Bloat To Self
There came a startling knocking sound…
“That’s odd,” I grumbled to myself. “What the hell is that?” I looked around and it seemed to be coming from a mysterious object I had once named, at random, a “door.” Found upon the door was a piece of spherically-shaped metal which I brilliantly intuited could be used to pry the bloody thing open.
Gazing through the gaping portal I saw a most hideous thing standing on the go-away mat. “What the hell are you?” I gasped.
With an eerily familiar voice it replied, “I’m you from the future.”
My mind reeled. “How far in the future?”
“Tomorrow, to be exact.” God, it sure was ugly. It looked irritated and menacing, too. “Are you going to invite me in?”
Once inside it looked around the living room as if with the eyes of a child. “You’ll have to forgive me,” it said. “This sure brings back memories.”
By now I was feeling pretty damn irritated. My normal routine had been severely disrupted. “I’m feeling damn irritated,” I said. “You’re severely disrupting my normal routine.”
For a second it lost it’s composure. “Don’t you think I know that?!” it snapped ferociously. It took a deep breath and slowly exhaled then seemed to go limp in resignation. After an awkward silence, it finally continued. “I’m here to help you,” it said softly. “To help both of us.”
“Go on,” I barked.
“A few minutes from now,” it said ominously, “something is going to happen. Something completely out of the normal. Something disastrous. I’m here to stop it.”
Suddenly I noticed a gun in it’s hand. That’s odd, I thought lamely to myself. We don’t own a gun. What the hell had happened to me?
Bang. The gun went off. I fell to the floor while clutching my stomach in pain. He had shot our most prized possession. He had just shot our LCD 42″ flat screen TV.
“You son of a bitch! You die!” I screamed as I felt my life oozing away. “Why??”
“Poor little idiot,” he said, literally looking down on me. I couldn’t help but notice he was starting to twinkle, almost as if he was slowly dissolving away. He smiled.
He looked at his dissolving hand in wonderment. “It worked, it worked,” he said, forgetting the question that was currently pending on the floor. Then an expression of fear gripped his hideous face. “At least this time.”
“What worked?”
His expression changed to one of resolve then went soft as if he had reached some sort of climactic decision. “What I’m about to say may end the space-time continuum as we know it, everywhere, everything, but fuck it. It might be our only chance.”
“Wha…”
“Shut up!” he hissed. “We have very little time.” By now he was about fifty percent translucent, much like the time I had tried to Photoshop a profile image using a real picture of my own face.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said to himself, ignoring me completely. “I never watch broadcast TV. I never even turn it on. I hate the commercials. I avoid it like the plague. But I was supposed to be working. So, yeah, I guess that might be how it happened.”
He turned and looked me in the eye. “I turned on the TV,” he said. He was starting to scare me. “I did it on purpose. It was showing the CBS morning show. God help me, I don’t know why, but I watched.” I was stunned to see tears streaming down his face. “They called it ‘Note to Self.’ Oh God, why did I watch?”
He was almost gone now. He sparkled like a glinty trick of light and I had to lean and strain to hear what he had to say.
“Don’t do what I did. Don’t ever, EVER,” he hissed, “make the mistake of watching Note to Self. It’ll be the death of you.”
And with that, he was gone.
Dazed, I slowly got to my feet and swayed. Wow. What a trip. And what an idiot. How the hell was I going to watch anything with a bullet in my TV? And how the hell was I supposed to avoid doing real actual work?
More importantly, who was going to clean up that mess of ectoplasm where the bastard had been standing?
The deeper I go the more I’m turning blue
But here’s a cute little song about yesterday. It’s a Clint Black song about the Gulf of Mexico that you’ve probably never heard, which was probably a bit nicer before BP got there. Let’s count that as another vote for yesterday.
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Mac Salad Annie
Now pimpin ain't easy but it's necessary.
Lame title, I know. It was either that or something about sticking a feather in my cap which we all know I’m not gonna do unless I’m pimping. So I guess that makes me “Annie.” And what does Annie like to talk about a lot? Tomorrow!
Long story short: I wanted some macaroni salad. In a rabies-induced state of confusion I had purchased a container of Reser’s Macaroni Salad which was just tasty and food-like enough to make me crave the real thing. (Reser’s brand is to be avoided like the plague unless one has rabies.)
So I decided I would make my own macaroni salad. Something with real ingredients and real flavor and not pumped to the gills with preservatives. I got out my favorite recipe tome, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and considered the recipe. It looked doable so the mission was a go. I figured I’d take some mac salad to work in plastic containers to go with my lunches.
That was last Sunday, a whopping four days ago. I didn’t bother to write down the ingredients and each time I went to the store my shopping was pathetic. The first trip I picked up elbow macaroni, pimentos and mayonnaise. I couldn’t remember anything else. And it turns out I got the large elbow macaroni. Argh! I hate shopping!
The next trip I got some more ingredients but still forgot some.
Finally it was Wednesday. By now I was feeling frustrated because my plan to have mac salad with my lunch was a miserable failure. That morning my wife had made a list of everything we still needed. After work it was one final stop at the grocery on my way home.
At last! I was able to start cooking. I tackled the recipe with relish. (Not an actual ingredient this time.) Suddenly I realized I had a little problem. I was missing the freakin’ green onions!
I checked the list my wife had written out for me. Yep. Green onions were on there. Somehow I had still found a way to forget them. ARGH!
My kitchen was all messed up, the ingredients were all prepped, the wrong-sized pasta had already been cooked and there I stood with no green onions. “I sure suck at this,” I thought miserably to myself.
After dinner my wife went to get an Easter card and while at the store picked up the holy grail green onions. finally I was able to finish my macaroni salad! Yeah!
Waking up Thursday morning I was a bit excited. At long last my plan had finally come to fruition. Today was the day I’d have real homemade macaroni salad at work with my lunch. (It says a lot about my life that this actually excited me.)
If it ended there this post might never have been written. We all know by now, though, it never ends that easy for me.
On Thursday I packed my macaroni salad and took it to work. But it turned out that it was the office manager’s birthday and that meant it was time for shitty pizza and shitty team building for lunch. I gagged down a few pieces of crapholio pizza, unenthusiastically participated in the required social customs then went back to work.
It only took a few more hours before I realized what had happened: I had forgotten about my macaroni salad! Again!
Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. Unfortunately, for me, that mythical day always stays a day away.
Side Dish
The title for this post is inspired by the song “Polk Salad Annie” by Tony Joe White which was a big hit back in 1969. It later became a popular song for Elvis Presley on the jelly doughnut circuit.
The song misspells the main ingredient, something called “poke salad” which was a staple of southern cuisine. Poke salad is made from a poisonous plant called pokeweed.
Poisonous? Yep. All parts of the pokeweed are poisonous. That makes it logical to cook and eat, right? It turns out that if you gather young leaves before they turn red then boil them three times, this reduces the toxins and makes the leaves edible, resulting in the dish known as “poke salad.” Of course, if you guess wrong on the age of the leaves that can result in a poisoning.
Boil three times then eat? I’d like to meet the son of a bitch who thought of that. “Nope, boiling two times is still poisonous. Dammit, that just isn’t good enough. I’m going to try for three!”
See what you learn reading this blog? Of course none of you are still here. 🙂
Shouts from the Abyss 
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