| Secondhand Rants | Rock on, Sisyphus |
Would you like to know what I did today, gentle reader?
I uttered profanity after profanity at the freezing ice rain while lugging twenty pounds of groceries up two miles of poorly-cleaned sidewalks. How’s that for poor sentence construction?
I’m currently engaged in a suite summit about wearing pants. The issue at hand? Whether we should institute a no-pants edict for a while. Discussions are quite heated at the moment.
“It’s Sunday evening,” you rasp out in your Tiny Tim voice, precariously leaning on your remaining crutch for support, “so could you offer me some advice for the coming school week?”
“Of course, gentle reader,” I reply. “Here, have a seat.”
I rip the crutch out from under your arms, sending you on your rump.
“Ouch, that hurts!” you exclaim. “Although I’m sure it won’t hurt as much as being denied your bountiful wisdom.”
Oh, how much you have learned, gentle reader. I’ll give you some tidbits on how to get the full $2500 return from each of your courses. These three suggestions came to me while I wasted away in inorganic chemistry lectures during freshman year. I guarantee that you too will become the flea’s knees by following these directions TO THE LETTER.
First, as soon as you hit the twentieth minute of lecture, emit a yelp, hug yourself, and shiver for a good three minutes, making sure to rock back and forth for effect. You should you do this not only because I told you to do so, but also because it’s performance art. What you accomplish, dear reader, is a melding of your inside voice and your outside voice.
As soon as you hit minute thirty, take out a bag of cookies–bring cookies that have cream in them, such as these puppies–and do the classic split-the-cookie routine. Here’s the catch: Not only should you scrape the cream from your cookies with your fingernails, but you should also consolidate the cream into ONE BIG BALL. After constructing a substantive ball of cream, turn to your immediate right, smile at your neighbor, and drop the ball onto his/her desk. Did you get that last part, gentle reader? It’s very important.
You’re in the homestretch when you reach minute forty-five, so this calls for the grand finale. Take your cookie creamy hands, grip the sides of your desk, and shout, “No, I shan’t! You can’t make me! I shan’t! I shan’t!” Do that four or five times in succession with aplomb that would make Mister Walesa blush.
There you have it. Try these tips out tomorrow and mail me the results, would you?
While I usually remove myself from large crowds, gentle reader, I discarded my modus operandi for a night and thoroughly enjoyed myself at Janet and Dan’s wedding.
For me, the ceremony began with some uncertainty as I ran my duties of an usher through the SCREW-UP machine. Repeatedly. I promptly forgot the concept of “walking slowly and rhythmically” and unceremoniously dragged Dan’s charming grandmother down the aisle–picture a guy linking arms with a woman 3.5 times his age and dashing down the aisle with her at 5.5 times her normal walking speed–and I apologized to the gracious woman afterwards. The damn floral and lace arrangements that blocked off the pews confounded me as tried to unhook them during dismissal, but the congregation thankfully unhooked them for me.
Despite these mishaps and perhaps a thousand other small mistakes (including those of others, natch; I’m not that daft, you know), the ceremony came together, and it was amazing.
And then the reception collected all of us, and there was certainty in the clanks and the clinks of silverware, the coughs, the chatter, the kissing, the laughter, the inebriated singing, the couple smiling, the chandeliers swaying merrily in a breezeless room, the spectacle of normalcy done tastefully. Janet’s father, who currently holds pole position in my ranking of model fathers, looked equal parts dazed and proudly happy and danced like a dervish.
Past and present gathered in a room for an evening and gave way to the future. The noisy confluence of acquaintances old and new–Owen, Viv, Jeff, Tim, Susan, Wailin, Linda, Tash, Jeff, Matt, Carol, all in the same room with church people and raucous relatives–will remain in my mind’s eye and ear for some time. And so we danced, gorged, imbibed, and a good night was had by all.