The Zippered Man

Once she had a dream lover. She would lay in his arms all night long, feeling safer than she had during most of her life. She thought at times, it would be nice if he had a zipper running the length of his body. There was a good deal of comfort to be derived from the idea of climbing into him, and zipping him up with her inside, hidden from the world. The world is a dangerous place in the best of times, and deadly in the worst.

Of course she was crazy.

That was a frequent judgment.

She was adjudged to be amoral a few times too, by quizzes applied through several authoritative online sites laden with expert analysts for the benefit of hungering masses in quest of an answer as to who they actually are.

Armchair psychologists and dilatants plastered to television sets, tend to enjoy these sites.

The experts gave their opinions which nothing could sway. They were based on ironclad courses taught at various universities noted for their pompous conspicuously moral wisdom-dispensing professors.

It seemed a feather in her cap to be amoral. It meant she was running against the odds, since the “average” were generally moral according to the rules.

Morality in her opinion, amounted to a collection of regulations laid down by the elite for their own convenience. Therefore, to be amoral was to shake free of them and their iron fists.

She thought there should be something for everyone...many sets of rules, without religion connected to them.

The word regulations had too militant a connotation for comfort.

She thought religion tended to complicate things unnecessarily. An entire collection of esoteric regulations plagued many religions. Far too many regulations would need to be remembered if they involved religion too. Also, people sometimes killed each other because of conflicting attitudes stemming from religion. So perhaps it was best to keep religion and guns separate from each other.

Guns would be secular in their nature.

Therefore, all rules laid down outside of religion, should never contain even a whiff of sectarianism.

There was one universally applicable rule everyone would have to obey. Just one: Only the most reasonable and responsible secular leaders could have anything to do with guns.

They would be very reluctant to kill anyone, since everyone obeyed their own rules; there was little, if any, major discord. Eventually they would realize how stupid it was to have guns, but never shoot at anything. So why bother to have them?

Of course though, she was crazy.

In thinking it out on a deeper level, if there were too many sets of rules, anarchy might ensue.

Anarchy seemed so exhausting.

The zippered man was her best idea in the long-run.

February 15, 2007
A. Murray

Bertha, Ella, Sid, and the little green apples...

a peculiar little tail.

Bertha shoved the broom across the kitchen floor, muttering to herself, "damn filthy little bastids, makes me want to squash their little heads with the heel of my boot…"

The mouse sat in the entryway of his apartment complex, whiskers twitching, eyes shining like new shoe buttons, and ears turned to the sound the giant was making.

The mouse spoke minimal English, but enough to get by on. He was hungry and tired. He'd been travelling for days to get to the place where he would spend the winter this year. The last house was drafty and immaculately clean. He'd caught a cold at Thanksgiving, and kept it until spring. And because of perverse hygiene on the part of the farmer's wife, he'd nearly starved to death during his stay there, emerging a mere shadow of his former self. He shuddered to think about it now.

A vicious swipe of the broom too close to the molding nearly knocked him off his feet. Considering this to be a portent of doom, his own in fact, he decided to crawl back into bed for a little nap. It was early, and dinner wasn't on the table until some time around five-thirty. There was plenty of time to rest before the job of harvesting from the floor, where some of his favored delicacies were generally plentiful, thanks to the smaller giants who ate there on occasion.

He understood the salient points of the conversation the giant was having with herself, and it's not so underlying rage, was enough to breed caution even within such an adventurous soul as he. So he turned, and to his undying regret, missed the most interesting thing of the day. He heard about it later, but would have given an especially fine whisker to have seen it first-hand

All in all however, at that moment, life was good again. At last….

"Next time I catch them little rats thrown' food across the room, I'm gonna break an arm first, and answer questions later…spoiled little crap-heads, killin's too good fer 'em."

A disembodied voice floated near enough to halt Bertha's fury laden diatribe. "What on earth are you nattering about Bertha? Milk gone sour again? Sorry if it is, I can never get those damn incantations right."

The disembodied voice grew nearer…the house was so cavernous, it was an echo chamber. Whispered conversations could be eavesdropped upon conveniently from what seemed like miles away if one was aware of all the strategic positions for doing so. The speaker was.

Bertha managed to pull her act together with effort. She wasn't in the mood for the "lady" of the house. Last night had been terrible; and she was tired, hungry, perplexed, and crotchety.

The voice drew nearer.

"So what's wrong today Bertha?"

"Nothing special Missus, just them kids hurlin' food across the room like it was a game a that Frisbee stuff instead a supper…little savages…. At least a damn Frisbee thing is made outta plastic and it don't shed crumbs an' muck all over the damn place."

"Ah, is that all? I thought a spell I was trying out last night had backfired again."

The disembodied voice became full bodied and astonishing in it's appearance. Bertha did her best to act tactfully, and disallowed her jaw to drop in an impolite rube-like manner.

The "Lady" of the house was standing in the doorway with the usual disreputable plaid bathrobe gaping open to reveal one of a collection of the worst nightgowns Bertha had seen before coming to the Big House as a charwoman/raving lunatic/superstitious native, and half-assed friend. Floppy slippers adorned large feet, which were also encased in purple socks. The entire costume shrieked "BAD FASHION SENSE".

But that wasn't the cause of Bertha's jaw struggling with gravity. It was the hair.

It was green, and huge…like a gigantic fern that had grown from the top of the woman's head.

"Oh good lord," Bertha said to herself. "The poor thing."

"What was ya tryin' last night", she asked tentatively.

"Eggnog."

"Oh, of course, eggnog." Bertha couldn't tear her gaze away from the apparition standing in front of her.

Ella, for that was her name, reached up as though to fluff the atrocity, but instead whipped it off her head, much to Bertha's relief, and shook it like a recalcitrant fuzzy animal.

"Dynel," she said, giving it another vigorous shake. "Wash and wear! Don't you just love it?"

"Well, it's certainly differnt," Bertha stated, with as much diplomacy as she could muster on short order. "D'ye you care for a cuppa tea now? I feel the need a one myself at this very moment." With that, she turned toward the kitchen, and to the safety of sane company.

Sid sat in the Kitchen window seat, moodily staring out at the landscape stretched endlessly before him. He noted with horror that every tree within his view was full of lovely little green apples. This would have been wonderful if they had been apple trees. Alas, they were not.

"Uccccmmmpphhh", he sighed, shaking his head with a certain weariness that bespoke of long practice at it, as he wondered aloud, "What in hell did she do THIS for? I can't leave her alone for a single evening without coming back to yet another bloody fiasco. The woman needs to be kept on a leash. A short one at that!"

He bent to wash his tail, which usually restored his spirits, and increased his pleasure in contemplating the fresh bagel sitting on the table, waiting to be devoured by the she-beast, which was how he was perceiving Ella at the moment.

Dropping nimbly down from the window seat, he meandered across the kitchen, and jumped up onto the table. Ah, good…the bagel was still warm. He gripped it in his teeth, then leaped off the table, and dragged it to his favorite rug in front of the fireplace. There was never a better breakfast in any kingdom, than a fresh toasted bagel with cream cheese.

Bertha clumped into the kitchen. " 'Mornin' Mister Sid," cuppa tea?"

"Why yes Bertha, that would be nice." Sid licked cream cheese off a paw, then said with the sarcastic chuckle that had become ingrown over time when discussing Ella's fiascoes, "I assume Bertha, you are aware there are green apples growing on the blue spruce, the oak, the maple, and every other damned kind of tree for miles around this misbegotten village…that is since you did walk here from your home, and had to have noticed…"

"Oh yes Mister Sid, I noticed indeed."

"So tell me Bertha, have you a clue as to what she was up to?" Sid sat looking at Bertha as though she had all the mysteries of this complex corner of the universe, tucked under her bandana, waiting for her to whip out the answers to life's most perplexing questions, no matter what they were about.

"Eggnog."

"Ah! Eggnog. Of course I should have known. How silly of me. She's up and about I assume?"

"Yes Mister Sid, and headed this way," Bertha said, eyeing Ella's half-eaten bagel on the rug beside the scraggly long bodied cat.

Sighing in resignation at the inevitable screaming match about to begin, she set about preparing tea.

September 27, 2004

One of the worst old stoner jokes

so why am I laughing?

The Monkey and The Lizard

A monkey is sitting in a tree smoking a joint when a lizard walks past and looks up and says to the monkey, "hey! what are you doing?"

The monkey says "smoking a joint, come up and have some."

So the lizard climbs up and sits next to the monkey and they have a few hits.

After a while the lizard says his mouth is dry and is going to get a drink from the river. The lizard is so stoned that he leans too far over and falls into the river.

A Crocodile sees this and swims over to the lizard and helps him to the side, then asks the lizard, "what's the matter with you?"

The lizard explains to the crocodile that he was sitting smoking a joint with the monkey in the tree, got so stoned he fell into the riverwhile taking a drink.

The crocodile says he has to check this out and walks into the jungle, finds the tree were the monkey is sitting, finishing the joint. He looks up and says, "hey!"

The Monkey looks down and says, "man, just how damn much water did you drink?"