With Love for the Ladies

Men are truly simple creatures.
We come in tall or short,
fat or thin, and rich or poor.
That’s the extent of our diversity.
Don't bother looking for more.

One additional attribute
Bound to catch your eye
Is the boundless almost innumerable
Clans of "asshole” we currently occupy.

If I tried my best to hazard a guess
The Sarcastic Asshole Clan is mine
Where I have resided for a very long time

Women are a different creation, you see
When my song is sung your girl will be like
Finally a man who understands me!
Please don't take that personally.
The lyrics are an education
Learn quickly gents while the tuition is free.

There are many things a
Woman can and will be
one at a time up to twenty-three
simultaneously, maybe more.
I lose track constantly.
Count on your fingers or just nod
and smile along with me.
Here we go fasten your seat belts
tightly...

She can be
The last breath of Fall
The first hint of Spring
Awkward at times
but always a Beautiful thing.

Her voice is a perfect tenor.
the angels say, “God sent her.”
Have you heard her sing
(Yup, a beautiful thing)

She’s a cool summer shower
A hot masseuse who won't
Charge by the hour.
It's a contract deal you see
Is that seven or eight so far
It's a mystifying mystery

She’s a mom and a mistress,
A professional prom dress seamstress
She'll make an igloo a cozy place
With her tasteful knickknacks she got
at a steal shopping with Whatsherface
Her best friend for twenty years,
but her weird name always escapes.
So, it's "Whatsherface".

Now, I've lost my place, oh yeah
She's a Maytag repairman,
Sorry, Miss, repair ma'am
Do the math or a make a wild guess
You'll be wrong at what comes next.

Aw, what the hell? She changed
from a bathing beauty into an alchemist.
She'll turn lead to gold while feeding the
Baby on her breast, with absolutely no mess.
Hell, the baby and I are both impressed

When she enters the room,
She’s the girl next door
Meets Rosie the Riveter
Who won the Second World War
(While being cute)

Germans never knew what hit ‘em.

"Mine Got! It vas a whole bunch of Vimen!"

She’s got the caboose and the engine
Home or office freight train
running just a little late again
She had to stop to make snowmen
in the pouring rain.
Don’t ask her to explain
There she goes again!

She’s a doctor, nurse,
And ambulance driver
A sushi chef or a
Deep sea diver.




She’s a Queen, Jack,
Or a fighter Ace. 

Just give her ten minutes 

to put on her face.
An hour or so will go to waste.
(She was beautiful to begin with!)

That’s okay she can win the race
At the gym, the mall, office
or for that parking space.

"Back off! It’s mine!"

That's the Parking Lot
Asshole Clan kind.

She’s a silent poem and
Every love song.
In an argument you’ll
Always be wrong.
(Don’t you love that?)

In the end we both win
Some tender loving and...
What was that problem again?
(It never mattered)

She’s a broker, a banker,
and a naughty boy
Bare bottom spanker.

Ouch!

She’ll be late on foot,
by car, or unicycle.
She’s insists she can be
late for anything...
except her menstrual cycle.
(Amen!)

She’ll get the kids to bed on time
On that you can bet your last dime.
(She wills it!)

She’s a soothing ointment
or a witches brew
At night she’ll be a fine wine
In a glass or two
So will you when it’s
Just the two of you
Dancing around the room
Like you used to do
(Why’d we ever stop?)

She’ll fall asleep
With her head on your chest
In the morning, you made
Her hair a mess!
Hair Messing Asshole Clan 

is my guess.

She’s a caregiver
And a lunch order taker
An interior designer
And birthday cake baker

She’ll plant a garden
Watch it bloom
It’s her laughter
That lights up the room
(I love you.)

She’s Mrs. Santa, a reindeer,
Or a friendly elf,
Cleopatra, Laura Croft
Or Mother Eve, herself.

She’s a photo finish
And the forbidden fruit
She’s the hottest model
in a photo shoot

Well, guys this song is
down to the wire.
Put it to work.
you’ll discover
I’m no liar..

We’re just simple men
Short, fat, lean, or tall
So, for the ladies let's take a
moment of pause in awe.
(Look into her eyes, dummy.)
Now, let’s give ‘em all
A HUGE round of applause!
(Keep clapping. No, seriously keep clapping.)

Keep loving them, too
That’s the best we
simple creatures can do
A goodnight to the ladies
And your simple creatures, too.

HTB Chronicills - Current Crimes, Vol. III (An HTB Alcohology)

Character Color Index:
  Narrator’s lines: Black Text
  Author’s lines: Red Text
  Harold’s lines: Snorted hours ago

Begin your journey where you’ll meet Harold’s Tails. Stagger forwardish through Harold’s HTB Chronic-ills: Collection of Current Crimes, Vol. III the first two are in hock at the pawn shop (just like Spielberg when he started Star Wars with Episode IV). Meet Harold the Bum and his assortment of sordid sorts; mostly habitual, usually criminal, one magical, another non-corporeal, and a couple are exclusively cranial. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll throw up blood, and die. It will be fun, you’ll see. Follow me, I’m the Narrator who knows all and sees all. You’d be amazed at all the stuff I know. Being a Narrator is about as close to being God as any entity can achieve without being the Supreme Being. So, if you have any quest…

(Indecipherable grumbling from off stage.)

Well, I just thought it might be nice if the audience could participate in a dialogue with the Narra…

(Much louder and angry indecipherable grumbling from off stage.)

No… Very well. Okay then, we’ll do that then…

(Narrator resumes his PROPER function sharing his nothing like God, limited scope of knowledge with the audience as written by the author, who is much closer to The Maker, being a maker of things unlike narrators)

Yes, we’ll since the audience has read all that, I’ll just continu…

As written! As written!

Okay, I get it. I get it. (In a tone of exaggerated sincerity, the narrator resumes) Narrator resumes his proper function sharing his nothing like God, limited scope of knowledge with the audience as written by the author, who is much closer to The Maker, being a maker of things himself, unlike narrators.
(Narrator snaps) There! Was that good enough!?

(Author’s turn: Sounds of a backstage brawl which carries on for several minutes as audience listens to the pleading and alternate screams of the narrator, and then concludes with the narrator’s whimpering and sobs. Finally, thank Author, the narrator continues his narration after being penned a good thrashing in a “come to Author” encounter. A thrashing which could be easily and almost infinitely repeated should Author so choose. Anytime, anywhere, buddy.
Now, begin again.

(In a tone of serious fucking contrition, the narrator resumes) 

Meet Harold the Bum *sob* and his assortment of sordid sorts; mostly habitual, usually criminal, one magical, another non-corporeal (narrator motions an imperceptible finger at his undetectable self), and a couple of them are exclusively cranial. *sob, sniffle* You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll throw up blood, and die. It will be fun, you’ll see. Follow me, to the land of dry heave, stomach churning thrills, millions of rats, and unidentified pills, catch the latest, easily-transmitted and always terminal case of The HTB Chronic-ills.

You go ahead. I’m not feeling very well. I’ll catch up later. *sob* And now a word from our sponsor…

HTB’sHomeless Academy 

Coor's Katalog

Undergrounduate Studies

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Intro to Vagrancy - 0 Credits

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There's more to come from your resident bum... when he sobers up, because education is the only way to fully grasp how fucked you really are.

"It doesn't take a village to raise a child. 

However, it does take a village to raise an idiot."

Hurray we're Fucked

Thomas Midgley Jr. is not a common household name, but it aught to be. Tom was a chemist who solved one of humanity’s pesky issues with the internal combustion engine. Knock and ping was nearly eradicated by Mr. Mingley’s innovative idea to supplement gasoline with safe cheap and effective lead. He was subsequently awarded the prestigious American Chemical Society’s Nichols Medal in 1922 for his contribution to a greatly enhanced chemical society. A few years later, a few minor issues of greatly reduced sanity, lucidity, and rationality was noted at the factory where Tom’s Ethyl gasoline was refined. Tom created one minor issue which may have lead led to the extinction of all life on Earth. Tom went on to invent chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to propel our deodorant and expel our ozone. The deleterious affects of CFCs went unnoticed until some 30 years, and a hole in the ozone half the size of the Atlantic Ocean, later. Bill Bryson remarked of Midgley, “[He had] an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny.” You win some, mentally handicap others, and you almost lose everyone. That’s life. What the hell are you going to do?

Another scientist, whose name is equally alien to household discussions, stumbled upon Midgley’s oversight when he noted the ozone was evaporating faster than the Kardashian’s television ratings and an alarming number of terrestrial species, Kardashians most notably, were going retarded from lead gasoline additive. This researcher probably received a grant and a wall plaque before continuing on to fuck up other things someone else will have to figure out someday. That’s science. What the hell did you do?

In an attempt to restore his good name, Midgley would demonstrate how safe his lead laden hydrocarbons were by washing his hands in and huffing the gas for thirty seconds at a time. Inhalant abuse has seldom improved one's social standing, however his performance did improve the marketability of leaded gasoline for a few decades. That's hypoxia. He's turning blue.

In the golden years of Midgley’s life, chemistry’s karmic clown came a calling, and awarded Tom with a crippling case of polio. This may bring a smug smile of Gia’s retribution to both my post-modern druid and Seattle environmentalist readers. That’s misanthropy. What the hell is wrong with you?

Being the creative/ destructive being that Tom Midgley proved to be, he solved one of polios pesky paralysis issues by devising a harness, rope, and pulleys system which allowed others to get his now medal and award weighted, yet paralyzed body out of bed. Being a man of reason, Tom was woefully unaware of the finality karmic clown’s expect from their paybacks. Their motto is, “When the clown puts you down, God damn it, stay down.” That’s liable. What the hell is a Karmic clown going to do?

Before Tom could receive another award for his mechanical marionette ingenuity, the clown dropped the curtain on Tom when he became entangled in his harness and ropes which strangled him to death. Druids and environmentalists offer a standing ovation. That's ironic, and it's all true.

Small Crimes and Heavy Breathing in Green Lake

We have all spent an afternoon at or in Green Lake. If you haven’t, you must because a summer afternoon spent in the natural ambiance of Green lake will be well worth the price of making my initial assertion true. We know the trendy neighborhood which surrounds our beloved Emerald City’s Emerald Oasis. As an act of omaĝe or attention deficit bloom, we named that hipster neighborhood... “Green Lake”, as well. Let’s keep it simple for the Climate Change Deniers, and guys like me who felt compelled to wear my SCUBA gear from Woodlands Park Zoo until I safely crossed NW 85^th Street in fear of getting the benz. Let’s keep that last part confidential, between you and I, and the thirteen hundred or so other people that will read this and carry my, er… our secret to the grave. Speaking...er whispering of secrets, very quietly whispering of secrets...

Let's keep this one under wraps, too. I was so fucking close, another six feet and I would have made it. And it's my roommate's truck whom I told, "Wow! That's fucked up man. Who the fuck would do some dumb shit like that to a dude like you who usually pays his part of the rent within a reasonable time frame pretty much usually? Fucked up shit, it must have been stolen some time during the night, whilst* we slept."

* For those of you not incubated on this planet or within the last three centuries, the word "whilst" only makes an appearance in literature which can only be categorized as "Pure fucking fairy tales". Nowhere, else is it used in the modern English language, nor should it.

Anyways, we’ve all been totally ripped off ordering a coffee and vegan Danish or maybe it was a sandwich thingy because we were in coffeeshop poet turf way over our heads but thought we could fit in. They saw you and your single color, non-architectural haircut coming since the Northgate Mall MasterCuts. The coffee was really good. However, the vegan, whole something, ancient grain, fair trade, ozone replenishing (their claim, not mine) stuff on a gluten free ciabatta was not, in my estimation, a fair trade. Nevertheless, we still love Green Lake like a shining beacon on a hill… strike that. Like a brilliant guiding light drawing the highest concentration of acceptably tattered Che Guevara tee-shirts in the nation per capita. Shocking, isn’t it? It Rekindles the heady days of the 1980 Winter Olympics’ “Miracle on Ice” USA Hockey team. Green Lake trounces West Seattle in both the Che tee-shirt quantity and the exquisite dog-eared patina categories.

Viva Lago Verde! Shame on you, West Seattle. Where have you’re “So Left, we’re gone” values gone? Is that redundant?

Who cares? We’ll cross that West Seattle bridge if and/or when we need to, which isn’t now. We love Green Lake, because it’s cool and we’re cool. At least, I am and you’re… working on it. Coolness always attracts coolness, and Green Lake is no exception. It’s a textbook...nah, make that a Google Maps example!  

To the South of Green Lake stands Freemont like a fucking gangster keeping all that other Seattle weird shit outta’ our Seattle. Good looking out, G!

To the West is Ballard, which has a long history of sticking it to “the man”. Right on, Ballard! Ballard was an independent city until Seattle surrounded Ballard, then cut its water lines and forced Ballard to bow to “the man”. Boo, Seattle! Fremont’s gonna’ be running all up in your house soon.

To the North, straight up, is Crown Hill! How fucking cool is that shit? Green Lake wears a crown!

Ya’ know what? Fuck the neighbors. We love Green Lake because it is everything that makes it Green Lake, and not the shit that makes stuck up Mercer Island, or practically quarantined Magnolia, and most of all Green Lake is definitely not, I think I’m gonna’ puke, Shoreline.  

Granted, in Green Lake Bourgeois Capitalists still exploit the poor, dumb proletarian who, through no fault of their own, mistakenly mis-order a forty-dollar coffee and thingy, making wage slaves of us all for their decadent, imperialist conquests. The rest of Green Lake is spot on, though. Look…

Check this shit out. From this angle, Green Lake represents its street cred because…
Need I say more? Shut up! You’re not the boss of me… I call it, “synergy” because almost no one ever knows what that word means, even when it applies, which it does. So, I’m calling it what it is, which is “synergy.” Big whoop! Che would have taken a big Shoreline sized poop had he known his image would be co-opted by some hipster wearing Hollister trust-fund baby because daddy bought a hundred shares of MSFT in 1986.
Mercifully, Che lost his head in 1967, the year of my birth (Yup, it’s official,” synergy”), so El Comandante wouldn’t take a big, smelly Magnolia over Vietnam sacrificing a million Worker’s to spend their lives in Marxist-Leninist government sweatshops making Levi’s for the West. Hey, a buck’s a buck, and that’s a day’s wage for Ho Chi Min’s kids today.  Yeah, Communism is depressing because it’s like when you find out that the presents under the Christmas Tree didn’t come from Santa’s magical sweatshop elves, they were just made by non-magical sweatshop Southeast Asians. Same stature, but way different accent… depressing. Ah, well, pop a grip of Paxil and we’ll go to Green Lake.
Green Lake is multifaceted and unpredictable, see? This is Green Lake without the lip. However, it has the rest of the human features intact.
The testicle dropping thing about Green Lake is that it hides the visage of a real Working-Class hero… One even Che would proudly sport upon his chest. Si? I mean, See? Viva Dilbert!
Now, to seal the proverbial deal for the Grande Macho Cajones, you’re getting a pony, kind of cool that Green Lake exudes… Here they are exuding beautifully. Makes you just want to support that type of lactationaly exuding firm, ripe coolness. You gotta’ reach out and gently gather it all in your hand and squeeze. Communism is depressing. This shit is not. Fuck Communism. On, first thought, just keep your Communism and I'll be entertaining them and the other thirteen hundred or so other people who read this... concurrently. Like I said, I love Green Lake. In conclusion, Personally I don’t give a phuoc if you do or not. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass and rice bowl lunch menu meal at the Fila factory in Vũng Tàu.  I fucking love Green lake. Well, Love ya’, love your show, but I gotta’ go… to Green Lake.

 Fuck yeah!

Wisdom of the Prophet: Book X

Wisdom of the Prophet

Part X

The Perp is a Genius

Brilliant in his absence and absence of input!

The last words (or final fabricated wisdom) of Steve Jobs is, in my negligible opinion, quite beautiful. Yes, in my wholly unqualified judgment, the alleged utterance expresses an idea beautiful enough to take the silver medal in Mr. Jobs most revolutionary innovations, eclipsed only by the ubiquitous lower case "i".

Let's review this genuinely apocryphal message falsely attributed to Steve Jobs, although his family who were present for Steve's valedictory vocalisation refute he spoke the upcoming sentiment, I urge them to reconsider their position under the guidance of qualified legal counsel because it's a valuable legacy. 

I, for two*, believe Steve would have given us a single departing squeeze of the index finger if pressed for validity of content in lieu of authorship and assuming he could claim the work as proprietary intellectual property. I’m being respectfully, magnanimously sarcastic, of course, which is difficult to do. So, without further ado, let's review the departing dictation which Steve Job's didn't say...

(Quotation marks are used figuratively and as comic props)

“I have come to the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success. However, apart from work, I have little joy. Finally, my wealth is simply a fact to which I am accustomed. At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches of which I was once so proud, have become insignificant with my imminent death. In the dark, when I look at green lights, of the equipment for artificial respiration and feel the buzz of their mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of my approaching death looming over me. Only now do I understand that once you accumulate enough money for the rest of your life, you have to pursue objectives that are not related to wealth. It should be something more important: For example, stories of love, art, dreams of my childhood. No, stop pursuing wealth, it can only make a person into a twisted being, just like me.”

Profound, no? I want those to be my last words, especially the “twisted being” reference. We always look kindly on the dying who are charmingly self-effacing, like Gollum's death scene should have been. We like to believe our heroes, whom Steve is to many, were human too, and through this brief moment of frail humanity we too can gain access to all that made them more.

Whomever the real author is, I believe they were projecting a human moment into Steve that, “Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow” cannot relate (Steve Job's actual last words. A little disappointing, I know, but stick with me here). The prevaricating author wrote eulogy, not history. When judged on content rather than origin, the words construct a spectacular and philosophically enlightening passage, befitting Steve’s passage to the Hereafter and our passage into the hero made human that we might share in his glory, if only for a frail, fleeting moment.

To that counterfeiting copyist, I say ,"Bravo, you brilliant, lying bastard! Yes, Bravo! You made the human race look far more insightful and likable than we truly are… for a moment. But what a grand moment it was. Thank you for paying attention and remembering, “I don’t care if it’s true, just make it a good story.”



* - I'm assuming the fiction writer of funeral fraudulence and I are in agreement. 

HTB Chronicills - Harold's Explosive Exit

Harold couldn’t see the use in it anymore. He wasn’t even sure what “it” was, and he was completely befuddled on whether it was a inquisitive, “What is it?” or a declarative, “What it is!” Of course, Harold never considered anything at these depths, but he probably wouldn’t even if he could because Harold couldn’t see the use in it anymore. Life was bleak, uncaring, and sobering. The first two he considered an inconvenient truth, but the last had him looking for an exit sign.

He had already decided exactly how he would take himself out of the world. The same way he’d come into it... Whiskey and Propane. Yup, I said, “Whiskey and Propane.” But that's a different adventure all together completely a shambles. The Devil’s water and an explosive gaseous hydrocarbon would be the implements, and he had whittled the whole process down to three easy steps:

MisStep One: Drink the whiskey.

MisStep Two: Turn on the gas.

MisStep Three: Figure the rest out later.

Maybe turning on the gas first would be better. Get things moving along right away. It would be a real time saver, like showing up at the bar already drunk. That little gem had shaved at least 25 minutes off the unproductive front end of his binges. Added together that would be…Fuck it! What’s the point in doing the math? Math is so subjective anyway. You can do the same problem twenty-five times and never get the same answer once. Math is the Universal language but to Harold it was all gibberish. Pi is the same way and that’s math too.

Whiskey, propane, and pie! Now, that’s the way to go! His final meal, his last supper, well, last dessert, but what kind of pie is most befitting a Kevorkian closure? And easily shoplifted? Marion Barry!

Marion Berry was one of Harold’s favorite pies. It reminded him of crack and hookers, although he couldn’t remember why. It didn’t matter, there was no use in anything anymore to the exclusion of whiskey, propane, and Marion Barry pie. Oh, and a good epitaph. He would need one of those. He’d spent last night working on the candidates, and pulling lint from his navel. He’d come up with the semi-finalists:

1. “My most attractive feature was my alcoholic blackouts.”
2. “It’s not mine officer. I swear.”
3. “That’s mine officer. I swear.”
4. “Fuck, shit, damn it. I swear.”

He’d work out the winner by accident after he took care of his little “S” word problem. This was going to take some effort, which Harold was unaccustomed to exerting, or even considering. In fact, this may be the first time he’d be putting an effort into anything worthwhile.

He needed inspiration via inebriation for a show stopping epitaph. He also needed a bath, $1,740.00, a McGriddle (Sausage only, please), and a better way to control crotch odor in a sleeping bag, if you’re on the bum’s registry otherwise none of these are germane to this story line. [Narrator: Peeks his nonexistent head up to see if anyone in the audience is buying the claim.] The kind of epitaph that makes you set your beer on the headstone and bend over to read it up close, and after a minute or so you remember that you were urinating when you noticed the epitaph, and you still were. That’s the kind of epitaph he hallucinated.

He’d had great success last night, but a higher blood alcohol content would make him smarter, women better looking, and even the slightest incline treacherous. Popeye has spinach, Bugs Bunny has carrots, Bob Marley had pot, and Harold had every mind altering substance known to man, plus his personal discoveries. Three month old goldfish water to mention one. Maybe he could encapsulate that into an epitaph. Probably not.

Harold half shuffled, half wandered, and fully flailed his way to his favorite 24 hour grocery store. Roughly twenty-two and a half hours later, Harold was lowering property values in the liquor department.

His instinct said, “Go with the good stuff.”

His common sense remained conspicuously absent.

The rest of him said, “Drink. Drink them all. Now!”

Then, something inexplicable happened, Harold resisted all counsel and picked a reasonably priced single malt whiskey from Scotland, and walked to the self checkout line. Weird? Extending his peculiar behavior, he stood in line like a normal person. Everyone else wandered out of line shortly thereafter. Weird. He scanned the bottle just like in the commercials. Truly, a unique experience. He hit pay now, and starred at the display.

“Cash” Nope.

“Credit” Not going to fill out forms today.

“Other stuff I don’t understand” Weird!

No shoplift button? How inconvenient.

Damn! Whoever claimed the power to tax is the power to kill must have been a prophet because these taxes were killing his ability to kill his liver. A double homicide!

Oh, shit! The pie! Fuck this paying shit. I have to get my last, just dessert. Harold grabbed the bottle, stuffed it in his pants, and staggered away from the ill-equipped machine much to the delight of all in olfactory range.

In the bakery, Harold sleuthed out a fine, mold-free Marion Barry pie. Once more, the images of crack cocaine and hookers danced provocatively between his two remaining brain cells. Harold gyrated in unison. Damn! It was getting hot in here. So, he popped the seal on the whiskey and guzzled an ample portion and a half. Now, it was really getting hot in here! Back to the bottle once more. As Harold approached the produce section he was approaching saturation, and damn it was hotter than a desert iguana's asshole in this place. The register was just a few feet behind him. So, he kept walking, sort of. An undefinable increment of time later, Harold had committed three infractions and one gross misdemeanor without foreknowledge and absent any rearknowledge either. His rear was currently putrefying the seat below him in the cabin he and the boy had commandeered before he’d left for school.

School… Harold recoiled at the thought of the word, and all the thoughts that it implied. The boy could have stayed right here and got all the education he needed with Harold as his tutor. All he had to do was listen to everything Harold said, then do something, nearly anything else. He would have been fine. Maybe, even employed.

With the ritual precision of Japanese seppuku, lacking anything precise or remotely cool, Harold turned the gas on full, and drank heavily while eating his pie barbarically. The darkness crept over him, then scrambled for a cleaner place to sleep. Silence… followed suit.

The two toxified brain cells were alternately projectile vomiting into Harold’s ear canals, and ogling what they thought to be a Jennifer Aniston photo, but was, in fact, Michael Jackson’s mug shot.

The brain cells eventually graduated to dry heaves and passed out on or around their broken Q-tip swab decor. Mostly silence followed with a festive smattering of gallbladder gurgling and flatulence in accompaniment. The duet set the ambiance in Harold’s cavernous head.

THROB! THROB! THROB! Gurgle! THROB! THROB! THROB! Gurgle! THROB! THROB! THROB! Gurgle! Like some gigantic percussion artillery slamming out a nauseating discord reminiscent of a 1980’s Swedish death metal band of tone deaf elk smashing their hooves against the strings.

[The narrator pushes his limits and opines, “They all sounded like that, except for Yngwie. He was amazing.” Noticing the Author’s raised eyebrow, the narrator skulks behind the paper thin defenses of the book.]

THROB! THROB! THROB! Gurgle! THROB! THROB! THROB! Gurgle! The band played off, way off in Harold’s splitting brain bone. Hours later, much to Harold’s dismay, he awoke. The real issue in this coming of consciousness was that he woke alive!

That damn gas was bum-proof! Damn it! Rather than a killing blow, all he had dealt himself was a slightly discounted intelligence quotient and an augmented ill-tempered gallbladder. "What a fucked up way to start my day, after unsuccessfully ending my life", Harold thought as he lit his last cigarette before the flash. Slow motion combustion ensued. The fizzle seemed like a lightning bolt fuse which zig-zagged through the air between himself and the couch upon which the little lightning bolt came to rest. All time stood still but only for a brief reprieve as the Fates giggled like little girls again. In the explosion, the couch took Harold through the kitchen window, hyperspace, and something far more painful. That was all he remembered, except for the squirrel spirits which briefly tormented Harold’s soul before kicking him out in the cabin’s smoldering foundation’s yard.

We will gnaw through your nut sack!