An arduous, odorous, ordurous affair
Cannibalized on February 27, 2022.
Hamsters were defecating nonstop on a slow-moving conveyor belt. A standard hamster wheel was no longer good enough for the furry little buggers; they simply wouldn’t run on it. They turned their little hamstery noses up at it and just sat there collecting unemployment. A victory for Dingleberry–Hampsterism indeed. So the city installed a hamster-sized moving sidewalk for them in the goatburping park on Shoehorner Street. And this is how the furry little ingrates used the sidewalk—by defecating endlessly on it.
Needless to say, the thorough and complete enfeciation of the gears and motors underneath the moving sidewalk was, in a word, detrimental to its continued smooth operation. Further adding to the city’s woes, the whole ungrulious mess plop-plop-plopped down into the subterrene caverns below the park, where a colony of Himalayan Varnishing Gnomes had recently taken up residence. Industrious and meticulous as always, they went about varnishing the lot of it, as Himalayan Varnishing Gnomes are wont to do. They then returned their handiwork to the surface for all to admire.
In 2021, Mayor Rhoodie had replaced his decade-long program of feeding the homeless to each other with feeding the homeless what industry insiders called “surplus long pork.” The pundits described this ham-fisted attempt at PR as nothing more than polishing a turd. Now such shiny things were quite literally rolling around Shoehorner Street—tripping passers-by and instigating a rather ordurous slip-and-fall class action lawsuit for Rhoodie’s office to litigate.
The whole tragicomedy—Turdgate, our ever-clever pundits were calling it—had already cost the city six brazillion dollars. That was just the cost of the buttwash contract. Disenhornswoggling the Himalayan Varnishing Gnomes from the underside of the sidewalk and safely moving them somewhere they could polish turds in peace would likely cost another six. Then there were the retraining programs for the hamsters, mental health counseling for the traumatized goats who had been shut out of the goatburping park when it all rolled downhill and blocked the gate, and finally the hiring of ten thousand new city workers to rake turds in the park.
With a record like this, I wasn’t sure how we kept electing Julian Rhoodie. But then I remembered, we kept voting for him, so that’s how he kept getting elected.
Turdgate reminded me of that day in September, 2017 when I dropped a plastic grocery bag full of turds in the middle of Rte. 118, a bag of turds I had begrudgingly produced as a result of a stopped-up toilet and nowhere else to go.
Rte. 118 is one of the busier routes connecting my confusing town with all the others. And so, the bagful of humanure was soon a bag empty—the odorous, ordurous mess mashed and smeared across the entire roadway. Apparently Fortune gave up on the bold that day and instead favored yours truly, for—as Luck would have it—there were no Himalayan Varnishing Gnomes nesting along Rte. 118’s gutters nor in its storm drains. Had there been, a novel form of black ice would surely have been invented in short order.
As it were, I drove away from the scene giggling uncontrollably like an immature child, proud of my accomplishment like no other, and relieved that Fate decided not to use me as a punching bag.
That eventful day ended with me screaming into the darkness like a headless rubber chicken, noshing heartily upon cold, congealed Chinese leftovers and a large block of the sharpest cheddar, and then falling −$51.9639 in the hole. (I wasn’t sure what hole this one was, but I was deep in it.) What followed could best be described as an unvarnished episode of wild goonflayvination amidst barefoot, bare-chested tater-totting, which was only brought to an end by the sudden appearance of 0.43 pounds of juicy, red pepperoni.
It took until Thanksgiving weekend to crawl out of that deep hole. What finally lifted me up was not my own bootstraps, but a spree of juvenile graffiti, some sesame noodles and Cuban black bean salad for the noshing, and lastly but not leastly, a large pile of first-class junk mail that needed a new home. There was more tater-totting of course, but this time what feet there were were hidden in fine, translucent stockings. A gigantic yellow elephant was in the way the whole time; this completed the surreal ensemble. When all was said and done, I made it +$13.4508 out of the hole. But I would always fall back into the hole. I always do. I can never escape… the Hole.
The daily balance must be maintained. I fall into the Hole, I crawl out. I fall into the Hole, I crawl out. Sometimes the Hole is filled with spiders, but I still crawl out. And, try as I may, I can never truly escape… the Hole.
[As an aside, those particular 0.43 pounds of pepperoni have a special place in the annals of Pnårpian history: They, and no others, are the grease-laden meat discs that inspired my ongoing all-pepperoni, all-the-time diet. There have been many other meat discs, meat sticks, and meat tubes in my long, Pnårpy life, but those were special. They will be remembered.]
I had a go at unstopping that toilet with a power drill and masonry bit, but then it leaked all over my bathroom floor. I was mad. Between explosive cursing and swearing, I entertained the idea that the power drill’s disturbing shade of chartreuse was to blame—perhaps it blinded my poor toilet?—so I repainted it an even more blinding blaze orange.
That didn’t help either. An hour later my poor ol’ toilet leaked in another dozen places, but was still as stopped up as a wizzle-nipf who ate nothing but hard cheese and red meat.
Ultimately, if there was one thing to be learned from the experience, it was this: Butt Bros. may make good asshats and buttwash, but they sure make a shitty, piss-poor toilet. And I learned that, in a pinch, a plastic grocery bag is a highly versatile tool for fecal porting and disposal.
This week I saved 1,000‰ on my car insurance by switching to the Blunder Bus. My dear old Trabi had lost all its wheels on Monday, in what I called an accident but what the insurance adjuster called simply putting the car into gear. Not involving a gecko strike, this was not covered. So I shoveled the Trabi back into the garage and decided to ride the blunderbuss for a while.
Last week and this week, shredded pizza rained from the sky, cast down by teratogenic turtles. At least it was pizza and not more feces (in a word, turtle turds). I gobbled up the pepperoni but daren’t eat any other pieces, lest I scupper my all-pepperoni diet and anger the vicious Owl Gods. With Fortune, Fate, and Luck now pummeling me senseless on a daily basis, I daren’t anger those ornery Owl Gods next. I also daren’t use the word “daren’t” again, lest I come off looking like a pretentious Victorian-era twit.
But moreover, last week I finally got around to lambasting the Butt Bros. CEO over their toilets. Rather than listen considerately to my complaining diatribe, he chose to act shocked that I had somehow gotten into his “secure” office building, then demanded that I leave and take my TV Guides with me. When I attempted to continue my diatribal complaining with my world-renowned, goat-like obstinacy, the guardsquirrels were summoned. I was booted down twenty-one flights of stairs by the six-foot-tall beasties. Being a six-foot-tall man–squirrel myself didn’t protect me from their squirrelly grasp.
I was 4½ years late delivering my harangue to Butt Bros., but a day late and a dollar short is better than no dollars at all.
The #9 Blunder Bus driver had disagreed however, and told me to get the hell off his bus until I came up with that additional $1. The dryer lint and ₤1 coin that I pulled from my right-hand jacket pocket was allegedly not “legal tender,” I was brusquely informed. Nor were the moist and crumpled TV Guides I carried. Nor even the empty box of Cheez-Its I keep around my neck for emergencies.
I squiffled nervously as the other passengers riding the blunderbuss started getting piqued and restless. One started bubbling. I rifled around in my various and sundry pockets for more foreign currencies (or objects) that might perchance serve as legal tender. A head from an old rubber chicken? No dice. A foot from an old RealDoll? No dice. Thirteen seven-sided dice? No dice.
Ah! The Canadian loonie sewn into my cravat? That was worth $1 (to some). Alas, still no dice—and one bubblingly impatient bus driver now. The six Brazilian dollars sewn into my codpiece? Alas, I had donated those to the city to pay for Turdgate.
But then I had an idea that would surely save the day: I reached into my left-hand jacket pocket and pulled out an empty plastic grocery bag…