as best as I can remember it. I'm not going to remember every word, of course -- it was sometime between 1965-1967, in there -- but I can summarize it close enough that you'll get the idea. (This ain't about my Grandpa, but he was at the campgrounds somewhere.) We were all at a campground, and my cousin was demonstrating through gestures and cussedness how he'd recently shot a bird that jumped up. F bombs galore, no adjectives and barely any nouns that weren't cussedness. One hell of a story.

Then there was this guy -- an adult -- who had a tent that was an ex-parachute, circular and very nice. Him and his wife got to be friends with us and our whole family. We even wrote to them for a few years. This guy saw us gesticulating and reliving some major event, the shooting of the bird, and came up the hill and asked us what we were talking about. It was funny, because since he was an adult, my cousin retold the whole story without a single cussedness, and it came out about the same, the bird jumping up and being shot down.

When we were separated from him -- he was back down close his parachute -- we were walking along and laughing and recalling vividly the difference between the two stories, celebrating both the cussedness and the quick replacement.

Oh boy, ha ha, that's one God dang memory, man ... I don't think I've posted that farking story before ... ha ha, one of the highlights of my kidhood. Pro shiatsu! Sweet acidophilus! Pure cussedness.

What makes the world go round? Cussedness. What makes the weary beaten pro wrestler, who can't even lift his arm, suddenly not only lift his arm but rigify it locked in place, to the dread of his abuser, now begging for mercy that will never come? Pure sweet cussedness. That's it.