My brain? She has melted.

And I have a question.

Is it wrong to feel slightly offended when your ability to successfully utilize instructions to the coffee shop fails and you are forced to return to the Giver Of Instructions for a second attempt?

And prior to elaborating on the instructions, the Giver Of Instructions ever-so-slightly scolds you for not being able to follow such a simple set of directions?

As if she were gently — oh, so gently — rubbing your nose in the poop you left on her nice clean floor?

And once the Giver Of Instructions begins to break the instructions down further — using one syllable words, expansive gestures, and a whole lot of volume (like a tourist in a foreign land) — I realise something?

That when she said “Go down the stairs and there you are”, she didn’t actually mean “Go down the stairs and there you are!“?

Instead, she honestly believed that it should have been obvious — even to me and my little brown-stained snout — that “Go down the stairs and there you are” actually meant “Go down the hall, take the unmarked door, walk forty feet down a hallway, enter an open atrium, go the stairs hidden behind the plants at the back of the atrium (not those plants — THOSE plants), go down the stairs, discover you are in a second subterranean atrium, walk through the scrum of people, look for the unmarked white wooden dividers — unmarked white wooden dividers that TOTALLY AND UTTERLY HIDE THE COFFEE SHOP FROM THE SIGHT OF BOTH MAN AND BEAST — and then look behind them and there you are!“?

Is it wrong?

…

I’m not saying that I’m going to take her children and then cook them in a pie and then feed her the pie and then tell her what was in the pie and then watch her regret eating the pie or anything like that.

It’s how I roll.

I got a few odd looks when I announced that the single most common recurring theme in my dreams was overly-elaborate underground shopping malls.

…

Am I the only one?

It was non-alcoholic eggnog, so it must be true.

One of these cheap little laser pointers for entertaining cats with or for practicing your dickwadery with from the back of a movie theatre.

Sharp. Single minded. Low wattage.

And my cats smell like hot and sour soup.

Why do I get the feeling that Winston Churchill never felt like this?

[Sound of devious mole rats sneaking up behind you for the sheer tangential joy of messing with your head.]

It’s Sunday. I’m lazy. And yet I have to write a post.

Hypothesis:

Consuming sizable quantities of baklava and cherry-cheesecake ice cream will infuse me with potently creative energies that will drive me to the computer where a veritable torrent of high-quality words and phrases will wash out over my keyboard and trickle down through the internets to enrich your lives with their fertilizing wordiness.

Testing Phase:

NOMNOMNOMSLURPSLURPSLURPNOMNOMNOM-

[Pause for air.]

Pant… pant… pant…

[And resume.]

-NOMNOMNOMSLURPSLURPSLURPNOMNOMNOM.

Conclusion:

I need to lie down.

Bonus Conclusion:

And I think maybe die.

I installed a new doorknob in the bathroom this weekend.

I figured it was time, when after three weeks of not latching at all, it suddenly decided to latch so successfully that I actually needed to shimmy it open with a credit card.

Which, it now seems, is a skill I possess.

Even butchier.

[Pause.]

I should probably clarify the second sentence up there.

When I say that I “installed a new doorknob in the bathroom”, I mean that I installed it on the bathroom door.

It’s not like I went in there and installed it on the shower curtain. Or the plunger.

While charmingly random, that would have been slightly lower on the butchiness scale.

[Pause.]

Now that I think about it, even mentioning that the installation of the doorknob on the bathroom door made me feel butchy sort of… dandifies the whole feeling.

It’s like… a gunfighter taking down the evil cattle baron and all his henchmen and then walking around town saying stuff like:

• “Wow! Did you see that! I nailed him! Pretty freaking macho, eh?”
• “I think we all know who the big man around these parts is now, don’t we? Heh-heh-heh. And if you are unaware as to whom I am referring, the big man is ME.” [Kisses biceps.]
• “I guess nobody in town has a job anymore, considering I just killed the town’s lone employer and his entire upper management team. Hmmmmm… due to the awesomeness of me, I guess I could come up with a new way for you to make money.” [Brows furrow in really butchy thought.] “I could autograph stuff that you could then sell on eBay. Stuff like… t-shirts. And farm… implements. Because my signature will increases its value. Due to my manliness. Which is extreme. TO THE MAX!”

[Pause.]

Aw hell.

It wasn’t even a credit card that I shimmied the door open with.

It was a Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum Card.

And it only had 2500 points.

I bet gunfighters don’t even have Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum Cards.

They probably have really cool things.

Like horses. And cowboy hats. And conclusions.

[Pause.]

Stupid gunfighters.

TUESDAY SPECIAL
QUARTER ROASTED CHICKEN $5.95

And I have a number of thoughts, the first of which is:

• I believe I would prefer to have my chicken roasted for the the full four quarters.

Which is followed immediately by:

• Strip clubs serve chicken?

Which is right on the heels of:

• Are they really expecting me to chose which adult entertainment establishment I patronise based solely on the quality of their entrées? Isn’t that like picking a surgeon based on the selection of magazines they have in the waiting room? Because, while the magazines might be a diverting perk for a moment or two, it would not be [insert wild gesticulation here] in ANY sense of the imagination [end wild gesticulation] a deciding factor in my decision-making process. “Honey? HONEYCOMEHERERIGHTNOW! He has ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY! Ohmigodohmigodohmigod! He even has the bonus American Idol issue! He’s the one! Uh-huh! I will permit NO OTHER to saw open my skull. [Lies down on floor.] I’ll just wait here until he’s ready to scrub in. [Pause.] Ummm… Honey? Can you get me an Orange Julius while I wait? I’m a little parched. Thanks, Hon.”

Which is finally — mercifully — bookended with:

• Ewwww. Strip club chicken.

(Yes. We do watch it. It’s real purty to watch in high-def.)

The show is proceeding apace: extremely elaborate crime occurs, which is investigated by improbably pretty people, who use supernaturally rococo forensic processes (including absurdly mystical database searches) by which the criminal is brought to justice. (And I have yet again avoided making a drinking game out of Horatio putting on or taking off his sunglasses, because… well… I want to live.)

And it hits me. Reality? It has left the building. This show has shacked up in a rundown motel with James Bondian Fantasy.

That’s when I realised what the masterminds of the CSI franchise need to do next:

CSI: HOLLOWED-OUT VOLCANO

Follow me on this one…

When the Bond movie ends… and everything that is explodable has exploded… and everything that can be melted-to-slag with a solar-powered death-ray has been adequately melted-to-slag with a solar-powered death-ray… and the bodies of countless unitarded minions have finished twitching and oozing… some world-weary local cops and CSIs have to come in and sort through the mess.

I’D WATCH THAT SHOW.

“Yeah… some good samaritan called it in… according to the 911 tape… let’s see…” [flips through notebook] “‘the top of the mountain, it done “assploded”‘… no… they didn’t leave their name…”

“Damn! We need to fingerprint this whole lair? Even the shark pool? They better be ready to dish out on the overtime on this one…”

“My initial examination of the corpse revealed some very interesting bite marks… almost as if the attacker had metal teeth…”

“The tire treads look to be high-end… maybe Jaguar or Aston Martin… but I’m also seeing what looks like exhaust patterns for a missile launcher… we’ll have to see what the mass-spec says…”

“I found some odd trace in the wound… It’s a mixture of tempered steel — from a blade of some kind — and what looks like hat felt…”

“Stomach contents reveal no food, but a large quantity of vodka and vermouth…”

Aaaand… so on.

Admit it. That show would rule.

…

I tried to explain this idea to My Lovely Wife.

She didn’t really react.

I said, “Damn. I’m not explaining this well.”

She said, “Oh… you explained it just fine…”