Decor for the Insane

Hoist your plunging spirits up by their metaphorical underpants with this delightful pair of mutated lovers! This once attractive and vibrant young couple became horribly deformed when exposed to toxic mind-control chemicals sprayed high in the atmosphere by government planes posing as commercial airliners. No longer able to find properly fitting clothing they are destined to walk the earth naked and friendless, finding only scant solace in their companionship – while at the same time scarcely stifling their revulsion at each other's grotesque features. Their webbed appendages and bulbous, expressionless eyes serve as a whimsical reminder that our government is not to be trusted! At the special SALE price of just $16.95, you won't even care that they're only 4 inches high. Order yours today!

Questionable Holiday Decor

I know that this plastic creation is supposed to resemble a lovely popcorn ball to be hung from a Christmas tree for the delight of children of all ages, but upon closer examination it appears not to be made of delicious popcorn, but rather of human teeth. A big ball of stained molars. Now isn't that festive.

It Gets Me Through My Day

Twin pillars of Bubble Wrap guard my basement kingdom. None shall pass through these gates, save those who have items that must be sent onward, off to regions to which the senders cannot, or dare not, travel themselves. It is here that the items are swaddled in sheets of protective wrappings and made fast with powerful tapes and adhesives.

I am the preparer of packages. I am he who readies them for the great voyages they must undertake to reach their final destinations.

I raise my Uline Pnuematic Box Stapler high. Its metal alloy
staples await release. This is the mighty tool which seals the objects in their sturdy vessels of double-walled cardboard so that they may not fall open of their own accord and spill their contents in transit before the unworthy eyes of those who are not the intended recipients. At the touch of its trigger the myriad boxes of varying dimensions are tightly sealed.

It is here that the packages are measured and weighed, their worthiness to be sent onward evaluated by the standards set forth long ago by the decree of delivery agents known only by their acronyms: UPS, FEDEX, and USPS.

And lo, cryptically-coded labels that provide the couriers of such packages with destination coordinates are then carefully affixed upon each box in turn.

All that remains now for me is to carry the sealed and labeled boxes out. Out and past the Pillars of Bubble Wrap. Out past the workbenches and The Machines of Assembly.

Out to the Freight Elevator of the Soul.

I place the packages carefully within the elevator's steel mesh chamber, observing with some remorse the sign reading, "FREIGHT ONLY. NO RIDERS." The doors close. The elevator moves upward, into the light of a day which I will never see. Hands other than mine now hold the responsibility of moving these boxes along on their journeys.

I return, alone, to my kingdom. I take a moment to rest myself on a throne made of discarded cardboard and packing tape, cushioned with leftover sheets of bubble wrap. I can never know for sure how the packages I have prepared will be received, but I like to close my eyes and imagine the exultant cries of the recipients when the boxes are at last opened:

"Hey! What the hell is this? I didn't order anything from these guys. Honey, did you order this?"

The Core of Madness

Shot in HDR for your viewing pleasure

I was looking for something else at work today, and found this among some other stuff I'd stored away on a back room shelf I rarely use.

It's a big pan containing several screwdrivers, a bunch of little bracket things, assorted screws, a book of Post-it Notes (the good kind... not those ridiculous ones that come off accordion-style), and a magic marker.

Oh yeah, and a whole bunch of completely dried out apple cores. Apparently I've been saving them for quite some time now. I counted, and there are thirteen of 'em here. I have no idea how long they've been quietly petrifying back there on that forgotten shelf. They're about the density of tire rubber now.

Yeah. That's right. Thirteen dried out apple cores

I keep saying to myself, "Steve, you must have had some reason, some original plan, for saving all of these apple cores. Surely some great jest or grand prank must have been in the works, and you've simply just forgotten your original intention."

I'm hoping that's the case anyway. It doesn't strike a positive note for the state of my mental health to think that I've just been saving old apple cores for no good reason at all.

Variety is the . . . well, something.

The time comes in everyone's life, and maybe that time is now, to ask, "Do we as Americans really need so many varieties of toilet paper?"

Perhaps more importantly though, why is aluminum foil also being merchandised in this particular aisle?

No. Wait. On second thought, I'm not sure I want to know.

Again, Too Many Choices

All I wanted was a simple bottle of shampoo. Instead I was confronted with a range of scents from 'Rainforest Mist', to 'Coconut Banana Grove', 'Strawberry Mango Escape', and 'Green Apple Rainshower'.

When I was a kid we had two kinds of shampoo: 'No More Tears' and that other one that made you go temporarily blind if it got in your eyes. And conditioner? It hadn't even been invented yet, which is why a lot of us back in those days had hair like a whisk broom.

I suppose I can't expect the hair care industry to go back to those simpler days, but it would be nice if I could find a shampoo that didn't make my head smell like a bee-attracting berry pie. If I'm going to have a scented shampoo, I'd at least rather have a smell I can relate to, like 'Transmission Fluid', 'Diesel Smoke', 'Burning Tire', 'Monkey Enclosure', or 'Beer and Beef Jerky'. At least then I'd feel like I'd been involved in some sort of interesting activity, and not like I'd been trapped in an enchanted incense factory.