269. Anniversaries

I took C.W. for a ride yesterday to get him out of my wife’s hair. Given a chance, he can start to annoy her. This time, he found an old photo album of her high school days and, using a secret process he calls “enphasing,” began to appear in the form of one after another of her old classmates. Just imagine what might go wrong.

Let’s just say that it was good to get him out of the house. I told him to take on the form, more or less, of a typical person you might see at Walmart. His first attempt wasn’t too good. He appeared as an unkempt man with a belly extending nearly a foot over his belt, a backward NRA cap, and a sleeveless tank top revealing tattoos on both arms, one stating “The South Rools,” and the other “Remember Gettisbirg.”

“Whut?” he said when I shook my head in disapproval. “I’ll fit right in.” He picked at his nose. “Better’n you anyway. Remember the time you wore your ‘Support Our Public Schools’ tee-shirt and they asked you to leave?”

“Back,” I said. “Try again.”

“This time he looked quite a bit like an old Navy buddy from a photo of the two of us after we had used our day off to visit some enlisted clubs. I frowned in disapproval but let it slide.

Once in the car, he instantly started to get on my nerves.

“What’s wrong with Mrs. Big Dope?  

I just looked over at him and said nothing.

“Did you mix paint with her favorite measuring cup again?”

It didn’t seem worthwhile to respond.

“Don’t tell me you spilled more wine on her ZZ Top CD.”

“No,” I said, “and that wasn’t me, if you will remember. Someone lied about it.”

He ignored me. “You didn’t badmouth Matthew McConaughey did you?”

“Could you ever imagine,” I said, “that it might be something you did?”

“Me?”

“You.”

He didn’t speak for almost a minute. “Can’t imagine a thing.” He said, after the pause.

“That last shape you took.”

“Oh,” he said, “that real pretty girl with the big …”

“That’s the one.”

“Weren’t they good friends? I mean back in high school?”

“Hardly.”

He truly seemed dumbfounded. “Why … what … how could it be? You mean they weren’t best friends?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“They didn’t like each other?”

“Bingo.”

“What was the the cause, explanation, or justification for the action or event?”

“The reason, as I understand it, was a boyfriend. I learned long ago not to ask.”

“She had another boyfriend before you?”"

“Well yeah,” I said, mimicking the young folks.

“How could that be? You’ve been married for how long now?”

“Tomorrow marks 43 years,” I said. “That’s where we are headed: to buy her a gift.”

And Big Dope tells me that you see
some weird-looking people at Walmart. - C.W.

“Hey,” he said. “Maybe she would like a new Astrocelestial Sound Synthesizer. You know how much she likes to mimic that woman with all those kids.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I read where the women in California all want a new A…”

I cut him off. “Forget it,” I said. “I think she wants a new tool box and a set of metric wrenches.”

“A true romantic,” he said and we continued in silence.

Later, at Walmart, I had to rush over and intercede when I heard him tell a vacant-eyed adolescent “associate” that he wanted to buy a card for “the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event.”

Would anyone like to keep an alien for a while?

Click some ads. I spent all my money on an anniversary card.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
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268. Places

C.W. is being punished. As best as I can manage, he is confined to quarters, meaning the spare bedroom we keep. Of course he can escape anytime he wants, but I’m locking the computer away when I’m not using it so he won’t go far.

What did he do this time?

Hitchhiking.

Yes. Hitchhiking. It all began when he started asking me about the GPS navigational systems that people are increasingly relying upon to get around.

“Can’t they read a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities, roads, etc.” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Reading a map has pretty much disappeared as skill.”

“That’s what I feared,” he said, “when I read that more than 20 percent of your population can’t locate the Pacific Ocean on a map of the world.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“It’s not as though it is not prominent,” he said.

“Pretty prominent,” I said.

“And 11 percent can’t locate the United States?”

“Sad to say.”

“So people use those little boxes with the obnoxious voices emanating from them to get around?”

“Many do.”

“They go exactly where the boxes tell them?”

“Without question.”

“Don’t they know that a superior mental force …,” he paused. “Say a visitor from the Wobeenanis Galaxy, could scramble the directions?”

“You don’t think highly of those folks, now do you?”

A vicious place producing creatures of low expectations,” he said. Then he brightened. “Wait one,” he said, and then he disappeared.

When he returned, he was in the form of that actor, Brad Pitt. He said he was going for a walk. Actually, I found out later, he was going hitchhiking. After deputies had returned him several times, I deduced that he had been hitching rides with strangers willing to assist him because of his appearance. Using some Falloonian powers of which I was unaware, he had used his ability to re-direct automobile GPS systems so that he had, on different occasions,

- Led a Bluegrass Band to a Hip Hop concert.

- Led a mine operator to a Sierra Club meeting

- Led a “Tea Party” activist into a public housing complex

- Led a pro-wrestling fan to a ballet recital

- Led an ardent vegetarian to a pig farm

- Led a “creationist” to the public library … and … was finally caught, wouldn’t you know it … leading a prominent Baptist minister to a barn dance.

Don’t contact me asking for clemency. He is confined indefinitely.

 

Why do so many of your species
live in the constant fear that
at some place, somewhere, someone
may be having fun? - C.W.

 

Click some ads. I need to buy my way out.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

W
Available at major on-line retailers, or
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267. Facts

“What on earth are you doing?” There was Eddie the Entrepreneur sitting in the middle of my living room floor amidst a pile of posters and paper scraps. Of course it was C.W. in one of his favorite shapes, the young genius who will someday match Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg in fame and fortune.  He looked up, pushed his long, shaggy hair to the back of his head, and stared over his horn-rimmed glasses at me.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said. “I need to test some ideas.”

“Ideas for what?”

“My new non-difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.”

“Do you mean your non-profit?”

“There you go repeating me gain.”

I ignored him. “So what are you not going to make a profit in now?”

“This,” he said, holding up an ad mock-up. There in bold type was a call-to-action for one to “Cure Cognichasm.”

“Cognichasm?”

“Yep. You all need to be cured of it.”

“What is your solution?”

“A seven-week course designed to cure one of the greatest mental shortcomings of your species,” he said.

“And that is?”

“Your apparent inability to connect cognitive phenomena,” he said, “and the mental chasm it produces.”

I began to sense his meaning. “And you got this idea when?”

He looked at me sternly. “You know very well when.”

“Those ten so-called ‘presidential candidates’ didn’t constitute a fair sample of the ability of our species to engage in linear thinking,” I said.

“Well they did mention a cure for a problem that was tried by the Chinese, with no apparent success, centuries ago. That’s a pretty big cognitive gap.”

“They were just kidding about ‘building an immigrant-proof wall’ and maintaining it,” I said. “After all, they were appearing on an entertainment venue.”

“Forget them,” he said. “Between the ten of them, they couldn’t connect two dots if they were standing in a field of sunflowers.” He consulted a sheet of paper filled with typing. “Let’s look at some examples.” He read for a few seconds. “Here’s one,” he said. “We can stop teen pregnancies by telling teens not to have sex.” He gave me a smug nod. “Now just how disconnected is that from reality?”

I was on the defensive all of a sudden. “I didn’t come up with that,” I said, “but some people believe it.”

“Oh yes,” he said, “the teens of your species have such a long history of doing exactly what adults say.”

“That’s a strained example.”

“Oh really?” he said. “Try this instead: Sex education leads to teen-aged pregnancies.”

I couldn’t think of an answer, so he kept reading.

“Cutting revenue inflow increases available revenue.”

I said nothing.

“The more you charge on your credit card, the more money you make.”

I said nothing.

“The only way to save a country is to destroy it.”

I said nothing.

“Facts are stupid things.”

Silence on my part.

 “Training children to excel on standardized tests makes them more educated.”

Oh dear.

“The drinking of whiskey puts the spirit of conviviality in one’s heart and enhances our existence.”



What can I add? - C.W.

“Now wait just a minute.”

“Oh,” he said. “Excuse me. My mistake.” He ran his finger down the list. “Here it is: The drinking of whiskey destroys our families, communities, and civic organizations.”

“And your point?”

“Each member of your species tends to interpret facts to fit its own beliefs.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “We can be as logical as the next species, perhaps more so. And we are a pleasant example. You said yourself that drinking whiskey—especially, I think, Four Roses Single-Barrel—helps a lot.”

“You aren’t much help,” he said, “maybe my fans can come up with some examples.”

Click some ads. My production costs are soaring.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com

266. Similes

Oh, please just tuck me away somewhere like an ugly sweater received as a gift from a color-blind aunt. C.W. is practicing his similes again. For some reason they fascinate him like a piece of fuzz stuck on a cat’s paw.

Oops. It’s catching.

“Why?” I asked.

“To make money,” he said. “How’s this one?” He stared at my computer screen. “His two strands of hair slide about the top of his head like a blond tumbleweed balanced on a greased basketball.”

I couldn’t find the words to respond.

“Or this,” he said, “He stopped and thrust a water bottle in his mouth like he was a member of a NASCAR team gassing a racecar.”

My mind began to sink like a bowl of unleavened bread.

“Here’s a beaut,” he said. “His horn-rimmed glasses, bought to make him look smarter than he is, wrap around his empty head like a training bra on an eight-year old.”

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

“What’s that?”

“I am aware,” I said, “that the first presidential debates are happening this week.”

“Oh?”

“Cut the stuff,” I said, seeing through his ruse. Actually, the fact that he had assumed a shape perfectly imitating that of legendary political guru Karl Rove had been my first clue.

“This week?” he said feigning surprise. “Then they will need similes like a Kardashian needs a photo op.” He stopped and typed into my computer.”

“And you?”

“I,” he said, “will sell the candidates similes through my new company. He scrolled the computer. “Here it is: Similes To Facilitate Understanding.”

“Uh,” I said. “Have you thought that name through?”

“Check out this one,” he said, ignoring me. “He waddles up to the microphone like the Pillsbury Doughboy approaching a hot oven.”

“Or this,” he said, reading again. “He slams his Bible on the Constitution like a blacksmith pounding a U -shaped metal plate nailed to a horse's hoof to protect it from being injured by hard or rough surfaces.”

“I think,” I said, “that you might do well to run that through your Galactic Universal Translator again.”

“My GUT works like a finely tuned sausage grinder,” he said. “Now here’s a good one.” He read again, “He hates government like a drunkard hates a rehab clinic.” He smiled. “Good, eh?”

I didn’t say a word.

He continued. “He avoids mentioning his brother like a man with a strange woman’s name tattooed on his arm.”

I raised my eyes heavenward. “Is this ever going to stop or am I stuck in a loop like a bad computer string?”

“Listen up,’ he said. “You might learn something.” He read, “He stands out in that crowd like Beyoncé at a DAR convention.”

“Would you please stop?”

“He has that wild crazy Nouveau-Texan look in his eyes like a dog locked up in a butcher shop with no place to go to the bathroom.”

“Please.”

“He traded away his soul to the Koch Brothers like an ad-man selling a jingle.”

I really don't get the clown simile.
I thought clowns were supposed to be happy. - C.W

I stopped and thought. “You know,” I said. “Of all your crazy schemes, this one might work like a bridge over water that is roiling a foaming.”

“Hey,” he said. “I like that. Maybe we’ll use it. Now for the clincher.”

“The clincher?”

“You all remind me of a group filing in for a Chuckles the Clown Memorial Service.”

Click some ads. I need a new computer like a TV evangelist needs a new airplane.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com

265. Phrases

“Hey,” C..W. yelled at me, “come here.”

“What’s up?” I said as I walked into the room and found the old comedian Jack Benny staring at me from my computer.

“You have some explaining to do.”

“Really?” I said, “The last time we talked you said I couldn’t explain to a snake how to do the rhumba.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, deadpanning like the old trooper he whose shape he had borrowed. “You and the snakes seem to have learned a lot from one another.”

I ignored him, “You had a question?”

“About your language,” he said.

“The language of Shakespeare and Milton?”

“No,” he said, “the language of Kohen and Tymber.”

“Oh,” I said, “modern usage.”

“Quite so,” he said. He looked at the computer screen, “Here’s a dandy,” he said. “What, exactly, does it mean when a man posts an announcement on VisageDocument that ‘We’re pregnant,’ referring to him and his wife.”

“Uh,” I said, “I think it means he wants his friends on Facebook to know that he and his wife are going to prudence a child.”

“It takes two of them?”

“In the fertilization phase, yes.”

“So the man fertilizes himself as well?”

“Not exactly.”

“The man carries a portion of the gestation assemblage to term? Shares the discomfort of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth?”

“Not exactly.”

“So what does he mean when he says, ‘We’re pregnant,’ as if it were a joint activity?”

“How the hell should I know,” I said. “When I was a kid, we weren’t even allowed to use that word. A woman was ‘expecting,’”

“Expecting what?”

The Falloonian Elders have been concerned
about overpopulation on your planet.
I think I've found the solution. - C.W.

“A child, although that was never made clear to us. Sometimes we were told it was a puppy.”

“You are a strange species,” he said. “I suppose you had incomprehensible euphemisms for other biological functions?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, we did ask if we might go ‘wash,’ if we needed to …” I struggled for the words.

“To do what?”

"Number One or Number Two,” I said.

“I’m sorry?”

I explained. He shook his head and then stared at me with another of his blank expressions.

“Oh, good grief,” he said. “And I thought you got to be such a dope all on your own.”

 Please click some ads. I need to buy Big Dope a new dictionary.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com