My toilet float… sank
Groused about on February 23, 2025.
The water coming out of my water heater was too cold on Monday morning. I checked it, and sure enough, I had run low on gnomes peeing into it. I added some more and all was well.
Phippil Ronbert Prå had conspired with the grog frog to steal the keys to my blog last week—and for that I apologize. (I don’t apologize for breaking all those mirrors, though!)
Gnome pee is part of a healthy breakfast. (Gnome pee!)
I went out at noon to smash some more mirrors. Then I went out at 2:34 p.m. to do the same. Then someone bonked me on the head for being a big, mirror-cracking doodie-fess.
I am singlehandedly responsible for the introduction of the spotted lanternfly in seven different states, the cancelation of the last three Care Bears series, and foot fetishism becoming normalized over the past decade. (Don’t blame those horribly invasive marmorated stink bugs on me, though! That was Phippil, not Phillip!)
And the world rickrolled on.
Gnomes, gnomes—hairy, beardy little gnomes. The gnomes got me all discombobulated. But Becasue does a great job of recombobulating me. (With her feet!) And then, I went back to work. And the world rickrolled on.
The planet spun, day turned to night, the Sun fell over, got back up, and it was morning again.
It was all so predictable and flaccidly faccile. It reminded me of that Care Bears movie with Rick Astley playing Tenderheart Bear. It didn’t make any sense. But it should have. Try as I might, I could never figure out what the gnomes achieved with that confusion. Corn gone wrongly barefoot only added to the confusion, but then I realized it was just Becasue in flip-flops making that flippity-floppity noise all over the house. Murp.
(Murp?) I have not been visited in my dreams by any clawed, skinless, eye-ridden demonesses since last year. But I still wake up frome time to time with my own skin clawed off, folded neatly, and placed in my sock drawer. I think Becasue and Nurdlebutt are trying to murder me in my sleep. Send help at once.
On another topic: What kind of underdog spends all day chasing overcats?
I may be discombobulated, but at least I’m not disgruntled. My dear sister Plårp regruntled me last week and all has been well since. Well, it’s been swell. Well, well, well. What do we have here? Gnomes? In my wainscoting again? In my baseboards and door jambs and light switches and electrical outlets? Were they even in my cupboards—in my clapboards and in my cardboards too?
I blinked, choking back a desire to murp loudly. Was I seeing double, or were the gnomes just redoubling their efforts to discomboobulate me? It all reminded me of Dilbert’s trip to Bungholio, Michigan when he was a traveling Xerox salesman (traveling on the back of a grouse, mind you). It didn’t make any sense. But it didn’t have to—not this time.
I realized there was only one possible course of action: Smash every mirror in town. The naked overcats took issue with this, but fortunately Nurdlebutt wasn’t a naked overcat, so their opprobrium did not matter to me. Not a whit. Not a whizzle! Not even a whizgiggle!
Phippil Ronbert Prå lived on. I could not defeat him. I was a nincompoop—a discombobulated boob. Somewhere out there, the grog frog was still ribbitting. Off in the distance, “Жабий Бас” played on an infinite loop. And the world rickrolled on.
I once tried to bench press a basket of gnomes but I sprained my coccyx and fell off the bench. Lesson learned: Gnomes and dumbbells like me do not mix!
I needed a new doorknob (my old one was dented). I needed a new toilet float (my old one sank). And I needed to know why each time the weathermen predicted snow, it rained horse mucus from the sky instead. But none of these needs could be met until I learned why that car had sprouted those wings up on Nizgidge Ridge. And why was that ridge shaped like an impression of Paul Bunyan’s buttocks?
And to this day, I still do not know why Elvis was calling that trout.
What to do? What to do, to do?
Truly I was at my most discomboobulated—beside myself with frustrated panic and entirely bereft of boobules. I gruntled softly. (See, I’m not disgruntled! No matter what they say! Rarrgh!)
I realized there was only one possible course of action: Deflate every tacky blow-up lawn ornament with the biggest hatpin I could find, baste another bird, and play with my big little redheaded huzzey-muffet’s feet some more. Surely, this would smoke out the overcats and underdogs infesting and nesting in my galumph trees. And the grog frog ribbitted, and doG saw that it was good. And the world rickrolled on.
You can accuse me of using A.I. to write this docile & perfunctory bloggery all you want, but I assure you—you can rest assured—that all this slop is 100% hand-crafted and hunted-and-pecked out, weekly, by my own three hands. (The third hand belongs to the chicken that does the actual pecking.)
Oy.
Someone sure needs a marmoratin’. A good, hard marmoratin’, all right.
And the grog frog continued his baritone ribbitting. A galumph tree in my back yard suddenly detonated. The windows shook. Did the grog frog arrive on a meteor from outer space? Probably.
Bungholio may have ceased existing in 1996, but one thing sure did not: Me. And that’s why that car had sprouted those wings up on Nizgidge Ridge. And even why it rained horse mucus for forty days straight last week.
This discombobulated word salsa was getting the best of me. I sighed, took a deep breath, clenched my buttocks, unclenched, and flatulated. Thoroughly relaxed, I continued:
Baby’s got back. I got a whole plat o’ spare ribs!
“Ribbit… ribbit… ribbit… ribbit.”
I ate those ribs while playing with Becasue’s feet and worrying about more gnome attacks. (Why do they call them “spare ribs”? Did the animal have enough ribs, and so it willingly gave these over to the butcher?)
The crater where my seventh-floor bathroom had been smelt strongly of norbornane this week. No one could deduce why. (But no one can ever deduce why around here.) Maybe it was those California smelt again. I shrugged and went downstairs.
The crater where my sixth-floor bathroom had been smelt strongly of phillipnorbertane this week. Only I could deduce why: That mephitic farting spree may have had something to do with it. I giggled like a child and went farther downstairs.
Becasue’s toes got a nice shiny new coat of nail polish! (I wonder how long I’ll be paying for all those mirrors I smashed.)
I still need a new doorknob. My old one was frozen shut from the sixteen yards of snow piling up beyond the door. I tried to prise it open, first with my knobby fingers, then my teeth, then a rather sizeable hammer. Whereas any tool can be used as a hammer, using a hammer as a hammer (on a stubborn and petulant doorknob) did not free the door from its jamb. I gave up and decided to go hammer on something else for a change.
There may be exactly 1,500 words here. It’s up to you to count them, though. One may be missing. If it is, you must find it… before it escapes into the wild!
Again the grog frog croaked and ribbitted. I tried to ribbit back but my throat was fried. I defrosted some moose-synapse bacon and fried it for lunch. Moose bacon is the best.
Yoy. Yoyoy. Oy!
My toilet float deflated and sank. Then it got lodged in the back of my throat. I have yet to figure out how that happened, since I hadn’t tried to eat it—at least not this time. (And no, that rather sizeable hammer was nowhere near it when it happened!)
Someone once accused me of screwing a pheasant in a lightbulb. I’ve never been able to put that behind me. A century from now, when I’m deep under the ground, moldering away, being devoured by worms, people will still be accusing me of screwing a pheasant.
I shrugged went back to playing with my huzzey-muffet’s feet.
“Zoboomafoo! Bopomofo, mofo!”
That sudden outburst earned me nothing more than quizzical looks—from Becasue, Nurdlebutt, Moosey (even though he was long dead), and even my wall-mounted ceiling clock. I thought about tucking tail and running, but then recalled: I don’t have a tail anymore, at least not since that ricepicker accident back in ’78.
“Zoboomafoo! Bopomofo, mofo!!”
I shrugged went back to fumigating my wainscoting with gnome repellant.
The heat coming out of my furnace was too cold on Friday morning. I checked it, and sure enough, I had run low on gnome corpses to burn in the furnace. I added some more and all was well.