01-May-2008
Having experienced a total inability to buy a working fever thermometer, I am reminded how, when I was a kid, Made In Japan was synonymous with junk. My two thermometer purchases – one digital/electric, the other the old shake-down mercury – both failed to work (either that or my wife and I are having serious temperature problems) and both were made in China. So is China becoming the new Japan? I hope not, particularly after reading recent stories about how so many of our pharmaceuticals now come, either whole or in part, from China.
* * *
One of those newspaper stories that cries out for further explanation: A woman was recently discovered to have been sitting on the toilet in her bathroom for the past two years. Apparently her boyfriend brought her food and water and pleaded with her to leave the bathroom. When she finally left, or tried to, it was found that her flesh had grown either around or into the toilet seat. That’s it, but that’s not enough. I need to know more, although I’m not sure I want to know more.
* * *
Really small pet peeve department: Walking the streets early in the morning, a bit before sunrise, I’m amazed at the number of drivers driving with only the parking lights of their cars on. What’s the point of that? Saving the headlights? Working on eliminating global warming? Peevish corollary: I’m also surprised at the number of drivers I see talking on their cellphones. Who do you talk to at six o’clock in the morning?
* * *
I think we need a worldwide moratorium on explanations. That could be brought about by simply banning the use of the word ‘Why?’ Really, it’s such a bad question. No one can explain why serial killers do what they do, or why gas prices are so high, or why we are in Iraq, or why the economy is tanking, or why people don’t read, or why these times will seem so primitive in fifty years, or why people believe in God, or why they shop at Wal-Mart
* * *
Life is like happiness. It makes no sense until it’s all over.
* * *
Do telemarketers know when they’re talking to a naked person?
* * *
Following the recent murder of five students and the wounding of sixteen others at our local university, officials came up with a slogan that was soon seen sprouting all over the place: Forward, Together Forward. While I am sympathetic to anyone who has to muddle through such a situation in a leadership position, I thought the slogan was a ghastly mistake. First, it’s a phrase from the university fight song, which gave the incident the cachet of fourth down and goal to go. Second (and this may yet happen), it sounded like something dreamed up for a foundation campaign or new admissions brochures. Truly, there was only one possible slogan for anyone needing a bit of a focal point in order to grasp the event: Dan, Gayle, Catalina, Julianna, and Ryanne.
* * *
I think American Idol and a number of the other reality shows have unwittingly set a precedent for a major change in our judicial system. Namely, it’s time to do away with the current jury system. Six or twelve people judging you? Levying heavy fines against you? Sending you to prison? Sentencing you to die? How unfair – as any good lawyer knows. In the future, all trials – civil or criminal, doesn’t matter – should be televised (“ordinary” litigation on local channels, “big” trials on national channels) with the final step being a phone-in vote for the verdict by viewers. It would be hard to appeal a verdict laid down by hundreds, thousands, or even millions of jurors.
* * *
I like the word clavicles.
* * *
I once wrote a paper about how making Sanskrit the official world language would end the kind of wars that kill and dismember people and expose their organs to public view. When my professor asked me what kind of wars we would have then, I answered “fun ones, kind of like playing golf with water balloons.” I got an A+ on that paper even though the old-fashioned wars still go on.
* * *
Evolution is still trying to decide if we should be a solid or a liquid. Some of us are and some of us aren’t.
* * *
My Muse has calloused feet, hairy armpits, and degrees in ethics and archaeology. Sometimes she sleeps on my lap and drools on my thigh, a drool I’ve tasted many times – sweet, yet spicy, like a jalapeño pepper marinated in corn syrup. Never have I asked her name, and never has she volunteered it to me. Frankly, she looks a bit doggy with dirty hair and the occasional cold sore on her lip. Often, too, she’s badly bruised with great purple tattoos on calves or clavicles, abraded knees, an infected nipple. “It’s not an easy job keeping you both busy and ignored,” she’ll tell me, “but we hooked you up with Truth long ago so don’t ever expect some kind of dorky Stephen King payday.” She confesses often to a great deal of trouble with her bowels, too. Someone told me once that Muses are always beautiful. They’re not.
G. K. Wuori © 2008
Photoillustration by the author
