A costly, costive dilemma
Clystered on April 4, 2021.
This week—all 6½ days of it—was a week of ups and downs, ins and outs, backs and forths, and one ignominious, ungrulious day after another—overshadowed and overarched by a costly, costive dilemma. It would be a week of bumping and gurgling. A week of commodes and nematodes. It would be a week bereft of both dord and fnord this time, but that would matter naught. It would be seven days, with time ceaselessly slippin’ into the future as it is wont to do. But at this very moment it was still only 6½ days long. And I prayed for the remaining ha’day to go to Hell, so next Monday could arrive.
This past Monday found yours truly deeply discommoded in the commode. Monday, alias March 29, alias 29 March, alias 3/29, alias W13-1, alias 88, was proving to be the wily criminal that his use of so many aliases implied. I realized I was exhibiting a highly impactful case of buttoxia—a stercogenic traffic jam—and Monday did nothing to aid me. He just sat there on my calendar, on my day planner, and wherever else he could fit his moonish self, waiting: Waiting for my ceiling clock to tick out 11:59 p.m., then 12:00 a.m., whereupon he could depart and get back to his nefarious criminal enterprises.
Being the Pnårp I am, I decided to try the first thing that popped up on the Google when I searched for home remedies for a gravid gluteus. The remedy sure was fascinating: I wasn’t sure how pigeons, widgeons, dudgeons, and a smidgeon of sturgeon, mashed and blended, sifted and filtered, and then shaken vigorously, could cure anything, but what did I have to lose? You only live once or twice.
I collected these curious ingredients, mashed them and blended them, sifted and filtered them, and then shook them (vigorously!). And then I swallowed as much of the vile result as I could muster. I then ate some tomato chips, slathered in potato sauce, in an attempt to settle my stomach and my tongue down. The viscous, vicious elixir didn’t cure me of what ailed me, but it did relieve me of another burden: My sanity.
The multitude of nematodes infesting my Pnårp-shaped corpse fled via the nearest orifice. These nematodes, now harrying my every footstep, were only outweighed by the toads now infesting my walls. Green ones, brown ones, all bumpy and horny, and mostly poisonous to boot. They squeezed out from behind my wainscoting, pushed out from under my baseboarding, and even oozed out my outlets. I dubbed the last crop my “NEMA toads,” which didn’t sit well with the nematodes: They opined my witless pun infringed upon their own holy name. But I outsmarted them all when I donned my old anti-gnome vest and hid beneath (not in, but beneath) my I’ve-been-hornswoggled corner. Toads and ’todes might not be gnomes, yet the ruggabuffalous teguments that shield a Pnårp against those red-hatted fiends also work against toadier and wormier foes.
News of a fish doorbell installed in the city of Utrecht inspired me to install my own fish doorbell. I also installed doorbells for the myriad other fauna living around my palatial abode, everything from the geese out back to the sandworms tunnelling below.
News of a rise in the spot price of shmeep wool pleased me: I still had a flock of the platinum-bearing little buggers milling about my back yard. I ate a celebratory supper of French toast dipped in garlic sauce (not only delicious but also a home remedy for stubborn costivity according to my dear old Mamårp), followed by guacamole- and marmite-soaked Lunchables. “My, these are lunchable,” I murmured to myself as I ate the highly processed food product, all 26 varieties, packaging and all. Surely this witches’ brew of horribly contrasting aliments would assist in loosening up the ol’ alimentary tract.
I spent the remainder of Monday enduring a most wondrous oneirism wherein Nicki Minaj, barefoot and costumed as Pippi Longstocking, rode a traffic cone while coyotes and kangaroos yiffed in radiant, iridescent pairs. My alimentary tract, now suffering numerous ailments from my hapless choice of aliments, turned inside out and upside down. Then it pulled my brain aside, into its stomach, to give my brain a strong talking-to about his diet choices. My brain vowed never to eat anything so unlunchable ever again. By day’s end my being was floating amidst the Lovecraftian moai who balefully guard the beaches of Easter Island while my eyes—all three of them—gazed miciously into the Great Blue Hole on the other side of the intervening continent. My alimentary tract (stomach and all its attachments) gently landed some distance away, baking in the Death Valley heat.
Tuesday hurried by—
—Wednesday hot on its heels. The thirty-first of March. The 31st. Ol’ Mar. 31. 3/31, 3-31, 31/3/21, 31.03.21, even 2021-03-31 to some extravagantly meticulous people who like long, arduous numbers. Time continued to slip into the future, inexorable as it was. (And I tried really, really hard to exore it—I truly did.) I consumed an entire sack of dried toadflax and wormwood, another naturopathic remedy recommended when one is on the low end of the Bristol stool chart. Four out of five quacks agree—that was enough for me. Alas, this cure went awry too.
This potent potpourri proved to be highly psychotropic—at least to a high psychotic such as the Grand Pnårpissimo. By nightfall I had become the very reification of gurning. My rictus grin spread from my face to every other orifice dotting my integument. Normally this would not cause concern, nor even be noticed by my multitude of neighbors, associates, partners, allies, compatriots, comrades, and simple friends and enemies (along with the few frenemies I had collected as of late). But today’s phytochemogenic adventure progressed to rampant spasm, all-out dystonia, and finally unrelenting spasmodic dysphonia: My frequent bumping and gurgling rose to a cacophonic hooting and tooting, segued next to a staccato arpeggio of shrieking and babbling, and culminated in hyperdecibelian dromomania: A raucous romp up and down Bouillabaisse Boulevard, breaking every Overton window with gusto and glee. It ended at last. But it did not end well.
Thursday, alas and alack. The first of April, 4/01. Time continued to slip into the future. I spent April Fools Day watching my pots to ensure they wouldn’t boil. (They did not.)
Friday, finally. 2 April ’21. Time continued to slip into the future. I went to my new job keeping the Devil way down in the hole. This wasn’t nearly as difficult as my old job at the spam-canning plant in 2011, nor my stint in the U.S. Horse Force in the 1990s, nor even my abortive career as a paralegal at Balder & Dash, LLP in 2016. (That one was really, really abortive.) All I had to do is sit, watching the hole, and praying that my soul not be stolen by the devils down below.
Saturday sat on my calendar: April 3rd. I sat on my commode, still inconveniently incommoded. Time was stuck in traffic again. I remained firmly buttoxic. My horrid case of buttoxia was growing steadily more concerning, disconcerting, discomfiting, and discomforting. This week’s impactions began to remind me of that time I’d used Wikipedia in place of the directions on the product packaging, and ended up with an entire stick of deodorant lodged sideways in my large intestine. (For external use only, indeed!)
But there was still hope. Having now downed an elixir of fermented garefowl eggs soaked in sun-dried gaur milk, and upped a clyster of bird’s eye chilis soaked in pig’s eye, this sad, sad Saturday witnessed a long and febrile bout of emetic eructations followed by dissonant yet cathartic flatulations.
“Christ on a cranch!”
“Christ on a cravat!”
“Christ on a cracker! Jeezits! Jesus Kee-bubblin’-rist!”
Traffic was moving again on the expressway, the accident caused by someone’s unorthodox and unprintable use of the traffic cones lining a construction site having been cleaned up. My own personal traffic remained firmly gridlocked however. Time was on its way again. I grinsped anxiously. Time would soon be here. I grinsped more. Abe Vigoda wouldn’t be here, nor would the local dabbling duck population be dabbling in black magick anymore, but time soon would be here. I fell into a grinsping torpor on the bathroom floor.
Sunday, 4/04. I searched my calendar high and low, but today was simply not found. Tricky Dick Nixon had stolen his campaign slogan from a little girl in Deshler, Ohio, and never since had I been so hopelessly confuzzled. I always suspected that Dirk Dirk McGuirk had been involved in that act of lexical larceny, but when I learned that the Hammurderer had been active in Ohio at the time, I folded: Like a cheap Walmart card table. I guess we’ll never know.