I had another “no wonder I’m a writer” moment recently.
In movies, the candy man sings, rides a rolling ladder and showers happy children with candy.
In real life, a pimply teenager stares at an iPhone constantly, ignoring the one child customer right in front of him, and doesn’t smile when you buy his damn candy.
Conclusion: Real life can really suck sometimes.
Welcome to episode 22 of Messin’ with Mark! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this series, let me tell you how it started . . .
When I was very young, Jesus was walking around in His heavenly area up there and saw his Dad looking down through the clouds, laughing His head off. Curious, he walked over and asked, “What’s up, Pop?”
“Oh, just pranking that Mark kid again,” He replied.
“Again?” Jesus asked, “Why are You always picking on him?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something about him,” God said. “I mean, look at his face right now.”
Jesus looked down and started to chuckle, then stopped Himself. “Okay, I admit it’s kind of funny, but this is wrong. I mean, You created him. With all due respect, what kind of an example are you setting for the angels? We’re supposed to love and protect humanity, not single one of them out from all the rest for humiliation.”
God thought for a moment, then looked at Jesus and said, “You’re right. I should stop.” They looked at each other seriously, then said, “Naaaaaaaahhh” and laughed some more.
Jesus suggested that he make a regular show of his pranks on me. They named it Messin’ with Mark.
Remember Rodney Dangerfield’s bit about getting “no respect” from humans? It’s kind of like that, but on a cosmic level.
So, to today’s episode – God Jumps the Shark
This is not the title God gave the episode. In fact, I never know what titles He gives them. But I’m calling it “God Jumps the Shark” because I think the show is getting old and he’s desperate for laughs.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term “jump the shark” – it originated in Hollywood when the writers of a show called Happy Days, desperate to lift sagging ratings, had one their main characters, Fonzie, jump his motorcycle over a shark. It was so out of the blue and random, it was clearly a desperate attempt to give the show a kick in the pants. Thus the term “jumping the shark” was born. When your favorite show starts getting old and they do something ridiculous, they just jumped the shark. Of course, shark jumping is not as noticeable these days, with YouTube personalities always trying to outdo each other with increasingly outrageous antics and stunts. Jumping the shark is more the norm than the exception.
But I digress. Allow me to explain why I think my show in heaven is in trouble . . .
I had just returned from a week in Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I drove for ten hours and was completely exhausted and restoring my comfort zone with some of my favorite snacks and one of my favorite TV shows, Svengoolie. All was right with the world. It was sort of like that scene in Uncle Buck when he indulges in all his comfort foods.
I suspect it was this state of comfort that inspired God to mess with me again. He just can’t stand to see me relax.
Anyway, before I left for the trip, I noticed a skunk had taken a liking to my front garden, especially an area covered by wood chips. When I planted my garden and lovingly distributed the wood chips over it, I had no idea that I was really just building a skunk cafeteria. Every morning I would go outside and find little holes here, there and everywhere. I researched it and found that skunks like to dig through wood chips for whatever reason and search for worms and other bugs that live in the soil. I was keeping on top of the skunk’s damage before the trip but when I got home after being away for seven days, my front yard looked like a World War II battlefield.
I vowed to discourage him by turning the hose on him every night until he chose someone else to pick on. I didn’t want to hurt him. After all, everything needs to eat. But I didn’t appreciate the fact that he chose me to harass when there are plenty of other front gardens with his beloved wood chips all over town. The stinky little bugger could at least spread the damage around a bit.
I squirted him with the hose a few times before I left but that didn’t seem to discourage him. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the occasional shower.
So the return to my comfort zone when I returned from my vacation was disrupted by looking out the window every fifteen minutes or so, waiting for his inevitable return.
It was after midnight and I was starting to doze off when I was awoken by the sound of dogs barking very excitedly right outside my front window. I opened the door and was immediately accosted by two very panicked mutts with wet faces trying to squeeze by me and get into the house. Then the smell hit me. In a moment, I realized they had just been sprayed by the skunk and were desperate to escape – into my living room!
I closed the door, grabbed my blanket (my favorite blanket, by the way), and blocked the bottom of the door to keep the stink out. Too late. The entire house already stunk. My eyes and throat were burning as I looked out the window and saw the skunk spraying the dogs again. As you can imagine, dogs don’t enjoy that one bit. And I’m sure the snoot-full of skunk juice comes as quite a surprise because they probably think the skunk is just a very slow, black-and-white cat.
Then a car pulled up with two teenagers in it. They called the dogs and they both ran and jumped into the car. Apparently, these two Einstein’s saw the skunk and brought their dogs out to attack it. Seeing them call their hounds and flee the scene was quite a surprise to me. I didn’t think there were any hillbilly skunk hunters in this town.
Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have the requisite old truck so there was no truck bed for the dogs to jump into. They had a two-door Hyundai sedan so the dogs had nowhere to go but into their laps. They must have had to replace the carpet and seats in their car the next day, burn their clothes and soak themselves in tomato juice.
Wow, I’m actually starting to feel sympathy for them. Excuse me a second.
Never mind. I just had to burp. Funny how gas can be mistaken for sympathy.
Anyway, the skunk survived but must have emptied its entire stank tank on my front porch. Skunk juice apparently has the power to penetrate walls and windows because after it was all over, it was as if the skunk was sitting on my couch with me, eating my snacks and asking me to change the channel, perhaps to a Pepe Le Pew cartoon.
I tried opening the back door to air out the house but the smell was there, too. I shut the doors to my and my daughter’s bedrooms to hopefully cut down on the smell in their rooms and they didn’t wake up so it seemed to work, but I tried to sleep on the couch, throat and eyes burning.
As I lay there, I realized it was the denouement of another episode of Messin’ with Mark. It must have been top-drawer slapstick for God and his angels, gathered around that flat screen in the sky, watching me fighting to keep the dogs out of the house and choking on skunk odor when I was supposed to be relaxing back into my comfort zone after a long trip. I can just imagine Him thinking, “Okay, he’s all set up, thinking this is going to be a normal night. Cue the skunk!”
As usual, as I lay there choking, I looked up and whispered, “Well-played, God. Well-played.” I could only hope this apparent desperation for new show ideas (I mean, a skunk? Really?) is proof that this show at my expense is finally on its last leg and will be canceled soon.
But then I realized . . . it’s God’s show. Who’s going to cancel it?
He always gets the last laugh.
I had always loved dogs. That is, until I met Peanut, a chihuahua owned by an old girlfriend, Rhonda. His name was the least of his problems. He had bulging, leaking eyes that made him look like he was being perpetually squeezed. He had a bronchial disorder that made even calm breathing sound like he had been chain smoking all his life. He had a mysterious skin condition that covered most of his body, caused almost all of his hair to fall out, and left a sticky substance on the hand of anyone who dared to pet him. Last but certainly not least, he had a protracted rectum. In short, he was repulsive whether he was coming or going. A four-legged horror movie. The cumulative effect of all these conditions caused the trembling common to chihuahua’s to afflict him tenfold, and gave him the appearance of a rodent suffering from hypothermia.
Rhonda spent a fortune in veterinary bills on Peanut but nothing improved. I just couldn’t see the upside. All the money she had thrown away trying to restore Peanut to awful seemed like a terrible waste to me. I joked with her that the only expenses I would have had if Peanut were mine was a tennis ball and the gasoline required to drive to the Grand Canyon for a game of fetch.
Rhonda had four other dogs of various breeds. For the sake of avoiding lurid and possibly vomit-inducing imagery, let’s just say Peanut was the “janitor” of the group. Maybe “hazardous material clean-up” is a better description. Whatever your imagination is doing right now, triple it. That’s right. Theirs was what is known in science circles as a symbiotic relationship. The other four dogs received assistance with personal hygiene in their hard-to-reach nether regions, and Peanut received a constant supply of tasty snacks. They were all very happy with this arrangement. The only ones who were not happy with it were any humans (such as myself) who were unfortunate enough to witness the ungodly spectacle. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about Peanut trying to lick my face immediately after one of his many daily haz-mat disposal procedures because, as if to make the monstrosity complete, he had the personality of a shaken-up bag of rattlesnakes. One would think he would have tried to compensate for his appearance (and odor) with a sparkling personality, but no. People who say dogs can’t hate, or that dog spelled backwards is G-O-D, never met Peanut. He was evil incarnate. The stuff of nightmares. The kind of thing that suddenly pokes its head out of a hole in the wall of a labyrinth in the bowels of hell just when you think hell couldn’t get any worse.
Peanut took an immediate dislike to me. I didn’t take it personally because he hated everyone, including Rhonda. It was a mystery to me why she was so devoted to the little pustule. While watching TV or having dinner with her, I would feel his bulging, lopsided eyes watching me, filled with unspeakable evil, probably fantasizing about tearing me limb from limb and devouring my entrails. I would attempt to stare him down, thinking he might suddenly become aware of our vast size disparity, but his glare would only intensify, as if he was saying, “Come at me, bro!” I always ended up looking away. It was terrifying. I once searched the skin under his fur while he was asleep to see if I could find the 666 that Demian’s father found on his scalp in The Omen.
I decided to try to be more mature one day and at least attempt to make friends with Peanut. I slowly sat down next to him, spoke to him in loving tones, gave him a biscuit, waited for him to finish eating, then, smiling broadly, extended my hand to pet him.
I still have the scar.
Therefore, I was panic-stricken when Rhonda said Peanut would be staying at our apartment for a month. Apparently, he had some other ailment she didn’t want the other four dogs to catch. I suggested a kennel, a doggy B&B, or better yet, a dungeon where he could be fitted with four small manacles for the sake of the public safety (myself being “the public”) but she wouldn’t think of it for her darling Peanut. To make matters worse, I was working at home at the time and she worked elsewhere, so I would be alone with the Evil Seed every day.
The day he arrived, she handed me a list of medicines, special foods, instructions, and his walking schedule. Walking schedule? Now I had to hang out with him? It didn’t help that the apartment we shared was in an affluent neighborhood known for dog lovers. At any time of the day, posh-looking people walked posh-looking dogs, all of them with their noses in the air. Then there was me, walking the canine equivalent of Freddy Kreuger. Our neighbors’ usually warm smiles would gradually contort into grimaces as they saw us coming and beheld the full horror of Peanut up close. Then they would retch violently, depress the button on their spring-loaded leashes, reel in their precious Fifi’s and Lulu’s, quicken their pace, and give us a wide berth as they would one who walks with the plague.
At first, I was embarrassed by this treatment. I even apologized once as someone fled in horror. But after a week or so, to my amazement, I started to feel – yes, I’ll say it – compassion for Peanut, and contempt for the snobs who shunned him. When they would look at Peanut with repulsion, I would say, “What’s wrong? Never saw a protracted rectum before?” I actually began to enjoy annoying them and disrupting their perfect world and delicate sensibilities.
After that, my feelings toward Peanut began to change. Even I didn’t see it coming. The pivotal moment occurred one day when I was at my desk working and Peanut was sleeping by the fireplace. He was having a harder time breathing than usual. I stopped working, knelt by him, put my hand on his chest and thought maybe he was so mean because he was in pain all the time, or because he was overcompensating for his tiny stature. Plenty of humans behave similarly. How must life be for a dog that weighs only a few pounds? I’m ashamed now that I didn’t feel anything for Peanut before this epiphany. I can only blame it on my youth.
That day, I resolved to help Peanut overcome his health challenges. I became very studious about his health regimen and spent more time with him. To my amazement, we actually began to have fun together. There was a personality under all that attitude, after all. (His and mine.) Of course, it also helped that he was alone, with no other dogs to perform his haz-mat services on. That would have been a deal-breaker for me. Despite ourselves, old Peanut and I became pretty good buddies.
This all took place many years ago. Peanut is long gone by now and either guarding the gates of hell single-pawedly, or in command of larger dogs that do.
Clare Booth Luce wrote, “I don’t have a warm personal enemy left. They’ve all died off. I miss them terribly because they helped define me.” That little monster did help define me, so much so that I’m writing a story about him twenty years later. He helped me find something inside myself I needed to find, something imperative in this world – the ability to love the unlovable. He also taught me that the more love you give, the more you receive, and that sometimes one must try a little harder to love someone, and to access theirs. Maybe there’s something to that God spelled backward thing, after all.
I was working in the garden recently and had left the front gate open for a minute when the mailman came walking up out of my sight. My overly friendly German shepherd mix Charlie charged out to say hello, barking his head off, and I heard what I thought was a little girl screaming.
I went out looking for the child but there was only our fifty-ish year old mailman standing there, a very macho-looking fellow with a goatee and Indiana Jones style sun hat. Charlie had accessed his primal scream.
In a forced and overly deep voice (to compensate for the girlish squeal he had just emitted, which probably shocked even him), he said, “You need to control that dog.” I apologized but he just grunted and walked away angry, embarrassed that my dog had unveiled his inner Wendy.
When I was a kid, I was constantly terrified.
My imagination was a bad neighborhood.
I read scary comics like Tales From The Crypt
And watched horror films more than I should.
The first Sunday morning of every month,
I could be found at the local drug store
Looking for the latest issue of Monster
And other mags filled with blood, guts and gore.
On Saturday night, my buddies and I
Would stay up late and watch B-horror flicks
Presented by Vampirella or Seymour
And get our horrification fix.
One would think I was a pretty tough little guy
From all these “inappropriate” movies and rags
But I was actually the world’s youngest insomniac.
I had suitcases under my eyes, not just bags.
But the thing that scared me the most, by far,
Didn’t haunt houses or howl, creep or crawl.
Frankenstein and Dracula were big sissies
Compared to typical, everyday DOLLS.
During sleepovers at my best friend’s house
All the dolls in his little sister’s room
Made me not just run back home to mommy,
I’d run straight back up into the womb.
I couldn’t stand their cold, lifeless grins;
Their painted-on, glassy-eyed stares.
They attempted to murder me night after night
In tortured, tormented nightmares.
Then Rod Serling had to throw in his two cents
And make my night-time fear level climb
When he introduced me to a one Talky Tina –
The freakin’ scariest doll of all time!
Every night after that, I’d perform a routine
To make sure I was completely alone.
I’d check in the closet and under the bed
With fear that made me quake to the bone.
As I lay in my bed, hiding under the sheets,
A sweaty, petrified, nervous wreck,
I’d hear Tina say, “I’m going to kill you”
And feel her little hands grabbing my neck.
Of course, that was a long, long time ago.
Now I’m all grown up, brave and strong.
Talky Tina never comes to call anymore
And my slumber is peaceful and long.
But sometimes even now, when the moon is full
And the wind makes shadows dance on the wall,
I imagine I see a small figure run by.
I imagine I hear Tina call.
I pull in my dangling hands and feet,
Yank the covers up over my head
And I’m that goofy kid all over again
Lying scared and alone in my bed.
My dog was lonely and in need of a haircut, so I made a new pal for him out of his trimmings. Problem solved!
(Just kidding. Don’t worry. I have two dogs and they have lots of fun together. Actually, they were both very excited about this new friend but soon lost interest because he just lays around all the time.)
Donovan Stone wanted to be a writer more than anyone had since the first hieroglyphs were scratched onto the wall of the first pyramid. He had read just about every book written on the craft, attended every fiction writing class he could, and had even changed his name to something he thought sounded more writer-ish. His actual name was Sidney Weatherwax, which he considered singularly inglorious and not in keeping with the illustrious future he had planned for himself.
In one of his writing books, the author outlined his formula for greatness. “There are three kinds of writers,” he wrote –
1. Those who stink and don’t know they stink. This type of writer’s efforts will only be a big waste of everyone’s time, primarily his own. One lifetime is never enough to overcome pure, unadulterated stinkiness.
2. Those who stink and are determined to become less stinky. This type of writer faces an uphill climb but may someday create something passable, albeit inconsistently, and then only by dumb luck.”
3. Those who are great by divine intervention or some accident of nature and who couldn’t write poorly if they were being suspended over a pool of sharks. Only this kind of writer will ever be truly great, and even he doesn’t know how he does it. If you’re wondering if you’re this kind of writer, you’re not. You wouldn’t have to ask. Quit now.
Donovan wept uncontrollably after reading this, fearing he was a category two writer. When his wrenching sobs subsided, he steeled his resolve to achieve greatness. Still, every effort was met with severe frustration. There was just nothing in there. He loved poetry but every word he wrote, nay, every letter, was a struggle he likened to childbirth.
One of his first poems read:
Her love reminds me of flowers.
I don’t need her tomorrow, but nowers.
He saw nothing wrong with the use of the non-word “nowers” because he once read that Shakespeare created many words when ordinary language failed him.
Donovan’s poem continued:
She’s hot, like a jalapeno squirt.
I would cut off my ear, but it would hurt.
He thought the Van Gogh reference was pure genius, others not so much. In fact, when he shared it with the crowd at The Daily Grind Coffeehouse, a normally gracious group, they laughed unguardedly, assuming his poem was meant to be funny.
With sweat beading on his upper lip, he continued,
“My love is a sponge,
On our love raft, we will plunge.”
The laughter grew louder. Trembling with a mixture of embarrassment and rage, he pressed on,
“Her love is a towel
cooling my weary browel.”
That was it. The room erupted. He could have saved himself some humiliation if he had pretended he meant it to be funny, but he was cut to the quick. He threw his Gauloise cigarette on the floor, spit in a very French manner, and said, “You people wouldn’t know talent if it bit you on your fat, pimply asses!” He then kicked over a table and stormed out the back door into the alley. He kicked over trash cans all the way home, cursing about how most great artists were misunderstood and how that audience of barn animals was just too ignorant to grasp someone as brilliant and tortured as he.
The next week was spent in a bottomless purple funk. He drank excessively, didn’t bathe, and barely ate. If his phone ever rang, he wouldn’t have even answered it.
He felt comforted by the tragic lives many great artists had. Hemingway shot himself. Plath had electroshock therapy in an attempt to cure suicidal tendencies. Dostoyevsky was exiled in Siberia for his political opinions. He felt he was suffering along with them, equally unappreciated. The more he suffered, the more romantic it felt. Unfortunately, he was the only one who felt it.
His father was no help. The last time he had spoken to him, he said, “Son, it’s time to grow up. How much of your life are you planning to waste on this pipe dream? Even the best writers struggle to eke out a living, and frankly, you ain’t one of ‘em. I found a poem in a notebook you left in the back yard and it stunk. Wait here, I’ll get it.”
He walked away and returned with a tattered, coffee-stained notebook, flipped through it and found the page.
“Oh, here it is,” he said. “Explain this one to me, if you even can. He began to read, “Flaming doorknobs tumble down my blasphemous eyebrows. The tragic sand screams oblong operettas to my parched bicycle seat. I am.”
He set the notebook down and asked, “What in hell’s blue blazes is that supposed to mean, Sidney? Why can’t you write a nice, rhyming poem that tells a story like Robert Frost or that Longfellow guy used to do?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he replied, “and my name is Donovan.”
“That’s another thing. That name might work if, A, it was 1957, and, B, you were a teen idol.”
“Look, daddio,” Donovan replied, “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. You know who said that? Einstein! That’s who!”
“Daddio? What is this? 1968? It’s 2014! Wake up and smell the failure, hepcat!”
After a pause, his father softened and said, “Look, son. I just want you to be happy. I hate seeing you running down a dead end like this, because there’s a big, brick wall at the end of it and you’re not gonna see it coming until it’s too late. I mean, of all things to choose to be, you had to pick a writer? Nothing has ever happened to you! I did two tours in Vietnam, was a prisoner of war, and survived cancer that damn Agent Orange gave me! If anyone should be a writer, it’s me!”
“Oh, so that’s it!” Donovan snapped. “You’re jealous because I’m a writer and you’re not!”
“Yeah, I’m real jealous I don’t have flaming door knobs tumbling down my blasphemous eyebrows. Think about it, son. All the great writers lived through some heavy stuff. Tennessee Williams had diphtheria as kid, was tormented by a sadistic father, lived most of his life as a repressed homosexual, and died penniless after a nervous breakdown. But his sister one-upped him by getting a frontal lobotomy! So, again, what have you been through? What gives you the right to call yourself a writer? I would suggest you do some living first, then grace the world with your insights. You’re putting the cart before the horse, boy!”
Donovan couldn’t take anymore. He stormed out. He was good at storming. He hadn’t spoken to his father since, which was difficult because he still lived at home. Though he cursed him, he couldn’t get his words out of his mind. What did give him the right to call himself a writer? Maybe writing was so hard for him because nothing worth writing about had ever happened to him. He was forced to conclude that his father was right. He decided to change that. He would do things, dammit, and starting right now.
He showered, found clothes that smelled the least bad, and walked to a military recruiting office in his local mall. Many great writers had brushes with death, and killed many men in battle. He would, too. That would show his dad.
He tried to enlist in the Army but was rejected because the minimum push-up requirement was forty-two and he was only able to do seven. The reviewer also mentioned a comment he had made in his application about hating America for runaway Capitalism and Imperialist foreign policies.
Dejected but still determined to have something bad happen to him, he put on a white suit and costume jewelry rings, stuffed his wallet with toilet paper until it bulged, and walked through the worst neighborhood he could find on Saturday at midnight. A group of gang-bangers pulled up in a car next to him and yelled very hurtful things. His mania was such that he had no fear for his safety, but instead thought, “This will make a great story!” One of the men got out of the car and started pushing him around, but an elderly woman ran out of a nearby house and yelled, “You get on home and leave that boy alone! He’s obviously not right in the head!”
She drove Donovan home that night, gave him a lecture he thought would never end, and handed him a Bible, saying, “You need a whole lot of Jesus, son.”
Actually, the old lady’s lecture was the worst ordeal he had ever endured, much worse than being beaten and robbed would have been, so he was off to a great start.
As he lay in bed that night, it dawned on him that he was going about things all wrong. Instead of trying to make bad things happen to him, he would do bad things himself! Be pro-active! His father always said he lacked initiative and was hiding in writing as a way to avoid taking real chances in life. This would show him once and for all!
The next morning, he bought a pellet gun at Big 5 and a pair of nylon stockings at 7/11, walked to his local credit union, pulled the stocking over his head, pulled out the gun, walked in and yelled, “This is a stick up!”
None of the customers paid much attention because his voice lacked the requisite amount of bass to properly scare anyone. A teller nearby recognized his voice because he chose to rob a bank he’d had an account at for several years.
“Sidney, what are you doing?” she asked.
“It’s not me,” he said. “Uh, I mean, who’s Sidney?”
“I know your voice, Sidney,” she replied.
He was then tackled by an elderly security guard who had been awakened by the conversation. However, due to his advanced age, he began to clutch his chest. He had a heart attack and was dead in under a minute.
The trial was only a formality. Due to a recent rash of bank robberies, and because he had induced the guard’s death, the judge made an example of him. He received the maximum sentence of thirty years for robbery and involuntary manslaughter.
During his first year in prison, he was subjected to every atrocity imaginable, but his mania to amass colorful experiences to someday write about still overrode even his own retched misery. Finally, he was experiencing something extreme and dramatic, fodder for great literature. Talking to his cellmate one day to pass the time, a psychotic, sexually ambiguous brute nicknamed Crusher, he said, “I’m here voluntarily, I’ll have you know. All this stuff that’s happening to me, including what you did last night, is going to be in a book someday. Remember my name because I’m going to be famous.”
“Cedric Weatherwax?” Crusher replied.
“No! Donovan Stone, man!”
Crusher laughed and said, “Don’t you know federal law prohibits you from profiting from your crime or anything that happens to you in here? You’ll never get that book through the bars!”
After a few months of severe depression, Donovan signed up to read a poem at the prison talent show. Surely, he thought, this menagerie of nincompoops would be impressed with his talent. He walked to the stage, cleared his throat, and said, “Her love reminds me of flowers. I don’t need her tomorrow but nowers.”
The prisoners laughed and laughed, and Donovan stormed back to his cell.
Another incident of “computer-induced mania” struck today, an increasingly common phenomena which affects mainly inexperienced computer users. A man identified as Lester P. Turtletaub, attempting to learn how to operate a new computer and complete a complicated formatting task in one evening, suddenly lost control of his faculties. In the words of his friends and family, he just “snapped.”
The man, who hadn’t slept in close to 48 hours, had been making numerous unsuccessful attempts to navigate the many commands of his new “user-friendly” laptop computer. His roommate reports that he looked into his room several times throughout the night, only to see him sitting before the computer screen with a vacant gaze, muttering “demon machine.”
“He hadn’t blinked in such a long time,” his roommate states, “dust had collected on his eyeballs. I was very concerned about him.” He attempted to speak to him but received only an incomprehensible grunt in return, a sound he likened to that of “Frankenstein’s Monster.”
His roommate had left for work when a next-door neighbor heard what she describes as “an unearthly wail” coming from the house. “It sent chills up my spine,” she said.
Moments later, she heard the same voice in the rear yard of the property screaming, “Mock me, will you? I’ll kick the gigabytes out of you! Die, electronic Satan!” Curious, she looked over the fence and saw the man apparently attempting to “drown” the laptop computer in the swimming pool.
“He’s normally such a nice young man so I asked him what he was doing,” the neighbor reports. His response, the neighbor tearfully recounted, was, “For once in your life, mind your own damn business, you meddling old heifer!”
A short time later, his SUV was heard screeching out of the driveway. Numerous reports to 911 emergency lines were then received from various retail outlets and restaurants about a man tearing around like a maniac, knocking shoppers flying in every direction, and taking cuts in line, all the while yelling, “Out of my way! It’s my birthday, dammit!” (This unfortunate string of events also apparently took place on the man’s birthday.)
It was later discovered that Mr. Turtletaub had purchased several dozen strips of plywood at a local Home Depot, twelve family-size buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, three loaves of white bread, two tubs of Jif peanut butter, three 12-packs of Coca-Cola, and a case of David’s sunflower seeds, intending to fashion a bunker out of his residence and binge on his favorite foods.
Failing to heed his previous warning, the neighbor casually approached the deranged man as he was boarding up a window. Before she could ask him why he was doing this, he wrapped her up in duct tape, taped her onto a piece of plywood, secured it to the hitch of his Ford Pinto, and sped up and down the street at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour, all the while yelling out the window, “See what happens when you don’t mind your own (expletive) business? What was that? I can’t hear you!” The woman declined medical attention, saying, “It was actually kind of fun.” When she enthusiastically asked him to “do it again”, Mr. Turtletaub was enraged even further.
Though being pursued by angry neighbors, he was then able to barricade himself in his residence. After a standoff that lasted almost three days, the man finally emerged from the house of his own volition. Apparently, the mania which had enveloped him suddenly wore off and he came out of the building in a disheveled state, squinting in the bright sunlight, his face greasy with chicken fat and peanut butter. He was nearly shot by a rookie police officer who mistook the drumstick he was holding for a gun.
The main reason the standoff lasted so long was that the police were not sure if Turtletaub was armed. It was finally determined that he wasn’t, mainly because throughout the ordeal he did nothing but throw old sandwich curbs and chicken bones from open windows at SWAT officers who got too close to the house. At one point, he did employ a slingshot to fire at an officer what was later determined to be a Hot Tamale candy. The Tamale struck the officer in the neck, causing a slight welt.
Suspect’s weapon of choice.
As paramedics took the man away amid a media frenzy, he was heard muttering, “It’s my birthday. Why was the computer so mean to me? It made me do that bad stuff. You should arrest it!”
He was transported to the nearby Shady Pines Rest Home for psychiatric evaluation. Staff members at Shady Pines report that he is recovering. Once his fitness to stand trial is established, he will be charged with assault with a deadly weapon (said Hot Tamale candy) he fired at the police officer. The neighbor who was taken on what she now calls “the plywood ride” refused to press charges and asked us to thank Mr. Turtletaub for giving her “the most fun she’s had in ages.”
Captain Roger E. Kaputnick, who spoke with the neighbor at the hospital, reports, “Mr. Turtletaub will be charged with assault with or without the neighbor’s consent, but I do so very reluctantly. After speaking with her for only a minute or two, I felt like doing the same thing myself. She asked me a lot of very personal questions. That is one nosey, old heifer.”
By Irving P. Schmendrick, Staff Reporter.
Welcome to episode 21 of Messin’ with Mark!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this series, let me tell you how it started . . .
When I was very young, Jesus was walking around in His heavenly area up there when he saw his Dad looking down through the clouds, laughing His head off. Curious, he walked over and asked, “What’s up, Pop?”
“Oh, just pranking that Mark kid again,” He replied.
“Again?” Jesus asked, “Why are You always picking on him?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something about him,” God said. “I mean, look at his face right now.”
Jesus looked down and started to chuckle, then stopped Himself. “Okay, I admit it’s kind of funny, but this is wrong. I mean, You created him. With all due respect, what kind of an example are you setting for the angels? We’re supposed to love and protect humanity, not single one out from all the rest for humiliation.”
God thought for a moment, then looked at Jesus and said, “You’re right. I should stop.” They looked at each other seriously, then said, “Naaaaaaaahhh” and laughed some more.
Jesus suggested that he make a regular show of his pranks on me. They named it Messin’ with Mark.
Remember Rodney Dangerfield’s bit about getting “no respect” from humans? It’s kind of like that, but on a cosmic level.
So, to today’s episode – Fungal Bungle!
I was in Brugge, Belgium, in the first month of what would turn out to be a six-month backpacking trip through Europe and the Greek Islands. I got so carried away sightseeing with new friends that I forgot to call my parents. I was staying at a youth hostel but their phone was out of order. This was back in the day before cell phones. (Yeah, I’m getting up there. Don’t give me a hard time about it.) I was feeling very guilty because I had promised my mother I would call her at a certain time every week to let her know I was still alive. An employee of the hostel said, “I have to go home and get something. You’re welcome to use my phone.” I thought this was very generous of him and I gladly accepted, telling him I would reverse the charges.
We had a pleasant conversation on the way there. He pointed me toward the phone and sat in the living room. As I chatted with my parents, I was somewhat repulsed by the sight of my generous host picking bits of flesh from between his toes due to an advanced case of athlete’s foot or some other fungal infection. I retched slightly, turned away so I wouldn’t have to witness this unsavory spectacle any longer, and was able to put the horror of it out of my mind and finish the phone call.
We got back on the road and I was enjoying the scenery so much I forgot about the fungus among-us. He stopped at a market. I went in with him and bought a bag of peanuts and a Coke. We got back into the car and were about halfway back to the hostel when I realized I hadn’t offered him any of my peanuts. How rude of me! He gladly accepted and took a few handfuls as we talked about life in Belgium, my travel plans, my life back in California, etc., when two things suddenly dawned on me –
The problem was I had already ingested several handfuls of peanuts before I made this realization.
Uh-huh. I had swallowed and was now digesting the foot fungus of a complete stranger. I mean, if you’re going to snack on foot bacteria, you at least would prefer that it belong to a close friend or family member.
I managed to keep it together and stay very stoic so he wouldn’t catch on that I was worried about his disease-riddled hand, but inside I felt like the sleeping guy in those prank videos that is woken up by all his friends pretending they’re about to crash.
As is usually the case, I didn’t realize I was smack-dab-o-rooney in the middle of another episode of Messin’ with Mark until this moment. I looked up and thought to God, “You’re at it again, aren’t ya?” I could almost hear the laughter from above the clouds.
I remembered hearing that the acid in Coca-Cola could dissolve rust so I guzzled, gargled and rinsed with it, hoping it would do a similar number on the fungus I had just snacked upon. Then I stuck my head out of the window and spit out the peanut fragments that were in my mouth from the last handful. The ones that were in my stomach – well, I figured I would just have to wait to find out if I would be seeing them again. I was repulsed but not quite badly enough to vomit outright.
When I had shaken off the nausea, I handed him the bag and said he could finish them. He eagerly polished them off, his foot flakes and oils blending with the peanut salt. I sat silently, struggling to keep my stomach right-side-up as the car filled with an aroma that now smelled like a foot covered with peanut sauce.
I spent the rest of the trip with my head partially out the window like a labrador to escape the retched odor, thinking what I always do at the end of another episode of Messin’ with Mark . . .
“Well played, God. Well played.”
Does anyone else think it’s unpresidential for candidates to engage in Twitter battles? What if Twitter had been around when America began? Hmmmm . . .
LINCOLN: Douglas is a cad and a masher. Furthermore, I declare that he is a mountebank! #Douglasforprez
DOUGLAS: Ooh, got me there, Linky. You, kind sir, are a jug-eared buffoon of the highest order! #Lincolnforprez
LINCOLN: I refuse to stoop to the level of my opponent. However, I will say I had the misfortune of sitting next to Douglas once and he smelled strongly of cheese. It was most unpleasant, even vomit-inducing. I threw up directly into my own mouth.
DOUGLAS: I will have you know that I also recall that day, good sir. I will not say what you smelled of. I will only point out a glorious new invention called toilet paper. Please, for the sake of all things holy, make use of it.
LINCOLN: #Douglasforprez, the only thing I will be wiping my posterior with is you at general election time.
DOUGLAS: @Lincolnforprez, those are fighting words, you punk-ass stretch job! Meet me in the public square for a duel at high noon.
LINCOLN: I am not familiar with this term “punk-ass.” However, Douglas, you clearly watch too many plays. I accept your challenge to meet at noon, but I prefer fisticuffs, Marquess of Queensbury rules, you filibustering, flabby, flatulent flake!
DOUGLAS: Fine, good sir. I’m going to give you some free rhinoplasty and take a few inches off of that prominent proboscus of yours. Now your nose will not arrive five minutes before you do for a change.
LINCOLN: You are revealing your class level, Stephen. One should never criticize physical characteristics someone is helpless to do anything about. You, however, can do something about your cheesy smell, and your bad comb-over. Ha ha! Comb-over! I just invented a new insult, too!
DOUGLAS: Eat me.
LINCOLN: Eat me? Eat me, he says. Perhaps he really is made of cheese. I am rolling on the floor laughing my rear end off over here. #ROFLMREO
DOUGLAS: Hey Stretch, I am experimenting with a new musical form. It’s talking to music, rather than singing. Check me out – – My name is Abe Lincoln! I have trouble thinkin’! I never use toilet paper so I’m always stinkin’!
LINCOLN: Talking to music? That will never prosper.
DOUGLAS: Again, I say eat me.
LINCOLN: This is getting boring. I’m going to bounce, Cheese man. See you at noon. Tape down your wig in preparation for the shellacking I’m going to give that cue ball you persist in referring to as your head.
DOUGLAS: Bastard! I’m going to biff you about the face and neck and beat the chiggers out of your unkempt beard, even if I have to stand on an apple crate to reach you, giraffe boy!
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