The Pink Professor -- Public Menace Exposed

The so-called "public menace" exposed was me, not the Pink Professor. But he was there in our hometown rooting for me, and more importantly in my heart, helping me recall the Three R's of Group Dynamics when push came to shove. With the City Fathers, then their wives.

While back for Thanksgiving, I went by the house, my legacy from my grandparents. Pieces of it were scattered here and there, leaning against trees. The guys working on it had been trying to kill vermin by drying it in the sun. Except rain and snow were forecast, giving the vermin new life and hope.

I touched the kitchen wall. Lots of memories there. Forever the self-conscious type, I thought what this pathetic scene would look like in a movie. A theater full of mournful people, no doubt. I can really "cut the rug" when it comes to a beaten and bruised look. The pathos was so overwhelming, I shed a tear, then flicked it toward the road.

I thought, "If that wall could talk..." And it just might, with a few more eons of time and the correlate evolutionary development of this current infestation. By then, though, it’ll be too late for me, but maybe my distant kin can stick it out and finally make peace with the hidden world. Think of it as a message in a contaminated bottle.

Speaking of messages, I suddenly saw an official summons nailed to the outhouse door! Nice touch, City Fathers! Way to drive home your point: That an antique shit-house door, decommissioned since the mid-'60s and kept as a family heirloom, is fitter to summonses me than the actual door of my decrepit house!

I appeared at City Hall, where they put me through a chemical bath protocol, after which they lambasted me for my many alleged failures as a property-owner. I tried not to take it personally, but it truly was a slam to my ego. I hadn’t felt that low since the time Santa Claus brought me fruitcake instead of a Winchester rifle.

But the best way to take rock bottom is with equanimity, then a strategy. I knew what these perverts were up to. All around were one-way mirrors, and that told the whole story. I knew their wives and/or mistresses were viewing the whole pathetic scene. These under-performing “men”, no doubt limp dishrags where it counts, yearned to be hot stuff for the ladies. Who, if you want to know my actual surmise, were going at it among themselves right there, within five feet of us!

I looked toward the mirrors and boldly called them out, much to the surprise of the City Fathers, and finally a door opened. The mayor’s young wife was so hot she refused to cover herself. I was honestly touched, but had to play this thing real cagey. Because once I had 'em where I wanted 'em, I couldn't lose 'em now.

Quickly, with my group dynamics skills centered on the 3 R's, I improvised. The 1) aRrangement was a given, they were already in my grasp; I had only to maintain confidence. 2) Reconnoitering the situation was also a breeze. I encouraged the City Fathers with unfeigned friendliness and understanding: “Men, all of us can get off on this deal, have no fear, brothers. If you condemn the various properties around my house, say within a mile, that'll take care of our health issues. Then use your abundant tax dollars to restore my house to livability. It'll be win/win all around. And, finally, exercise your power over me here and now. Yes, yes, work it, work it! Yes, Mr. Mayor, that’s the way! And now you others, have no shame, be bold, it's nature's way! Gentlemen, ladies, let us come together, let the sexes commingle as they should, in absolute freedom and abandon!” This was my strategy.

And it was the first real excitement these guys had known since D-Day, or maybe the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, and indeed we all got off, me first playing the role as their punching bag, which I played to the hilt, plenty of faux-worship of their royal majesties. Their darling wives were also entirely accommodating, fully into it. I hadn't seen this level of abandon since what? Debbie Does Dallas? I also was happy to engage myself in the Third R of Group Dynamics, Ruminating. Which I did on the fly, and everything under the fly. "That's it, Mrs. Mayor, show your Old Daddy who's your New Daddy," whack whack, just being playful. With enough reserve they'd know they were still boss...

I can only imagine what went on later when they were all out to dinner, celebrating the rebirth of their libidos, then what transpired at home. But I distinctly heard fire whistles blowing late into the night for something. Those dear souls had been backed up for decades, but now blared their resurrection, as all men should, yearning to make it known for the ages. If only it helps me with my house...

In the morning, I kissed the Pink Professor and gave him my last ta-ta’s and got the hell back to the Big City.

Lifelong Learning Is Da Bomb

We can all agree, lifelong learning is great. I've been a lifelong learner nearly all my life. I was sick a few days as a kid and didn't learn anything those days. But mostly -- 90% of my life take away those few days -- I've been learning new things.

One thing I learned is that everyone's different, that is, everyone I've met, a relatively few people; they've all been different. Most of them were as dumb as the next guy, but I didn't tell them. I did what is proper, kept the insults to myself. Some of them wouldn't have understood anyway. Those are the people I try to not have much to do with. On the other hand, it's equally bad to have people around smarter than me. Thankfully, again, we're only talking a few folks, a couple people. Know the feeling?

So how much do I know? How am I supposed to answer that? I know enough to eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired, stretch when I yawn, and go to the bathroom, usually. And I'm smart enough, if I miss, I take my pants off and wash them. Me being extremely smart might not be literally true. But I am smart enough to know how dumb I am, which at times is damned dumb. So I'm smarter than most.

Lifetime learning, though, that's what we need, right? A few years ago I took the training to be a substitute teacher. Week after week -- what was it, a grueling 8 weeks on Saturdays -- I sat there with other prospective substitute teachers. They gave us in lurid detail the horror stories that go with the profession, but I stuck with it. They had us in the classroom, just observing, and I kept going, right up to the moment when I got the paper saying I passed and was qualified. The biggest thing I learned, without even doing it, is being a substitute teacher is no life for me. The key thing is, I learned the craft, and learned I wanted no part of it.

Now here I sit -- hiding out in the Big City as they work on Grandma's house, overrun with vermin both visible and invisible -- and I continue to learn. I was at one of the libraries and was reading on how you get the taxpayers to pay for house repairs, and believe me, this is going to be one huge bill! Because they have to gut the entire place. Every wall needs replaced, as well as the foundation, and of course the roof. I'm guessing I'll need new wallpaper, and I’ll be shocked if that backed up toilet makes the cut. The library info laid out the attitude I need when I show up at the governor's office with the bill: Start crying before I go in, look her straight in the eye, and beg for mercy.

But the biggest thing I want to share today has to do with you, not me. I want you to get out there, my friends, and get with it! You haven't learned everything you can. With lifelong learning, you'll have more satisfaction, a greater sense of self-worth, and the ability to truly shine in a world of dullards, dopes, and dummies. Just knowing anything, you'll run circles around almost everyone you meet. Just knowing next to nothing you'll be the smartest guy in town. On the other hand, say you've done your level best and everyone's still smarter than you, give up.

I'll give you a great example of lifelong learning, from a couple guys I knew, Clem and the Judge.

Clem was hanging out at his shack. And someone was at the door. He yells, "Hang on, I'm coming!" Then he gets there and, oh, it's the Judge. And what was that look in the Judge's eye, as he led Clem out, away from home into and through the trees, then up into the heights, the glories of nature north of the Big City? Hmm, something to learn more about...

Clem sees what's happening and goes, "Oh, Judge! You naughty naughty man! I think I might lose control of my temperament. I'm breathing much faster and deeper than usual. I might've just found my true calling, yodel-lay! Lifelong learning really turns me on... It's amazing, I swear I'm flush, a little dizzy, but loving it! Yes, yes, yes, I must experience more and more lifelong learning! It's such a rush, my right hand has relinquished the rose you gave me; it's fallen 100 feet to the valley..."

He suddenly thinks maybe the Judge did indeed mean "book learning" for him, and says, “I'm reaching in my pocket for a dictionary to learn more..." But, no, he was right the first time, the Judge had other things on his mind. "What, Judge? You're flipping me over instead? Is this global warming I feel, climactic change? What a huge difference it makes! Oh, oh! Let me drop these suspenders over the cliff, sir! Now, go for it, Judge, yes, latch on to the hair on the back of my neck with your teeth, yes, that's it, perrrrfect leverage, what big beautiful solid white teeth you have --- OH OH OH, yessss sir! You really know what you're doing! Lifelong learning is da bomb!!!"

We can agree today. The wisdom of Clem is the real deal: Lifelong learning indeed done be da bomb.

The Big City -- Cats and Sirens

By now you know I'm living in the Big City. I was in a medium-sized town, and if they ever get my house fixed I'll go back. But the place became a nasty shambles, thanks to something, I don't know what all, unless it was simple neglect on my part. OK, I'll cop to a little bit of the blame, but the place wasn't that great ever. It was there before I was born, and who knows what all happened to it! I know a tree fell on it sometime in the '40s. So that's not a good start for me; they shouldn't have built it so close to where trees would grow.

Other than that damage, there's these little critters called vermin, that come in assorted sizes and descriptions, all of them bad. They range from microbes, the hardest things in the world to see, to out and out rats. You see one rat, you never want to see another. They're terrible -- believe me -- when they disappear under something and you don't know where they went. They're under there looking at you. Little red eyes. And to think I used to shoot them with bow and arrow at the city dump. That was fun. I didn't realize they were nasty as they wanna be.

Anyway, the town's trying to garnish my Social Security on some of the forced improvements on the house, even though I'm perfectly happy to let them do the work and bill it to taxpayers. I'm sure most of my readers can appreciate that. It's not that I'm irresponsible, it's just I have the good sense not to let responsibility go to my head. They can pay the bill and write it off, easy. Say they don't make improvements on the city park for a couple years. Right there you're looking at a couple thousand bucks.

So, the actual fact of the matter is, I got the hell out of there. I'm trusting you guys not to turn me in. And I went where no one can find me. I don't care if they search a thousand years. Notice I'm not saying which Big City I'm in. There's so many places to hide here, sometimes even I'm lost. But, and this is brilliant, I'm constantly going around in plain sight, and no one notices. You vanish in plain sight in a place this big! Ha ha, I laugh about it day and night, and just to rub it in, I finger in the general direction of my old town. Take that, you clueless morons!

There is one little problem. I want to hide whenever I hear a siren, but in the Big City there's so many sirens -- it's nearly a constant cacophony. Different from home, where the noon and 5:00 whistle's about it. In the Big City, I'm very tuned in to the sirens. They have the WAH WAH, WHOOP WHOOP, WEEEEE, and several others I'm trying to forget. The nearest thing we have to it back home are the howling cats. Remember, I said there's rats. Well, where there's rats, there's cats. Sitting on the fence, profiled in the moonlight, howling all night, signalling one another where the nearest rat was spotted.

I miss all that, compared to the constant sirens.

I picture these Barney Fife PO-lice learning their siren technique in training school. Itching to get out there and make their mark in the world. (Let's say they're library police, like where I am right now typing this. They'd love to get out there and hit the siren!) Anyway, the old PO-lice professor at the training center is a big man in their estimation. “You men — and I see we also have some women cadets in this modern age — have a grave responsibility to carry out. Not only to learn the siren, but to be the siren. The siren's message is our message to the community. You’re telling them there’s trouble, get the heck out of the way. And if you’re sleeping, wake up, look out the window, we’re about to come speeding by. We’ll never tell you what we're doing, or whether it was accomplished, but you can rest assured (in the minutes between now and the next siren) that it was something important. When you push that button, or twist that gadget, men, and you ladies, that’s your own wake up call to every neighborhood between here and the outskirts of the city -- 35 miles away -- telling one and all, 'I will get my man.'"

The whole crime-fighting business has that as its biggest goal, to make society safe enough, that — if the Almighty allows, and He hasn’t so far — we can get a night of sound sleep without the sirens howling, blaring, and otherwise announcing their noxious presence with predictable regularity. Could it be that day is in sight, perhaps just over the next hill, or yonder mountain and horizon, person, place, or thing? Maybe yes, maybe no. Certainly it won’t be today, so let the sirens blow!

Cursing Your Cup Of Coffee

Just like 50 is the new 30, coffee is the new nectar of the gods, that which we archetypically need in the course of the day to maintain our divinity. Hence, every threat to our cup is a slap in the face or, worse, the possible destruction of our manhood or maidenhead.

I've been fairly well immune to this so I'm qualified to speak on the subject with some detachment. I've always been averse to spending more money on coffee than I need to, so you're not likely to see me walking out of Starbuck's with a $5 drink. This is the honest to God truth: I have yet to spend my first dollar in a Starbuck's! But we see them all the time, the same dolts who'd buy their kids $10 worth of snacks in a convenience store every time they stop for gas, walking around with their precious coffee! It's like lifeblood!

So, as to what I've said thus far, obviously I'm not too far off base. With the same thing applying for what I've still yet to say. Thanks to my perspective, and the detachment of my observations, everything I say has to be the absolute truth. Or better.

And here's what I have to say: If you want to curse someone where it hurts, don't wish them bodily harm; we have doctors for that. Attack their coffee! Curse their cup!

That's the way I'm doing it from now on. I used to carry generic voodoo dolls and big darning needles. Then when someone insulted me, I'd take one out in the full view of everyone and make silent gestures as to my intentions: This doll represents this particular bastard. These needles represent my wish for violence and misery for him. I hereby curse you, first, and now I attack you physically, albeit without any obvious cause and effect that would hold up in a court of law.

Be all that as it may, frankly, people don't feel all that threatened anymore by that. Again, they've got doctors if they find themselves physically dying. Aha! But attack a man's coffee or a woman's coffee! Do that, then stand back and watch the sparks fly! You simply say it! And make gestures toward the cup! They've seen enough Harry Potter movies, they believe it, and I'm not saying it's not true!

You could come right out and say it: "You've insulted me for the last time. I curse your cup of coffee. Drink it to bad health. May it bring forth vermin and maggots. Or just vermin if maggots are also considered vermin. I hate to be redundant." Or you could shorten it to simply: "I curse your cup of coffee," leaving them not knowing whether it's safe to drink. Or you could just mentally curse their coffee, then walk away, leaving them behind. Then next time you pass by a few minutes later, you see them writhing on the sidewalk outside the coffee place. With vermin and/or maggots making the most of things.

The basic message here is, Don't insult me. Because see that cup of coffee in your hand? It'll be crawling, and it won't take long!

Note: In case my picture isn't clear, that's maggots in the cup. I always thought maggots were white but these look like brown maggots, possibly healthier for you, or it could be the coffee discolored them in the transubstantiation process.