Q-Tips, cute tips, a queue of tips
Exfiltrated on September 22, 2024.
And so there I was, merrily preparing to make myself a pot of coffee, with nary a care in the world, when suddenly I saw it: The delicate coffee filter I was about to prise loose from the stack of them and insert into my waiting coffee pot… was damaged. It was torn. It was useless.
I whimpered. How ever was I going to make coffee now? After the epic saga of trying to prise it loose, and finally accomplishing this with minimal injury to me (and the other coffee filters), I set it gingerly on the edge of the counter and peered morosely at it. I began gruntling softly. It was torn. It was truly useless. How ever was I going to make coffee now?
There was only one thing to do. Off to the Spend-O-Mart I went to indignantly demand a refund.
Hours later I returned home, still wretchedly sans coffee and even more wretchedly sans my money back. (I also lost a lot more of my hair on the return journey, but that’s neither hair nor there now.) I was mad. I made more gruntling noises, likely loud enough to wake the dead. Those thieves! Those scurrilous thieves! Those scurrilous thieves at the Spend-O-Mart refused to refund me a whole ha’penny! My ha’penny! I was madder than mad.
My profuse perfusion of grumping and gruntling didn’t wake the dead—but Becasue was the next closest thing, and it woke her. My big little redheaded huzzey-muffet didn’t see eye-to-eye with me on the importance of my plight. (And this was not because I was wearing her platform shoes again, although I was.) After much ensquiffling and babblery, back-and-forth gesticulating and furious underdunkery, and unsuccessful attempts to explain the importance of that purloined ½¢, I was left with only one argument. “—But, but…! But my ha’penny!”
It didn’t work. Becasue just shook her pretty little head and started back upstairs—taking her pretty big feet (and her platform shoes) with her. Unable to make my morning coffee, I put the remaining stack of filters away, the coffee grounds away, the pot away, the powdered creosote away, the cow away, and the milking machine away. Everything was put away—put so far away that some of it may never emerge from the cabinetry and closetry again. Especially that cow: She sure didn’t like being locked away in my closet. She put up quite the struggle!
Becasue still wasn’t talking to me. I still wanted coffee. I was still mad and forlorn and disgruntled and high-dudgeoned over my decaffeination, and she was still sore over being herded into that closet. There was only one thing left to do: I retreated to the bathroom and decided to occupy my lethargic brain with the banal exercise of personal hygiene: I had teeth to brush, hair to comb, noses to blow, and ears to swab out.
And so there I was, merrily buffing my teeth to a high gloss, about to reach for the cutest of Q-Tips, planning out my auricular spelunking, with nary a care in the world, when suddenly I saw it: One of the Q-Tips was damaged. It was bent. It was useless.
I gruntled loudly.
An ebony statue standing on my face forever had become the general theme of my nightmares and daydreams all week. Yet there I was, still wanting coffee, with ears (all of them!) disastrously unswabbed, with nary a car in the world, when suddenly I realized: That wasn’t a typo, my Trabant was still parked at that gas station. Proud and mighty she was, she lacked the ability to drive herself home when I abandon her in unfamiliar places like that. There was only one thing to do: I sauntered sheepishly down to the gas station, swaggering as meekly as I could, again wearing those highest of platform shoes, no socks except the ones on my head, and, to complete the ensemble, a final pair of fine commas whom I couldn’t finagle into this elaborate sentence.
My Trabi was not at the gas station where I left her. The attendant was clueless—even more clueless than I. Yet molybdenum rhinestones and basalt-flavored energy drinks—high in potassium!—were on sale at the counter, so I bought a few. At least my trip wouldn’t be a total waste of time and money. (I still wanted my ha’penny.) The attendant was indeed so very clueless—he wasn’t even aware of the gnomes unspooling all the lottery tickets and reading the winning numbers, the fool!—and so I tottered off, sauntered all wobbly, swaggered unsteadily, and again stuffed excessive, superfluous, and supernumerary commas into a sentence, this one, until it burst.
Crests risen from all that liquid basalt energy I had slurped up, rhinestone-bedecked necklace tinkling merrily, I located my faithful Trabant: Parked aside Stubblebine Street, alongside other cars and car-like things, astride the sidewalk, and lying on her side. Horrified that my Trabi had died of thirst from my neglect, with crests now predictably fallen, I pushed down my rising panic and fell to my knees alongside her front axle. CPR proved useless but my last energy drink did not—I was back home in no time. From there I called a tow truck and had my dead Trabi righted and dragged back to my garage.
Someone asked me once, “Why didn’t you just use another filter, Pnårp?” I shot back: “If you rip a hole in a net, don’t you now have fewer holes than you had?”
Someone asked me once, “Why didn’t you just use another Q-Tip, Pnårp?” I shot back: “Did you know, the word ‘queue’ is the letter Q with a bunch of silent letters waiting in a queue?”
Someone asked me once, “Would you like a tip, Pnårp? If I were you—” I shot back: “My fingers have ‘fingertips’ but my toes don’t have ‘toetips’—so why can I ‘tiptoe’ but I can’t ‘tipfinger’?”
This is when that someone stopped talking to me.