A paean to funnels
Funneled on November 25, 2012.
On Monday this week (as opposed to next week, which hasn’t happened yet, and last week, which has already been duly blarghed about), while I was engaged in the rather ordinary and monofarious exercise of pouring a delicious, potable liquid from a large container into one with a smaller aperture, I discovered the breathtaking usefulness of these astounding little devices known as “funnels.” Never before had I been able to pour a whole pint of fluid from one bottle into another without spilling at least six pints all over the counter, floor, walls, ceiling, myself, and anyone else within striking distance! (Poor Ravna! Poor ol’ kerfrumpt!) I gasped, my breath truly taken away. What a splendiferously amazaplicious invention! What a catabunctiously awesomiferous device! How mulpicious! How auspicious! How haruspicious!
I resolved then and there that I would employ a so-called “funnel” in every endeavor in which I engaged this week—everything I did from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell back asleep—and see how things turned out. Would the funnel be useful when I changed my car’s oil, or when I rotated her tires? Would this conical little wonder prove as vital in cooking my dinner as it had in pouring my crab juice into that Thermos bottle this morning? Would it help baste my turkeys or polish my rice? Would it herd my geese or prune my spaghetti trees?
Only the horrifying, unstoppable passage of Time would tell.
On Tuesday I tried washing my hare with a funnel. That didn’t turn out so well: When I tried to jam the narrow end of the funnel down one of the hare’s long, floppy ears, the little beastie kicked me in the face and hopped off! I then tried washing my hair with a funnel, which was a rousing success. Another enormously useful use of the venerable funnel, I decided.
On Wednesday I made myself a heart pastrami and braised moose synapse sandwich, which also didn’t result in much success when I tried to feed it to myself through a funnel. But that didn’t faze me: Nothing fazes the Grand Pnårpissimo, after all! I broke out the blender, added copious amounts of water (through a funnel, of course!), and I soon had a meat-and-bread slurry thin enough to guzzle through a funnel. Another win!
On Thursday, multiple concentric funnels were employed in my weekly, dysplumbious trip to the bathroom. This experiment started out as yet another success story, but everything soon went downhill as I segued from #1 to #2, whereupon the tale ended in disaster and woe. As a result, and much to my chagrin, #3 via funnel was rendered completely out of the question; it would be so until I unstacked all the funnels teetering over my toilet bowl and put them somewhere out of smelling distance.
Later, when the gorgothine tasks of #3, #4, and even #5 were finally out of the way, I took those funnels (properly sealed in smell-proof plastic bags) out into my front yard and gave them a proper, solemn burial. Mr. Van der Woobie watched from across the street, scratching his head and muttering to himself about incarpacious plenitudes and flagranulous instoppelopathies.
The week lumbered onward, the funnular experiments continued, and soon I was employing a funnel—or multiple funnels—no fewer than six times each day. I wanted to write the inventor of the funnel a gushing thank you note, but Wikipedia couldn’t tell me who had invented this wondrous little tool, so I was left akin to a fish without a bicycle. There was one saving grace, however: Wikipedia did inform me that the inverted funnel has been a symbol of madness and lunacy at least since the days of Hieronymous Bosch and LOL Dongs!!1, so I immediately strapped one (a funnel, not a dong) to the top of my pointy head, upside-down, and took a stroll around town in order to show off my mad new hat. Cars didn’t stop and people didn’t stare, but I think I made my point when I finally reached the goatburping park on Shoehorner Street and began charging the goats, one by one, with my head down.
I will avoid describing in detail my utterly failed attempts to enfunnel my scaly ol’ kerfrumpt, other than to say that the funnel-shaped hole in my bestiary wall is the result of her suffering a very ill-timed sneezing tizzy.
By this morning, I sported funnels sticking out of each of my ears; my hearing had so improved that I could verily hear a single cockroach scurrying across Mrs. Farnston’s kitchen floor from my own kitchen. I boasted two small funnels in my nose, one in each nostril—now I could smell danger coming from half a mile away! And I wore one big funnel permanently strapped to my mouth: No more worrying about sloshing my drink everywhere as I tried to aim for my mouth and inevitably fell short. I even fashioned a pair of eyeglasses out of two 3″ funnels—a sort of pair of anti-sunglasses, if you will (and I know you will). They were sure to blind me the instant I stepped outside and peered at the Sun, which I planned to do at my earliest convenience. But they were funnels, so they were good.
Most encouraging of all was that all of my funnel-derived sensory improvements did nothing to make me look any stranger than I already do on a daily basis. In fact, with all these conical little devices taped, glued, strapped, stapled, or nailed to my face and its surrounding head, I no longer had any room to wear my outmoded burnt-umber fez topped with my signature sticks of pepperoni and live rats. If anything, I might even pass for a normal gentleman for once in my life!
Ravna burst out laughing at the mere suggestion. I cranched grumpily and, in response, rudely farted in her general direction—and then another lightbulb went off in my mind. I picked up another funnel.