Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Blowhard (or The Ventriculatory MassWhale)

I thought something felt a little funny yesterday. It was hard to pin it down due to my recent acquirement of full-throttle absent-mindedteenism (not a word), or my decision that cigarettes were last years news. Turns out it wasn't anything to do with me - things were just a little funny.

After finding out that one of my best friends from high school now lives down the street from me, I had a stigmata over my kitchen sink. Whether or not this was due to my finding out he lives down the street from me remains unclear. The particular stigmata I had was the one where Jesus readjusts his crown of thorns on his head, and consequently pricks six out of ten of his fingers. Six out of ten of my fingers (about 6/10 of them, or 3/5 if you use the metric system) started gushing blood, for no reason in particular - besides the stigmata of course. Only one of them was really split open, so I wiped up the other cuts, and put band aid over the seriously stigamatad one. The Little Finger That Could bled through that band aid, another one, and yet another one, before I was able to leave the house to go to work. Oh, the valiant bleeding. Keep on bleeding little buddy! You're so brave!

As I exited my house stage right, and approached my four-wheeled steel horse of valor and consequence, I noticed a strange pile of garbage abutting the entrance to my carriage of guilt and glory. "Bizarro." I thought, "though this is Ypsi. Naymind, not bizarro." But I as I neared the pile of garbage, I started getting the eerie feeling that the garbage was familiar. In fact, it kind of looked like...no, not..."could it...is it MY garbage? But of course it is! I can recognize my garbage from anywhere! Heavens, this garbage is the garbage that used to live inside my car!"

-1 bottle of mostly empty Victoria Secret lotion, left-over from my sister's habitation of said automobile.
-10 batteries, their life-death status unknown.
-2 bags half-eaten snacks from recent road trip to Tennessee.
-5,000 receipts, memorializing the purchase of cigarette packages (lo, the days of yore!)

Now, why would anyone ever want to go into my sapphire-encrusted transportation mechanism of serendipity and shyness, pull out handfuls of garbage, and leave them there?
At this point, I started to use my head, instead of my heart. I came to this conclusion:
Someone had gone treasure-diving in my car!

But really, the joke is on them. The mostly empty bottle of Victoria's Secret lotion and 2 bags of half-eaten snacks were really the best things in there. For no reason in particular, I had taken my iPod out of my car the night before, leaving the only other valuable, but pretty much useless, item in there, which is my cd-to-tape adapter. They took the adapter. Good for them. I would hate for them to leave empty handed - what kind of hospitality is that?

I mean, really. I hope they don't go smearing my reputation around Ypsi by telling everyone what a gross, useless quadped roar-box I have, or how I truly own nothing that costs more than $10.47.

The tale ends with me cleaning up the garbage with my blood-stained fingers, and quietly exiting the city. A weird spell, a tepid air, and a morose ghost fell upon Ypsi yesterday. Let us exercise the demon and let the city sleep at last.