When Was Meat so High?

"I think it's always good to know where someone's coming from and, quite frankly, your origins have been a bit of a mystery to me."


Yeah. I find myself thinking this about 15-30 times a day.

I went through a period of just saying whatever popped into my head, no matter how scathing, how offensive, or how odious and loathsome the notion was. These were my acerbic high school days. Luckily, sarcasm and wit were considered "funny" at the time, and so no one ever tried to stab me in a parking lot. But as the years went on, I realized that one cannot safely say whatever is on their mind at any given time - you could conceivably get stabbed in a parking lot. Or worse, you could end up coming across as an utterly egregious great douche bag to a person who means well.

Or perhaps you don't care how you come across to well-meaning people. And in which case, kudos, I guess. Good luck leading a life utterly devoid of decent friends.

Do I sound like I'm getting soft in my old age? Well, SCREW YOU!

Kidding. But not really.

I don't condone censorship. I want people to speak their mind. But I feel that one can do so without being a tactless, overly caustic, curmudgeon.

As far as poking fun at people who are NOT well-meaning and who, for all intents and purposes, are complete morons – I say, HAVE AT THEM! But they could be psychotic, so keep your voice down, lest you get stabbed in a parking lot.

Moving on, I was at the beach the other day* – attempting to get some color. My skin is as pallid as a carp's belly. For me, the coloring process is slow and steady. By the end of the summer, I'll have the skin tone of a normal Caucasian human being. But enough of this tangential blithering.

I was at the beach. It was very crowded with the wrong kind of people, mainly because they weren't charging admission. So the beach was rife with all sorts of littering, abrasive, alcoholic riffraff. And, of course, teeming with the dime-a-dozen, two-dimensional, gum-chewing "teenage girl" and "teenage boy." The pack (because they always travel in packs – god forbid one of these characters goes off and does something on their own. Perhaps they're afraid wolves will pick them off if they stray too far) nearest to me was having fun consuming alcohol and climbing the lifeguard tower. Never a good combination, but, hey man, whatever it takes to thin out the shallow end of the gene pool.

Now, when I say lifeguard tower, I don't really mean "tower." It's not really a "tower." A tower implies something that's kind of, you know, tall. Something above.... maybe 8 feet. The lifeguard "towers" at Narragansett beach are about 6 to 6 ½ feet high. And below the "tower" is lots and lots and lots and lots of very, very, very, very, very soft sand. So basically, what I'm trying to imply is, should one decide to jump off one of the "towers," said person will not get hurt.

Unless, of course, they jump head first, and in which case, once again thank you for removing the undesirable genes from the pool.

So some of these generic girls climbed up the tower, sat down and, as far as I could tell, just stared at the boys in their pack, and giggled inanely. This is completely copacetic behavior, I suppose. However they want to spend their time is fine by me. But they progressively got louder and more abhorrent. I have a strange genetic malady that does not allow me to block out background noise, so I overhear conversations – NOT BECAUSE I WANT TO, TRUST ME!! It is a curse!! There's really no point in reiterating their "conversations." It will cause neuronal breakdowns if I do so.

The part that vexed me so was when it came time for them to get down. Keep in mind these girls are only about 6 feet or so off the ground. They were immediately bamboozled and started to panic. So they started shouting for the boys. And that's exactly what they called them – "the boys." "Oh.....um......uhh.....err.....how do we.....ummm.....get the boys! Call the boys! We can't get down!!" So of course the boys wandered over one by one once they realized that the girls were screeching for them. And they didn't really help! They just kind of watched while the girls made a big deal out of getting down.

Then they all merrily skipped away. They most likely blew chunks in the parking lot, and had lots of unprotected sex in the car, and in 10 years, they'll probably be soccer moms and dead-beat dads. Me? Judgmental? NO WAY!

This is the kind of scenario that, should you feel so inclined to make fun of people, you have my blessing. In fact, I'll join in with you. We'll make a time of it. What exactly a "time" is, I'm not quite sure. But we'll make one. Together. But I must insist you wear protection since I'd really rather not make a contribution to the gene pool. That way no one can wonder about the origins of my potential offspring.

One major problem avoided.


See you in the Netherworld,
The Cage.



* Clearly this is an older blog. I did not, in fact, go to the beach the other day, seeing as it is January. This blog was written during the summer of '08.