Pop

The Tale of a Tragedy Turned Delicious

(Names, places, details, and facts have all been changed, twisted, messed up, made up, contorted, exaggerated, and possibly doused with butter, as I see fit. Thus protecting the innocent, leaving no trail to find the guilty, and keeping all involved parties from embarrassment.)

Way Up North where there’s ice and there’s snow, there was a college. ‘Twas a college with a dorm. ‘Twas a dorm of female inhabitants. And in this Way Up Northern establishment was a female inhabitant named Schizophranna. And said inhabitant is the only true character of importance in this story.

Saturday. Today was the open house for the dorm since it had just reached absolute completion. Dozens and perhaps hundreds of people meandered through the halls of the new dorm in the morning and early afternoon hours. Through the kitchen meandered they. Into  the individual dorm rooms meandered they. And at long last, out the front door meandered the final guest. The open house closed, and the relieved dorm inhabitants resumed their posts.

With a sigh, Schizophranna closed the door behind said final guest and delved into the books. In her studies of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Schizophranna felt a pang of hunger deep in the recesses of her stomach. Such a pang must be remedied. Schizophranna leapt from her studying post in the dorm’s parlor. With a skip and a scurry, she made her way to the kitchen with a bag of popcorn in hand.

Whilst the microwave worked wonders on the bag of corn, Schizophranna left the unoccupied kitchen to ensure that her dorm room was intact. After all, there was no need for Way Up Northern scruff to have been rooting through her things.

Upon the gentle breeze brought by the dorm vents came wafting a swirly gray whiff.

Not one to panic too freakishly, Schizophranna schlepped into the kitchen. Here, dark clouds of fury emanated from the microwave. *emanate, emanate* Also not one to have a good head on one’s shoulders, Schizophranna schlepped away from the kitchen and encountered Mz. Liz.

At the moment of this encounter, an alarm sounded. It sounded like a small child wailing for another gumdrop, please, mom, pleeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEase?! You get the idea.

Every dorm inhabitant was ordered from the premises. Some were ordered by Mz. Liz. Others were ordered by their common sense which told them to get away from the wailing alarm and the billowing smoke.

And then the seemingly-unthinkable happened. A nearby building began smoking. Likewise the building beside that. Throughout the region of the Way Up North, buildings began pouring out smoke through their windows and under their doors until every building was affected.

By this time, fire trucks had arrived at the scene of Schizophranna’s college, summoned by the alarm whose wails had finally died down to pathetic whimpers due to suffocating batteries. Firefighters tumbled from their posts in the truck and circled the dorm which was now engulfed in smoke. Although Mz. Liz reassured them that all the dorm inhabitants had fled the immediate scene, Chief Firefighter Filemon had to see it for himself and he entered the same front door that the open-house guests had meandered through only a few hours before.

The remainder of the firefighters remained outside the dorm with Mz. Liz and Schizophranna. Such hullabaloo ensued with inquiry upon inquiry of the origin of the smoke!

And then….

…a deafening POP!

And then…

…deafening silence.

Not a single breath was breathed, nor was a single word uttered. Schizophranna pulled a Swiss Army knife from her handy-dandy apron pocket and sliced the thick air with it.

A breathy huff was heard from within the building, and Chief Firefighter Filemon emerged from the smoke. Time itself froze, and the orchestra on the front lawn of the dorm commenced playing “Enter the Heroes” from Monsters, Inc, with Monsieur Mink on the trumpet.

All necks craned and eyes strained to see what Chief Firefighter Filemon held so protectively in his hand. Was it the head of the dorm inhabitant who disobeyed orders? Was it the whimpering alarm? No! *trumpet blaring* It was Schizophranna’s bag of popcorn!

Chief Firefighter Filemon carefully placed his fingers on the top of the popcorn bag and successfully “pulled here.” *vivacious violining* With a skilled hand worthy of his chiefdom, he reached into the bag and pulled out a perfectly popped, perfectly buttered morsel of corn. Being the only kernel in the bag, it had grown to the size of a watermelon. With every soul on the college campus watching breathlessly, Chief Firefighter Filemon placed the popped corn between his horribly misshapen buck teeth. *cymbals clashing* As he bit off a morsel victoriously, the smoke unbillowed from the atmosphere and came under control, in this building and every other in the Way North.

A second bit of corn was gnawed off in like fashion. “Delectable! As was the first!” cried he. (c) Brian Regan

Schizophranna was lauded for her popcorn chef-ery, Mz. Liz was back-patted for her bravery, and Chief Firefighter Filemon shared the popcorn with his firefighting cohorts while Monsieur Mink messed up on the last note of his trumpet solo.

Slip, trip, and fall

“I tripped and I fell.”

“We do slip and fall.”

“Yeah, I tripped.”

“We do slips.”

“I remember I slipped at first. I remember thinking, ‘Hey, I am predominantly slipping!’ “

“And then you tripped?”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t do that.”

–Brian Regan

Sorry, but this was the only quotable quote I could think of about fall. Some call it autumn. For me, it’s the transition stage between flip flops and fuzzy socks, between tee shirts and layers of hoodies, between pink & orange sprinkles and red & green sprinkles to sweep up at work.

Fall is finally here, which means that all the projects that I was going to do before fall….should now be done. Remarkably, they aren’t. Some approach the state of completion. But some have not even procured a second thought from me.

School started two weeks ago-ish. I’ve attended one class twice and my second class hasn’t started yet. Most of biology is going right over my head. But the little that does penetrate only serves to concrete in my mind the veracity of Intelligent Design and the obvious fallacy of evolution.

I recently agreed to do some graphic design work for a man from another church who will be teaching a Bible course and needs a handout made. And I also designed little clothing price tags for the volleyball culottes I am almost done with. All this work on the computer remind me of the small amount of enjoyment I found in the two computer classes last spring semester. I still prefer fashion, but I haven’t crossed graphic design off my list of possibilities.

(sneak peek of aforementioned tag:     )

On a totally different topic, we have an inhabitant under our porch. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve been informed that there is a groundhog under there. Therefore, a trap has been set, with offerings of corn, lettuce, and acorns. I wonder if an eviction notification would be effective.

Happy falling! If perchance you happen upon a shard of mitochondria or a herd of amino acids, you can be thankful you’re not examining them under a microscope like I am.

Dissertation on emoticons

(**Update: WordPress changes my common emoticons from their punctuation form to an animated form. Unappreciated, WordPress. There’s probably a setting to change that, but I couldn’t find it. Hence the “spaced-out-smile” look. You know what I mean. Carry on…)

(**Update #2: Rachel has enlightened me as far as how to turn off the automatic animated emoticons.Yes!! Thanks, Rach! For the rest of you, ignore my previous update. It remains there purely for memory’s sake. And as a tribute to Rachel’s genius.)

Everybody has that one favorite emoticon they use and overuse in emails, texts, twitters, facebook statuses, etc. Or maybe more than just one. But everyone has a specific way that they emoticonnote, that is to say write emoticons.

Some people use the = as the eyes. Such as =) or =D . These display a certain amount of excitement. Constantly. I know several people who use = consistently and I love it. It shows a zeal for life and total wide-eyed excitement. Love it. This is probably my favorite way of emoticonnoting ever. However, I can’t usually pull that off because I tend to be more blah in my emotional swings.

Some people use noseless emoticons. When the eyes are big, as they are in the above example, going noseless is acceptable. Otherwise it’s just lazy. :( See? Sorry to disappoint. It really takes little effort to fill out the face with a nose of sorts. Could be like :-) or :o) or :~) or :+) or :<) . Noseless emoticons rank on my list of pet peeves. One more mark of punctuation, that’s all that’s needed.

Mine always have noses. Always. Whether the nose be a “-” or an “o”, the nose is there. To those noseless emoticons, I attribute the name “lazy smiley.” I refuse to use them. My emoticons deserve a nose.

The :-) kind of nose is what I usually use. It’s basic enough that no one reads into my smile and think I’m too anxious, too sarcastic, not genuine enough, not happy enough. It’s complete, hardly deserving a second thought.

The :o) kind of nose is cute. For some reason I equate it with eating, cute kids, or hidden frustration. Like when I use it, I’m usually thinking, “I should probably put a smile there, but I’m not really happy and I don’t feel like smiling.” This is as close as I’ve come to smiling sarcastically.

The :~) kind of nose screams “broken.” I wince when I see it and have been known to audibly whimper upon such seeings. Do not abuse your emoticons! They may come back to haunt you and break your nose in your sleep!

The :+) nose says, “My emoticonnotor broke my nose, but then had the decency to put a bandaid on it. Thank you, dear emoticonnotor.”

The :<) nose is obviously Italian. Or Roman. Or swollen Swedish. Wait, isn’t Rome in Italy?

Lately, tragedy has struck. As mentioned before, my keys stick occasionally (both on my phone and on my laptop). Thus sometimes when I press a key once or twice or thrice, there is still no resulting character.

And I trimmed my fingernails the other day and chopped my left thumbnail entirely too short, thus hampering my texting speed.

Furthermore, through an amazing display of ballet unlearnedness, last night at work I broke not only my second and last unbroken thumbnail, but also the lid and the cup with which I was twirling around behind the counter.

Thus, those who may have texted me within the past week (or month for that matter) may be confused at my dislike of noseless emoticons. Because I’ve used them. Inadvertantly. And it pains me. But sometimes I hit the punctuation key five times, hoping for a smile complete with a nose, and I get merely a noseless smile. So frustrating. Half the time I don’t notice it until it’s already been sent. The other half of the time, I notice it and continue hitting the punctuation key until my poor broken thumbnail is screaming for a break. Relief is given, and the text is sent with a noseless emoticon.

Now I have a confession. The noseless emoticons have grown on me recently. I even labeled one as cute the other day. I was shocked at myself. It is highly unlikely that I am no longer peeved by this long time pet peeve. However, perhaps I have become more tolerant? More importantly, is it totally weird that I have such qualms and unusual things to say about emoticons? Am I please not the only one who reads into them so deeply and attributes such inane characteristics to them?

*sneeze*

Sneezing sounds superintend space.

Since Sigfried sneezed,
Salmonella spread.

Samson sneezed secondarily,
So sea sickness spread.

Seymour sniffled, started sneezing.

Someone’s sister shouted,
“Silence!
Stop sneezing!”

Seymour stopped semi-sniffle.

Samson stopped sneezing;
Sea sickness stopped spreading.

Sigfried stopped sneezing;
Salmonella stopped spreading.

Such silence sans sneezing!
Such sublime, supremely satisfying silence!
Such silence should stay!
Said silent spell superimposed sneezing’s spacial supremacy.

Suddenly someone sneezed.
Spell shattered.

“Sigfried!”

The Slaughter of the Steer

As alluded to in the previous post, I had some experience in Tennessee as a “cattle capturer.” Most accurate would be to say that I was a spectator at a cattle capturing, but I had a part nonetheless. Here is the story of how the events of that memorable morning transpired. (Names changed, or at least humorously skewed with, to protect the innocent.)

Monday (the part after we slept and woke up) started with excitement. Mr. Reallycoolfamily called the house and told us four oldest girls to ready ourselves and get down to the sorghum mill. They needed our help to catch their steer. So we leapt (more sleepily than leapily) out of bed and into the Dodge pickup, with me and Cynthia Jane Farlow in the back. A short bit down the road (a mile or two, or maybe three) we caught up with the suburban and trailer that once carted the steer. And in yon muddy field was the steer.

The story of happenings went something like this: Mr. and Mrs. Reallycoolfamily and their son, Jehoshaphat, had gotten the steer into the trailer to take to the butcher to slaughter (pause and remember the Brian Regan thing about manslaughter…… “I slaughtered a man!” So violent. But we’re talking about a cow, ok?). Somehow the Reallycoolfamily’s neighbors, the Guggenheims, became involved, the details still fuzzy to me. One of the Guggenheim boys had accidentally unlatched the trailer door, probably thinking he was latching it.

As the trailer bumped along down the road, the door became totally undone and the steer fell out *ka-thump* upon his butt roast. This falling out happened near the sorghum mill, so that is the pen in which the steer found himself corralled into.

And here come four girls, fresh out of bed, still a bit tired from an all-nighter attempt, shod in flip-flops, and cameras poised. Oh wait, were we supposed to help? Get the cow? Out of the muddy pen?! Into the trailer?!!

Nah, we took pictures. Tarantulanna manned the camera, while Elizardanna, Cynthia Jane Farlow, and I exclaimed about the cuteness of Mr. Sorghummillowner’s calf.

The butcher was called and summoned to the location, and we were excited at the prospect of watching a cow-slaughter before our very eyes. Alas, the butcher brought some help with him and they were able to round the steer up and get him back in the trailer, thus depriving us the privilege of spectating at a butchering. We were only able to spectate at a cow capturing.

Our work here was done. Back in the truck got we and back to the Reallycoolfamily’s abode found we ourselves.