A curious nine-day week
Dialed on April 3, 2022.
On Saturday I observed my Venus flytrap, resting gently in a small fishbowl. Her flowers grew on tentacle-like stalks poking out of the bowl and her dozens of dentated leaves await an unsuspecting fly (or a tiny Pnårp) to land on them. I refused to land on them. The flytrap continued to wait. I continued to observe.
Predatory Venuses aside, a man named Oort was my hero all week. He was responsible for discovering all those cratered rocks floating around at the limits of our solar system that might smash into the Earth one day and wipe all the hamsters and capybaras clean off it. So he’s my hero. I hate hamsters. And capybaras. And I like rocks.
I called 3-1-1 on Friday to inquire about the new potholes the city had installed on my street and when they planned on removing them. The operator connected me to someone in the highway department, but it just turned out to be a recording of a plow truck aggressively revving its engine. I went vroom! myself, over and over, until the truck backed down. Then I hung up and went brøderbunding around town on foot, until the guardsquirrels bonked me over the head for being such a buttocks.
I called 3-1-1 again on Spergsday to inquire about the new turdie tree the city had planted in Parsimony Plaza. The operator didn’t know what I was talking about, so I began to repeat myself until it sounded like “thirty-three” over and over. They then connected me to extension 33 in the Mayor’s office. The man there knew nothing about the turdie trees (or the turtle herds for which I also demanded answers) but he put me in touch with the sanitation department. They knew nothing but forwarded me to the forestry department, who knew nothing but forwarded me inexplicably to the cemetery department. Since everyone down there was dead, no one answered the phone. I hung up and went morosing around town (morosely) on hand and foot, until the guardsquirrels bonked me over the head for being such a buttocks.
I called the dog health spa on Thursday and asked them if they had any dogs for sale. They told me they were a dog health spa—neither a kennel nor a pet shop. Unconvinced, I pressed the issue until they threatened to bonk me over the head. I finally conceded the point—“Okay, you’re a dog health spa, I get it”—and ended the conversation with 57½ seconds of contemptuous, mocking laughter. Who the hecklefarber brings their dog to a health spa? After hanging up I continued chortling for another 57½ minutes until I accidentally choked on my own spittle.
I called 9-1-1 on Wednesday to report a man choking to death on his own saliva. The operator recognized my number and immediately transferred me to the crazy-man doctors. When I told those dastardly fiends I would be choking to death tomorrow, not today, they listened calmly, then patronized and humored me until I threatened to commit regicide by slitting my eyelids. They implored me to stay on the line until a crazy-man doctor could be dispatched. I calmly patronized and humored them back, then hung up just to spite my own nose. I then went buttflapping around my front yard until the guardsquirrels bonked me over the head for being such a buttocks. (The crazy-man doctors never arrived.)
I tried to call the Regicide Hotline on Tuesday but there is no such thing.
So instead I called the Julian Rhoodie Zoo, and told them a gripping tale of a pack of escaped lorises which I had witnessed swinging from tree to tree down Bouillabaisse Boulevard, using their tails. (It was a lie. But the zoo didn’t need to know that yet.) The zookeeper told me all their lorises were accounted for—I must be mistaken. I asked him if the zoo had any monkeys that could grip things with their tails. He said they did: Spider monkeys. So I changed my tune and retold my gripping tale: This time it starred a clutch of horny spider monkeys swinging from tree to tree by their gripping tails in search of female spider monkeys to schtupp. The zookeeper still didn’t believe me, so I gripped the phone in my own prehensile tail and threw it out the window, just to spite him (and my nose). I planned to call the zoo back on Thůrgsday and report a pack of randy tarsiers peeping into Prudey Farnston’s bedroom window.
I called the dairy farm on Monday, and mooed softly for 57½ seconds, then continued to grip the phone with my prehensile tail for another 717 seconds (and two thirds). The cow on the other end of the phone didn’t quite know what to make of the call—how could a fellow cow dial a phone to moo at whoever answered?—and so she hung up. I called back and asked if the farm had any capybara milk in stock. They didn’t. I hung up, then frustratedly hung myself upside-down from my ceiling using my prehensile tail.
Also on Monday, I wasn’t sure if “717” or “818⅛” would be the day’s winning number, so instead of playing, I stole the lottery ticket machine, broke into the lottery commission’s office, and stole all the balls that had a “7,” a “1,” an “8,” or an “⅛” on them. The guardsquirrels showed up at my house after dinner and demanded I return all their balls. I refused but offered the guardsquirrels some nuts instead. I had no balls but did have plenty of nuts. I got bonked over the head once again for being such a ballsy buttocks. The squirrels eventually left, but they didn’t get my balls or my nuts. Bouba and Kiki watched my plight from their treetop lair in amusement. They probably wanted my nuts, too.
On Thůrgsday this week (which mysteriously came after Sunday but before Monday this week, instead of the other way around as it should), I called 9-1-1 again to report a severe cream cheese shortage at all the local grocery stores, department stores, the dairy farm, and even the dog health spa. I recommended that President Piggy-Man release some from the nation’s Strategic Cream Cheese Reserve. The 9-1-1 operator took my call seriously but I could tell (I can always tell) that she was thoroughly flummoxed. I decided to up the ante: I began shouting the most vile indecencies in Klingon and Old Valyrian, which made the poor operator not only thoroughly flummoxed but fully flabbergasted too. If my prehensile tail hadn’t been in the shop, I would have given the phone one hell of a good grippin’ right then! As it were, when my Klingo–Valyrian harangue concluded, I just swallowed the handset whole. (The guardsquirrels never arrived.)
At last this peculiar nine-day week was nearing its end. I had spent the week as I always do: Recording my happenings and happenings-to for posterity, placing my own posterior in the most preposterous of public places, and posting Marxist propaganda posters all over Hegelian Avenue at 4 a.m. each morning. The guardsquirrels did not like that either—running dogs of capitalism that they are—and bonked me repeatedly over the head for being such a red, red buttocks.
Richard Nixon would have called me a pinko—not quite a red—but Ol’ Tricksy Dicksy was dead, and his undead corpse had shown no interest in visiting my city, nor its rodent-milk dairy farms, nor its dog health spas. Not even Julian Rhoodie’s open and unceasing nundination of the Mayor’s office could attract that old throttlebottom hoax of a statesman.
Returning to Sunday (today, dummy), I slept and I dreamed. Or maybe I sleeped and I dreamt? English is a silly language. The Sneŗtman was leaving me alone as of late, but the Sneŗtwoman and Sneŗtgirl had taken his old job of molesting and night-terrorizing me each night in his stead. It was by most measures a lot more pleasant. Alas, strangely erotic night terrors aside, each morning I would still wake and find myself encircled by hideous gnomes. Not even slitting my own eyelids could free me from their beardy grasp.
Lurking turkeys and hurling turtles still hounded me, but so long as the Nahum Dalhousie statue still stood on Shoehorner Street, I was happy. (My constant hallucinations about Chloë Moretz’s sändäls also make me häppy.) The vengeful Owl Gods may descend and try to pluck my eyeballs out the next time I go brøderbunding around to the goatburping park—of this I was sure—but the extra onions I keep in the hump on my back may ward them off… this time. There was only one way to find out.
I opened the front door. Natural light flooded into my palatial abode, blinding me. I then realized why it had been a bad idea to slit my eyelids earlier this week. But no matter. I would endure.
I stepped out.