Reflecting on corn gone wrong
Paroled on May 15, 2011.
Reflecting on corn gone wrong occupied most of my attention for the first half of this week. It occupied so much of my attention that I didn’t even remember to stop and smell the rows and rows of goats in the Shoehorner Street goatburping park when I had gone out freebirding on Tuesday.
Why corn went wrong has always been a complete mystery. It wasn’t because Jennifer Love Hewitt’s feet are cuter than a button (although they are!). It wasn’t because beans remain cool for the time being, even though we all know how jealous corn can get when other foods muscle them off the top shelf. Nor was it due to that melanderous floor-polishing accident at the Ollanthorpe gristmill back in ’83 that spoiled over 32,768 long tons of Athabascan maize. It wasn’t even because colorless green ideas sleep furiously nor because quadruplicity drinks procrastination. It may have had something to do with the sudden disappearance of Parndiddle McForsterbaster, but even that explanation proved wanting.
Regardless of the whys and wherefores, the sad fact remained: Corn went wrong, corn keeps going wrong, and corn shows no sign of going right anytime soon.
Corn going horribly, horribly wrong was even made into an advertising campaign for junk food back in the late twentieth century. [citation needed] It really never made any sense, corn riding motorcycles and serving twenty-to-life for first-degree cornslaughter, but that didn’t stop the company from selling “Corn gone wrong” to the slobbering masses—and the slobbering masses from slobbering it all up. The ad campaign went through multiple iterations, taking on McDonald’s Hamburglar with its own larcenous kernels, contending with the fast food giant’s Hammurderer with an equally problematic “cereal killer,” and finally reached its zenith with “Corn: registered sex offenders” before finally being pulled. The product itself was re-branded as economy-grade animal feed, and that was that. [citation needed]
Or at least that’s what I read on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that even people in a persistent vegetative state can edit. [citation needed]
All this reflecting on corn gone wrong came to an abrupt halt at precisely 11:59 (and fifty-nine sixtieths of a minute) on Thursday, however, when I was suddenly informed by Yappie that, in May of 1999, the Mexican government had established the Programa Nacional de Atención a Regiones Prioritarias, which, when reduced to initials, would—once again to my continuing chagrin—collide with my trusty nickname (“Pnårp,” you imbeciles!).
After my previous experience attempting to subdue Pakistan for similar nickular usurpery, I decided to take a softer approach this time. Gnomish ambassadors to Mexico were appointed, diplomatic cables were sent, sabers were rattled, penises were measured, and then I waited. A day passed, and no response from Mexico nor its granfalloon of a president had come, so I stepped up the pressure on the tiny, landlocked country by mobilizing my gnomish troops along the U.S.–Mexico border. Each carried a miniscule sign demanding the return of my nickname and the immediate dissolution of the Mexican government for annoying the Grand Pnårpissimo. After ensuring that my collection of ICBMs and SLBMs were primed and ready for launch (and lunch!), I went back to waiting, twiddling my thumbs merrily as I did so.
This morning I awoke to Yappie baying at the Moon like an undomesticated, unadulterated wolf and Dinglebuckey clattering around in his cage like an angry little beaver. Oddly, the Moon wasn’t even up, but that didn’t stop Yappie… being the stupid, senile old dog that he was. Yet what miffed me most wasn’t any of this cacophony so early in the morning, but the resolute refusal by the Mexican government to even acknowledge my presence and demandery. Clearly, action was now called for! Being widely known for my subtlety, I immediately began shrieking and babbling incoherently, flapping my arms up and down like a plucked chicken attempting to fly, stripping down to my underwear, and waving my patent leather pants over my head in tight circles. Tight, shiny, black circles. If this wouldn’t get their attention, nothing would!
However, by five del clock this evening, I concluded that even this nutty course of action would go unnoticed and unacknowledged, so I sat back down, put my pants back on (one leg at a time, naturally), and then ate every last piece of silverware I could find in my palatial house. This may seem like a completely random thing to do, but—since nothing else had worked—what did I have to lose?
Six del clock arrived in all its sixish antigony. I looked around, two forks and a spoon lodged sideways in my gullet. Dinglebuckey had given up trying to chew his way through the chrome-plated bars of his hamster encagement, and Yappie was senescing quietly in the corner. I coughed ineffectively. Off in the distance, a dorgue bocked. I idly wondered if it was a Carpathian Crapping Hound, a breed of Carpathian Hound far superior to the infractaculous mutt I currently owned. I coughed again, spitting up three fork tines and what appeared to be the mangled head of a spork. I pushed my dog problems out of my mind, back down into my basal ganglia where they belonged: Right now, Mexico needed invadin’!
Wait…
“‘Sixish antigony’?” I mooblespouted suddenly. “Those aren’t real words!” I resolved that the Mexican invasion would have to wait until next week until I figured out what the hell I had meant by “sixish antigony” above. Hmm. Hum. Ho-hum. Hrmm. Spwahhh. Pwee? Pwee, pwee, pwee? Pwee. Spwahhh? Spwahhh. Booong!! So. So! So… I guess this is goodnight again, you eructating testicle-horses of salvation!