Listen Up
I am a stranger in a strange land.
I’ve done something more notable than even Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals. (Yawn.)
I went out in the world and listened. To another person. Hells to the yeah.
It was the most startling experience.
A conversational pause does not mean the person has finished speaking.
–Tom B. TakerInterpreting every single pause since the dawn of time as “my turn to talk” means you are an asshole.
–Tom B. Taker
My wife was speaking to me. I was listening. Wow. I know. It can happen. Okay, okay. Stay calm. Don’t blow it. Keep it together, man. So far so good.
Then she paused.
This was an industrial heavy-duty kind of a pause. A good ten seconds. In today’s world that is literally an eternity. I had my feelers out. Was she done? Was she waiting on me to comment? Was it my turn?
I still don’t know what came over me but I decided to wait. I was in it for the long haul.
Then, simply, she continued. And she expressed an additional thought that added more to what she had just previously said. A thought that, if I had interrupted, I would never have heard for the rest of my life.
This is it, I thought! The land of milk and honey over the rainbow. That land that assholes never get to see.
It was so earth shattering that a few days later I even tried it again.
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Into the Bowels of the Bowl
This is what they mean by “taste the rainbow.”
I was flushed with excitement when I made the team. I almost flipped my lid. Not one to fly off the handle, I was resolute and went about the business of doing my job. This consisted mainly of navigating a dinghy about a very small body of water. I’d sing as I tackled the task. “I sail the ocean blue and my saucy shit’s a beauty. I’m a sober man and true, and attentive to my doody. Ahoy! Ahoy!”
For I had set my sights high. I was the man lucky enough to know his own destiny. One day, if I worked hard enough, my teammates and I, as members of the Pack Ten conference, would play in The Toilet Bowl. Perhaps not the bowl sponsored by Tostitos but at least the one that had Ex-Lax, Preparation H and Beano.
And we made it, too, quite literally by the seat of our pants.
[/end of dream sequence]
Blob “Constas” Pation here, and today we take a look at the storied career of Tom B. Taker, a man so dedicated to his crap craft that he has worked the last 11 years within spitting distance of toilets. It’s a story ripped from the anals of history. We caught up with the man as he set out to maintain this blistering pace and go for the world record of twelve years in a row.
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What’s that poop you’re wearing?
Somewhere between love and madness and the toilet … lies Surplus. Love … madness … poop. It’s my secret.
What possesses me? I’ll never know. So there I was, punching the word “poop” into Google and looking for the latest news.
“Watch Jersey Shore’s Season in Poop.” Yeah, yeah. No thanks, I’ll pass.
Eh? Wait one. What’s this??? From the Beauty & Style section, no less. “Man Makes Perfume Out of Poop & Holy S**t, It’s Selling.”
Ewwwww! De toilette???
You silly humans! Even now, at the end, you can still surprise me! LOL! Stop it. No, seriously. Stop it.
The gist of the story is this: An “artist” (I love putting that word in quotes) has produces 85 bottles of something he calls “perfume” that have been crafted from his own private business, if you know what I’m saying.
And it’s only $85 a bottle. And he calls it Surplus.
What’s his secret, besides finding a way to grab at his 15 minutes of notoriety? Does he have the poopy Midas touch? Did he somehow figure out a way to make poop smell good?
Erm, no. The point is supposed to be the opposite. You know how perfume can be used to cover up bad smells with something nice?
The point of Surplus is to cover your good smells with something bad. I shit you not. (Oops. That might be the slogan for Surplus.)
Intrigued? Learn more and see a advertisement here.
Come to find out I’ve been doing it all wrong. Every morning I wake up and go through this damn annoying routine so I don’t smell bad. I take a shower. I rub soap on my body. I wash my hair. I rub deodorant into my armpits. I brush my teeth. Oh sure, I still smell bed, but at least I friggin’ try.
Instead I could just roll out of bed, dab a little Surplus behind each ear, and head out the door to take on the day. I’ve got to admit, that would be a real time saver!
Artist web site: Jammie Nicholas
Shouts from the Abyss 
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