Pnårp’s docile & perfunctory page

Endorsed on March 19, 2023.

Tuesday: The day ended before it began—and then it began again, for, you see, time ran in a loop today. And today, and today, and today.

Last week’s detritivory came to an abrupt close this past Monday when I found something tastier to nosh upon than detritus. Becasue also grew tired of me writhing around and moaning like the featureless white worm that I had become. So, I regrew my spine and went back to being the doofus-shaped, six-foot-tall man–squirrel that she knew and loved. (And which the gnomes fear and loathe, because I finally found the last of their burrows and warrens under the sidewalk, and took to them with a flamethrower!)

Unfortunately the gnomes that I extirpated were Tyrrhenian Time-Traveling Gnomes and, in so doing, I had also reduced their time machine, which they kept in those tunnels, to molten slag. And so the day ended before it began—and then it began again, for, you see, time ran in a loop today. And today, and today, and today.

Roy G. Biv was up to his colorful antics again on Tuesday; once again he joined the other men of the bad poetry club on street corners around my town and made everyone miserable. Among other quirks, he was also known as the most frugal man alive: He reused his trash bags a dozen times before patching them and using them a dozen more times. His frugality was only outdone by his possessiveness, which in turn caused him to horde everything that he came to possess—including his trash. So, he never threw out a single trash bag in his entire life. Up they piled—piled and piled. He was 64.

This was the poetry the quartet of natterbouts recited atop the mailbox where Witherspoonworth Lane collided with Bouillabaisse Boulevard. Many a shoe were indeed thrown at the men, from each and every window around, but they did not cease. Mail delivery dropped by a whole 8.18% this week. Only the fallout from an exploding whale corpse could have made a finer area denial weapon than these men. Agitated and slightly crestfallen at having to endure these garrulous fustianists, I slammed all my doors and windows shut, shut all the shutters, taped up all the cracks and seams, and then glued my ears shut. Becasue did the same.

My draft horse returned to me on Tuesday. Or, was returned to me—postage due. I let him run free in the nearby field of gorse, a horse—of course—trotting about a field of gorse. Roy endorsed this forcefully, I ahorse and he thoroughly enhorsed himself—the whole affair was, in due course, for his poetry, becoming an ideal source.

My big little blonde huzzey-muffet’s toenails were a bright golden yellow now. Becasue dorsiflexed her feet daintily, showing them off. The horse—now named Hoss, for lack of a better name—horsiflexed. It all made a queer yet rhythmic bit of sense. “Truly I have outdone those awful poet-men clattering around outdoors,” I smarmed. But Poet-Man Roy was also the most jealous man around, so my new status as an equally poor poetaster was unlikely to remain unchallenged for long.

Tuesday repeated itself and my draft horse came back again. Of course I set him loose in the field again, but he didn’t want to go this time. You can lead a horse to gorse, but you can’t make him floss. At a loss, I let Hoss II stay in my six-car garage. (I suppose it was now a five-car, one-horse garage, but such iminimulous details are best left to the team of overworked and underpaid copy-editors I keep locked in my basement.)

Tuesday repeated itself a third time and I now had a third horse to contend with (also named Hoss). Soon I would be out of garages. But not horses.

Peeing on our drones and threatening to invade Finland over a diplomatic incident involving choking a chicken—this is what our adversaries were up to. It made my life look downright boring. But when I suffered a freak nose-blowing mishap on Tuesday, things changed. It took me the better part of the day to pick up the pieces—my noses were scattered everywhere. When I collected the nostril that landed under the stove, I had a strong sense of déjà vu. I bounded upstairs and fetched my nose log, perused it (nosily), and confirmed my suspicions: On August 5, 1990, I had suffered an identical accident after insufflating four golf tees. So, things were getting interesting again. Perhaps I could find a drone of my own to pee on.

Somewhere amongst all these words I thread a coherent narrative, but unless you have seventeen eyes and a four-lobed brain resting gently behind them, you’ll be hard-pressed to piece it together. Poet-Man Roy may enjoy saving his trash but Pnårp likes to jam his in empty cream cartons and hide them in surprising places around town!

Pissing like a racehorse, pissing on a racy horse, or pissing off a racist horse—which to put on my “to do” list for today? Well, today is Tuesday, as is tomorrow, so I could do it all. And then some. Well, except piss: The sewer was backed up all the way to 229B Bouillabaisse Boulevard.

The worse part of Tuesday now followed its erstwhile better part: Atop the mailbox, reaching for the lamp post above, Mr. M’Nummenschantz neighed. Then, along with Mr. Snulbug and thirteen golden cockroaches, they began chanting:

It got weirder. More cockroaches joined. The Hosses in my garage joined. The mailbox shuddered under the weight of all those bad rhymers standing atop it; the box collapsed. The work crew repairing the equally collapsed sewer in front of my house leapt out of the way just in the nick of time.

As I watched this scene unfold, increasingly crestfallen, another Hoss (a horse) began frolicking in the nearby field of gorse. Then, the screams of thousands of dying cockroaches erupted—a sizzling noise—and lastly the smell of roasted chitin.

My crests resumed their normal elevation. Alas my flamethrower was out of flames to throw.

Tuesday repeated itself again. This time around, I dispensed with eating detritus and—finding myself all out of bagels (since I recently ate too many in a single day)—I took up munching on the carpet for a while. Verily, this was much better. No one—least of all my cornfed cutie—would deny that. The gnomes tried, but a quick flick of the flamethrower put a stop to their natterings.

Broiled gnome was what’s for dinner. Yet the Great Rotten Fishpile had reassembled itself on my stoop. I stooped to scoop some up and fling it at a passer-by on Bouillabaisse Boulevard—or perhaps at the next horse to appear on my doorstep begging for a place to stay.

Thoughts of the voluminously efflubious Dors Feline clattered around inside my monkey-sized, monkey-shaped brain. I blinked and shook my head. Such distractions this loopy week contained! As the Tuesdays wore on, my garage continued to swell with Hosses. Stalin has been dead for seventy years, but this was just getting started. “Gargle My Arglebargles” by Three Fat Fish played on an endless loop on my MP3 player. Lastly, I hadn’t heard a screaming star in months, my dishwasher porcupine had flushed himself in despair, and I couldn’t find a single intact bar of soap anywhere in my house. A puddle of blood-red liquid dish soap was slowly spreading out across the kitchen floor, but not a single bar of the saponic stuff was to be found. Hidden under a gnome’s ass was a tank of laundry detergent—but not a single bar of soap could be had.

I searched every cupboard, every drawer, and every one of my many pantries and basements. Panic rising, lithe porcupines slithering down my veins and out my pores, at last I remembered where a bar might be. I ran upstairs.

Indeed, at last, at long last, I found a bar of soap—sitting on a shelf over the bathtub, exactly where one belonged. It’s always in the last place you look! I picked it up. I frowned. If I had any crests left, surely they would have fallen to an all-time low.

My last bar of soap was dirty and for the life of me I could not figure out how it got that way—or how to clean it off. For, all my soap was inaccessible, hidden beneath all the dirt! What to do? A conundrum! A dilemma! Tuesday would end soon, then begin again. I sat down on my stoop and cried. Off in the distance, Mr. Snulbug and Roy G. Biv started barking out a new poem.