Bathroom Monologue: Yet Another Crotchety Bathroom Aphorism?

"There is no fine line between what is stupid and what is impressive. The two overlap so often they need dual-language road signs. Stunts without wire teams, learning a language on your own, and nearly all respectable sports are simultaneously moronic and commendable. If it weren't for my brother falling through thin ice when everyone else knew not to go out there, I'd think the stupid and impressive really were the same phenomenon. That left me with this wide guideline: when you cannot figure if a thing is moronic or commendable, think how you’d feel if your family did it."

Bathroom Monologue: School of Bad Assassins

Jane and Brad’s idea was a bad one, but they were bored. They started an assassin’s school. Neither of them had ever killed so much as a turkey. They put no money into learning how to, either. All their money went into advertising, making themselves better known than all the expert hitmen in the world. They became so well known that assassins wouldn’t dare take them out – that would be suspicious. They were so well known that they got more students than any other school, and then trained them poorly. Graduates went on to try to kill for money and failed before they could cash their checks. That was Jane and Brad’s idea – clog the arteries of the industrial assassination complex with false confidence, and make the killers pay tuition up front.

Bathroom Monologue: Cartwheels

I’m going to tell you about a fact on Wikipedia. This is entry is so important because of what’s going on in the world. You see, the world is constantly being reduced. Architecture is more math and less art. They cut out people who take pride in making clothes, replacing them with kids who will take less pay. Scientists are bolder all the time in saying more of your personality is just your genes. They want to know you, and they want to know there’s as little of you to know as possible. Then they can dismiss you utterly. To whole industries and society you’re the sum of what goes on your tax form and fits on your passport. It takes the life out of life.

On Wikipedia they have a lot of entries for athletes. Boxers. Football players. They can give you the height and weight of Brian Urlacher or Oscar De La Hoya. Last I looked him up, the cage-fighter Frank Shamrock was 5 feet and 10 inches tall, and 185 pounds.

185 pounds. Was somebody there at his scale this morning? I don’t know. But it’s a symptom of how everything is being reduced. We’re being boxed in by dimensions.

You know the government even calculated how much a human life is worth? They factor it into punishments of murderers or something. If Frank Shamrock goes nuts next week and snaps your neck, you could be put on his tab. The tab of a man who weighs 185 pounds, with 23 wins, 9 losses and 2 draws in what Wikipedia calls his “Mixed martial arts record.”

Now I was browsing this site and came across the entry for Takeshi Morishima. This guy is a Japanese professional wrestler. A fake fighter’s got his stats here – his age, his height, his weight. At first there’s the laugh that this would even matter. Then there’s the disappointment at another man being catalogued. But those are obliterated by the actual entry. He’s Japanese, so it’s in metric, but it goes:

Ring name(s): Takeshi Morishima
Billed height: 190 cm (6 ft. 3 in.)
Billed Weight: 145 kg (Morbidly Obese, but can do a cartwheel)

It’s right there under his picture. Not “145 kilograms.”

“145 kg (Morbidly Obese, but can do a cartwheel).”

This man is amazing. He’s in a fake sport, but he is so jarring that somebody whose job it is to write his stats can’t stick to the job. It’s funny, it’s jarring, and it doesn’t belong in this society of numbers. The guy is a certain height and a certain weight, classifying him for morbid obesity, but he can do this thing you’d never think he could do, something atypical of what comes to mind when you think of these statistics. And the guy writing them adds it, and forgets to translate his weight into pounds.

That bucks the reduction. It bucks the death of life in written history, even if it gets edited tomorrow. It’s hilarious. It’s something you’d write about. That is willfully abnormal, and I will do everything in my power to create just one more stupid speed bump for a statistician who will have to say that I once swapped a Ritz for the communion wafer, or that I put steak sauce on my popcorn, or I have personally melted the final remnants of at least two urinal cakes. Anything so that I have so many things that someone trying to reduce me to numbers will have to give in and write just one parenthetical that does not belong in that box. Then I win, even if her editor fires her tomorrow and erases it. Because it means I didn’t live out a math problem. And if someone tries to write that I did, even if I don’t read it, even if I’m dead, I know they’re wrong.

Bathroom Monologue: “ME – 5 cents” –Deposit stamp on Florida Orange Juice bottle, sold in New York

“What I’m saying, Ted, is that maybe we should get a bottle deposit in our home state. Maine is way the heck north of us. It’s embarrassing enough that only one out of all fifty states in the country will give people a recycling refund, but when it’s Maine instead of the state the oranges were picked in, the juice was processed in, and then bottled in? The ridiculousness is as pure as our fine, fine O.J.”

"Familiarity Does" on Powder Burn Flash

An unpublished Bathroom Monologue, "Familiarity Does," is the story of the day over on Powder Burn Flash. It's one of my very few pieces of crime fiction, and I'd love to hear what you all think of it.

You can check out Powder Burn Flash at this URL: http://www.powderburnflash.com/

Bathroom Monologue: A Little Knowing Is…

Vineguard: Little-known fact: the black cat crossing your path and bringing bad fortune superstition arose from Africa, where the cat was a hungry jaguar.

Ninx: Little-known fact: the sky is actually God’s genitals, and He has been celibate since the dawn of time. Not willingly, though.

Chambers: Subtle.

Ninx: Your turn.

Chambers: Little-known fact: vampires cannot cross running water because they don’t know how to build bridges.

Ninx: That’s just dumb.

Chambers: Ask one. They’re abominable architects.

Vineguard: [Writing his on his napkin to illustrate for his cohorts] Little-known fact: 111,111,111 times 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321.

Chambers: New rule: no facts I’d need a calculator to check.

Vineguard: You’re free to call B.S., Randy.

Chambers: Screw that. I’m not losing again.

Ninx: Little-known fact: caution tape works poorly in advance.

Chambers: Okay. Little-known fact: this country isn’t the only one with a red, white and blue flag. France and England, two countries we often vilify, have the same color sets.

Ninx: Why would you bring that up? Do you hate America? These colors don’t run.

Vineguard: Plus, that’s not even true. I’ve been to France. Their flag is green and gold. Not only do you hate America, but you cheated at little-known facts. Lying is not okay in this game.

Ninx: Neither is dissing this country.

Vineguard: I’m afraid you lose.

Ninx: Get the drinks.

[Chambers gets up and goes to the bar, flummoxed.]

Vineguard: France’s flag isn’t green and gold.

Ninx: How the heck would I know? Couldn’t even point it out on a map. But I can’t pay for the next round, either.

Bathroom Monologue: Plastic People

It was the newest breakthrough that no one understood – we weren’t protein-chains, but a heretofore-unknown brand of plastics that seamlessly duplicated the protein experience. It was a delicate plastic destined to break down and force you to buy a new one, hence all the sex. It turned our world from a place of holy meaning and natural selection to a grand toy store. People submitted to full body scans just looking for their microchips or the strings doctors could pull to make them say adorable things – not that such things existed. That would be silly. Though late in the lab on April, Dr. Friedrichs did find “Made in Taiwan” stamped at the end of an RNA strand, or so he thought. It disintegrated too quickly to verify. Disintegrated, he figured – or melted.

Bathroom Monologue: Medium Listening

Not easy listening, because too much pop music chafes the soul. But not hard listening, because too much inflammatory or depressing music is not what I want to listen to when I’m driving a gas-powered hunk of plastic and steel. This will be a Medium Listening station. “Medium Well,” we’ll call it, with smooth Jazz and neat tones that nudge your values instead of attacking them. It will be frank and friendly, a hot stove to gather around while all the other stations offer burning buildings, brimstone and bad commercials.

Bathroom Monologue: Respectable Shit, OR, Respect a Bull Shit, OR, Another Crotchety Bathroom Aphorism?

“Whenever a man doesn't want something anymore, the world has moved beyond it. Whenever a man wishes something were still around, the world is going to Hell. He who believes the world has moved beyond Hell is equaled in the severity of his delusion only by he who believes that Hell is not on the move.”

Bathroom Monologue: 5 to 30 to 1 to 6

“Where’d you go? You left at 1:00, and you were scheduled until 5:30! I had to cover your shift!”

“You signed me up for 5:30, which I took to be a ratio of 5 to 30. But that’s actually only a ratio of 1 to 6, so I reduced it and left at 1:06. This country is woefully mathematically illiterate.”

“You’re fired.”

“And you’re innumerate.”

Bathroom Monologue: Monster Genome Theory

Magical evolution is one of the few things both nightmarish monsters and evolutionary biologists mutually dislike (that, and egg salad sandwiches). Yet it became plainly obvious that something was up when Banshees of the British Isles, Greek Sirens and North American Wendigos displayed such similar traits. All displayed voices that broke all laws of sound, but boasted very similarly shaped throats and vocal passages. Up until then it had just been a “talent thing,” and only fringe biologists had dared suggest their voices had co-evolved, or evolved in a common ancestor.

These fringe thinkers observed that the Wendigos were already incredibly hairy, boasted slow metabolism, and even adaptations to cannibalize, all suited to their bitter home climates – things that looked like heritable traits. The fringers suggested Wendigo cries might have mating advantage.

Co-evolution seemed more likely as the Sirens also developed their voices for mating purposes in the highly competitive Grecko-Roman mythological world where men and gods were not only attracted to voluptuous women, but other men, children, and assorted livestock. The magical voice was essential to the perpetuation of the Siren species. And since Sirens also tended to eat their lovers, it had a Wendigo-like hunting aspect.

Only the Banshees held out, with an ironclad explanation that their piercing voices had evolved so that they could be heard in sports pubs on game day. Banshees, the militant traditionalists and rugby enthusiasts that they are, published article after article slamming the evolutionary theory. “And good luck,” one scholar put it, “finding fossil record evidence or incorporeal species.”

Undaunted, Wendigo and Siren scientists are still tracing their lineages. They think they may have a new lead, in the form of the howler monkey in Africa.

Bathroom Monologue: Unknowable Threat

Mittens, Schrodinger's Assassin Cat. No one knows if he's in the box or not. No one knows if he's behind you right now. No one knows whose Swiss bank account the bounty will go to. No one knows why he has a fetish for the socks you lose in the drier, and should anyone discover it, countless possible universes will perish.

Bathroom Monologue: Technology and Magic Were Meant to Work Together in the Hands of a Chosen Few Geniuses

Angon stepped down from the battlement.

“Well, we’re done for now. They have ten thousand ships, and the royal fleet is only four-hundred strong.”

Ninx smirked and shook her head. “Surely you’ve heard of Helen of Troy.”

“The beauty so great her face could launch a thousand ships?”

“While all the Greek warriors were running off to skewer and get skewered, a distant ancestor of mine was sketching Helen’s face. He was a remarkably accurate artist.”

She pulled a parchment out of her jacket and tugged it open before Angon’s face. On it was a face so beautiful that he had to swallow and hold himself back; he was so stirred that he had to avert his eyes to stop entertaining the notion of marrying a piece of paper. Or at least raping it.

Ninx waved the drawing briefly before rolling it up.

“Surely you’ve heard of the famous Helen Drive. Can turn any privateer into a member of the armada. Even makes war ships, if you believe the mythology.”

He shut his eyes to end the temptation. Still he quivered.

“So you have a drawing that might pull a couple hundred ships out of the mist to help us. Even if it’s a full thousand galleons, we’d be out-numbered ten-to-one.”

She rolled up the parchment and smirked again. “But I have a photocopier.”

Unknowable Threat on Flashshot

"Unknowable Threat" is the story of the day over on Flashshot. It's a new take on Schrodinger's cat, exposing just how dastardly the little feline was.

You can check it out at this URL: http://www.gwthomas.org/flashshotindex.htm

Bathroom Monologue: Conversation Starters, OR, Readers, Please Respond

-Would you strangle a dolphin for cash?
-If George Washington was the first president, then where did he come from?
-Which would win in a fight: a KFC store, or a shark with mechanical legs?
-What is the hardest you’ve ever jogged?
-What is the probability of a velociraptor accidentally activating a time machine and traveling to the present? Also, can I borrow your time machine? I… misplaced mine.
-How would we know if we were characters in a very detailed Grand Theft Auto game?
-What part of a horse would be the least distressing if you found it in your bed? Also, do you lock your stable at night?
-How aware would you be of a parasitic squid attaching to your back if it had the pheromonal ability to deceive your touch-receptors? Also, what is that bulge under your shirt?
-The average PSP has more computing power than all the computers that organized the first mission to the moon. Given that, should you feel amazingly embarrassed or relieved that you can’t beat the first level of this game?
-If one organ in your body is conspiring against you right now, which do you think it is and what strategy will it require to win?

(Please feel free to respond to any of these in the Comments section)

Bathroom Monologue: Self-Defeating Prophecy

It wasn’t that the end of the world got here, but that too many did. The frost giants wanted to freeze the world, the fire gods wanted to burn it, and the deities of science had all manner of diseases and bombs that would let the humans kill themselves off. Irony was a big seller in the market of The End.

Well humanity saw the many apocalypses arguing and came up with a clever idea. One would-be leader went up to them and proposed the agents of Armageddon end each other, and whichever was left would be announced the most effective, and then get to end the world. The last doomsday standing, as it were, would win.

Eager to get some sort of destruction in, they began ending the crap out of each other. Polar ice caps melted and extinguished exalted volcanoes. Meteor showers decimated android armies. Cataclysmic earthquakes swallowed up dragons, rendering global warming utterly irrelevant.

And yet not a single human was slain in the battle royale. Only the Angels of the Rapture wised up, and only in time to see the last humans spaceships leaving earth for new worlds. Then the dragons and gods had nothing but an empty planet to destroy. And frankly, with all the trees and none of the pop music, they didn’t want to. They leveled a few cities and had a picnic in the shade of former skyscrapers instead. The sum total of all destructive potential grabbed some sun tan lotion and relaxed.

Bathroom Monologue: Crotchety Bathroom Aphorism?

“Some say the situation defines the person, and some say the person defines the situation. But in truth, what transpires between the person and the situation is a private affair that no one else really cares about. The public will define both for you at half the cost, often before either is finished.”

Bathroom Monologue: Friendly Tortragon

All dragons require some form of treasure to make a comfortable bed. This is considered psychosomatic, or magical. It’s hard to tell the difference when you’re studying a creature whose nervous system is made out of fire.

The internal workings of most dragons are entirely flame-based, though the tortragon is filled with pure plasma – the stuff of stars. Biologists theorize that this creature may be the oldest living kind of dragon, and its plasma interior may hold the keys to the modern, bellicose and fiery dragons of the land and sky. They note that the plasma-based interior has allowed the single generation of tortragons to survive nearly as long as the seas themselves, peacefully drifting inside their giant shells without disturbing people or other aquatic life. Their fusion cores as so efficient that they don’t even need to eat, which explains why so many tasty fish and marine mammals play on them.

The only thing that routinely makes a tortragon testy is finding a bed. They like shiny seashells, and will go to war with an entire human flotilla if enough pearls are smelled to be nearby. They have little interest in gold or sunken treasure, so there’s no use to searching for it around them.

Ironically it is not pearls that bring them into conflict with humans most frequently. At least seven out of every nine cases of tortragon-on-human violence are initiated by people landing on the giant shells of slumbering tortragons and attempting to dig for buried treasure. This, along with the immorality of theft, is a key reason to not go treasure hunting.

Bathroom Monologue: Newton and Priestley Become the Two Old Muppets on that Balcony

The two looked around the room. The walls and floor were steel, with only a wooden table in the center. There were no windows, and still stranger, they both suspected that they were supposed to be dead.

Both being upright gentlemen, one extended a hand in greeting shortly.

“Isaac Newton.”

“Ah, pleased to meet you. Joseph Priestley.”

“Didn’t you discover air?”

“Why, yes. And didn’t you discover gravity?”

“Among other things.”

“Never thought much of that. Not so difficult to realize things fall down.”

“As opposed to the staggering genius of realizing there was something in front of your face? Wind never gave that away?"

“You don’t think we’re consigned to this box because we discovered obvious things, do you?”

“Not unless Rene Descartes shows up shortly.”

“Why Rene Descartes?”

“Because he discovered that he existed at all.”

Oh, and they laughed.

Bathroom Monologue: Space as a Starting Point

“Well, I noticed that we had a massive sexual liberation movement going on at the same time as an end-death movement. People want to rut at will and live forever, ignoring that combined you’re going to have serious space issues. That’s when I realized if I wanted to make an impact, I should start this movement: building more apartments. Condos on the moon are cheap, but if you want a view, I consider my Venutian garden apartments underpriced. These are all run for profit, mind you, intended to fund my actual philanthropic endeavor. I’m going to generate entirely new planets. We’re building an engine that will break the laws of physics and manufacture matter, because let’s face it: there aren’t enough moons and planets in all the cosmos to house the fruits of kinky immortals on Viagra.”

“Obama to ease Cuba travel restrictions” –Headline on CNN.com, OR...

“Obama to ease Cuba travel restrictions” –Headline on CNN.com

OR

“The decision, which comes just days before President Obama leaves for the Summit of the Americas…” –Same article

-Anyone named “Barack Obama” may travel to Cuba and enjoy total diplomatic immunity
-All Cuban nationals must refer to foreign presidents as “Superman,” and follow any comment, be it negative, positive or neutral, upon his person with a compliment of his most fabulous cape
-The Cuban government must provide President Obama with a most fabulous cape
-For the next two weeks you can bring as many cigars into the country as you can hold in your wheelbarrow
-Wheelbarrows will now be allowed on international flights to Cuba
-All international flights must attach a special strap to left wing upon which a man wearing a most fabulous cape may be secured such that he can pretend he is flying
-All shops in Cuba will operate as “duty free” whenever anyone named “Barack Obama” walks into one
-Anyone named “Barack Obama” may punch babies with impunity
-Does Cuba have heat vision yet?

Bathroom Monologue: Ping-Ponging Kids

Edmund and Isaiah were very good friends with two very prudent mothers. They ping-ponged between houses on weekdays: Edmund at Isaiah’s on Monday, Isaiah at Edmund’s on Tuesday, and so-forth, for help with homework, sharing of videogames, and eventually social discussions, and eventually covert hashish, and eventually inexplicably hilarious social discussions that you couldn’t have understood if you weren’t there and you’re sure your mom can’t smell it from under the door?

Their prudent mothers armed their sons with gifts for the opposition, and when a son spent so much time at another mother’s kitchen table, the foreign mother was determined to become opposition. So a little thing of nutmeg went from Shirley (Edmund’s mother) to Aliyah (Isaiah’s mother). Aliyah responded with a Hummel figurine, and the ping-ponging escalated from just boys to boys and goods.

The boys knew no more of what they were doing than settler children when their Puritanical parents asked them to bring the blanket grandpa died in to the Native American camp. They dumped their goods at the door and ran off for the Wii. The whole affair might have calloused over there if not for one errant pong in response to a ping.

If you asked either mother she would have told you her opposition had re-gifted the Morthful’s Chocolate Sampler, a fine box of candies retailing between $15-35, depending on how little you paid attention to where you got it. It was by the far priciest gifted ping-ponged between the children, and one Wednesday it wound up back at Aliyah’s. She became so furious that she had only one course of satisfaction: to send it back to Shirley.

But Shirley received it and had the same sense of re-gifting, with no memory of having re-gifted it herself. To even propose she had re-gifted the Morthful’s Chocolate Sampler would have brought about such a rage that nothing short of divorce and witness protection would save you.

So Shirley sent it back with a little note, saying she hoped Aliyah enjoyed the chocolates.

It returned to Shirley’s abode the next time Isaiah came over, now with a smiley face sticker on it. She loathed that smile, especially once she realized she couldn’t peel it off without leaving evidence behind. For an hour she knew the panic of a chess player caught in a gambit, until she found a bigger, orange smiley face sticker to place over the original.

It became an arms race of good will. Bigger stickers, wrapping paper and ever-lengthening, increasingly saccharine notes on how this was my favorite brand and I thought you’d like it, and everyone says you’re getting so skinny, and didn’t you know chocolate is good for stress? Neither would blink.

Aliyah was preparing a three-page letter with quotes from the Talmud, Francis Bacon and Bernard Shaw to attach to the parcel one the final day. She didn’t know it to be the final day and was printing the thing out when she went to the door to collect the sampler, only to find it missing. The boys were home, so they had to have brought it. But it wasn’t by the door, or on the kitchen table.

She found the box half an hour later, in Isaiah’s garbage can. It was opened and looted of everything but the chocolates with fruit in the middle. She could not make a move with Edmund there, but she stared waves of spanking and suspended allowance from his door for fifteen straight minutes as he tried to beat a boss monster. Neither boy turned to recognize her. The brown smear on one corner of her son’s left cheek seemed to stare back at her, emanating equal and polar opposite waves of maternal defeat and social disgrace.

She interrupted their game, not to scold but to say she’d be back in an hour. She knew what she had to do. The local Pharmacist had to have more of those samplers, and a fresh package meant fresh space upon which she could wage her war of passive attrition. Hell, maybe she’d buy two of them. See that old bag re-gift them both.

The old bag did re-gift them, attaching not a three-page scholarly note on charity, but a coupon for another sampler. Aliyah went and used the coupon, then sent all three boxes to Shirley the next day. Shirley sent them write back, done up in a basket with several layers of colored cellophane paper. Aliyah typed up a note, stuck it in the basket, and had Isaiah march it right back to Shirley’s the next day.

That night, Aliyah got a phone call from Shirley’s husband, Wilson. He thanked her profusely for all the chocolates, said they’d been a big hit at his poker game, and invited her husband to join next week.

Aliyah was stunned. When she hung up, her husband asked who that had been. She threw a chocolate at him.

Bathroom Monologue: Ghoulish

She liked to waltz through graveyards, dancing and calculating. How much body mass was left in all the coffins under here? If the average person was one hundred and seventy pounds, how many coffins would she have to empty out to get a full man? Would they add up a whole person if you pushed all the rot together? And would such a golem be interested in the kinds of films and foods she liked, or would she just have to put up with him like all the men already above ground? Matters of the heart were so difficult, especially when it was decomposing.

Bathroom Monologue: Mind Your Mines

Not everyone wanted to join the feud between the Sicilians and the Cubans, especially their immigrant kids who were born here and hadn't emigrated at all. They weren’t competing for jobs and didn’t comprehend their theological differences, but on account of their parents’ enthusiasm for the feud, required a discreet way, or at least a not-too-indiscreet way, to express that desire to do no harm. One look at Estelle Valdes in a halter-top and the Crisafi boys wanted to do a whole lot of no harm, and the plan was concocted, and invitations were palmed in the hallways, and dozens of kids covertly congregated at the abandoned mine. Come dusk dozens of teens descended a coal shaft in elbow gloves and flowing skirts, clothing they never got to wear above, designated for a ball below. Light became scarcer and scarcer as dances were traded and dancing talent was mocked, as hands rested on waists and couples swayed, and kissing became possible, though remained as intimidating a prospect as it was in the world above. It got so dark no one knew whom his partner was, and they stayed a whole half hour down in that pitch-blackness, everyone else dancing as Roberto taught Yelina how to play his guitar, and it was the most elegant thing no one ever saw.

Bathroom Monologue: An Argument Most Concise in Favor of Burning Books

“We’re all against burning books until one of them comes for our kids. Possessed by Satan, a restless Native American spirit, or simple poor syntax, the thing leaps off the shelf and starts beating your oldest daughter about the head and shoulders. Now an airport paperback you can take care of with your bare hands, but a hardcover requires the fear of fire to put it in line. You just don’t know what it’s like until you come home after a long day at the office to find the Encyclopedia Britannica terrorizing your family, your oldest daughter pinned to the ground by L, M, N, O, P and Q, crying because she doesn’t want to read about quail anymore. You can’t fight a flock of flying encyclopedias with tolerance, my friends. They are the scum of the earth and require the constant threat of the lighter to mind their manners.”

Theorobotics in the April/May Alien Skin

The Bathroom Monologue, "Theorobotics," is currently in the e-zine Alien Skin. This is a new version of the monologue about robotic believers. You can check it out here, or at this URL: http://www.alienskinmag.com/flashmic13.htm

Bathroom Monologue: I Can’t Waltz

They stepped to his left, then forward, then right, then back. It was the least comfortable square he ever made. One hand was on her shoulder and one hand went so low on her hip he hoped his mom wasn't watching. She made him so nervous that he only touched her with the tips of his fingers so she wouldn't feel the sweat on his palms. Maybe she didn't feel them, but she saw every time his eyes averted, and it made her smile this smile that… well, he was glad she couldn’t feel his palms. Heart going faster, forgetting how to breathe, he traced that square over and over again, even after the song ended.

Bathroom Monologue: Six-Sentence Non-Fiction about Reading Fiction

Had to stay off my ankle for a week, so I scooped up an armload of books from my To-Read box and set them on my desk. Samuel Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner was on top of the stack, but I capriciously decided to start the week with comedy and read Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency instead.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, about which I knew nothing other than it was by an author I liked, turned out to be a comedy about how everything is connected and made so many references to Coleridge that a character actually picks up one of his books and reads it. I kept looking over the copy of Adams’s book, staring at the other a couple feet away, until the hour I finished and it was Coleridge’s turn.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, about which I knew nothing other than it was by an author I should read, turned out to be the story of an immortal seaman waylaying a stranger on his way to a wedding. Halfway through Mom knocked on the door to drop of the mail and the latest Netflix movie: Rachel Getting Married.

Bathroom Monologue: Why the Mood?

She kept smoking, hair and shadow covering her face, not looking up from the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh Jesus, is it our anniversary?" He ran back to the apartment to find his wallet.

When he was out of sight, she smirked. It was fun to do this to him.

Bathroom Monologue: The Reason

Many wanted an explanation after the apocalypse. After all of the plagues, pestilences and wars, space shuttles killing teachers and precious souls lost to miscarriages, most humans wanted Him to answer.

The souls of all the fish, beasts and birds those humans had eaten across millennia followed after them, intent on meeting whoever was behind this mess – and much to the chagrin of vegetarians, the souls of a trillion carrots were amongst the cattle.

Anubis, Anansi, Apollo and all the other gods whose worship had dwindled across time came along, wanting to see the Supreme Being finally get it from Creation.

It seemed all matter was fuming, marching up to His door, ready to tear the meaning of life from His transcendent carcass.

They didn’t expect Him to meet them at the door, but He threw open the Gates of Reality, fearless and splendid, an irrepressible smile in the middle of His infinite beard, and declared, “I call it The Aristocrats!”