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Weak XVI

16 April 2012

No. 2,074 (cartoon)

I dream about you warmly.

You should nightmare about me frigidly.

17 April 2012

Theresa’s Sad Childhood

Theresa spent the first seven years of her life living with the band of Yemeni outlaws who kidnapped her as an infant then failed to find anyone to pay her ransom. Both of her parents died in the raid that freed her. She still uses the small knife with the rhinoceros horn handle with which she repeatedly stabbed her captors’ dead bodies. She now works as a dominatrix for wealthy clients who pay to be mutilated with that particular knife. Camel meat and dates comprise most of her diet. She hasn’t left Oklahoma in almost thirty years.

And none of this is true.

18 April 2012

Gratuitous Photo of the Weak: Please No Dogs

Dr. Taylor and I were walking down a quiet Berkeley street when we spotted a miniscule yard sign attached to a toothpick. The message was simple: Please No Dogs. We agreed that the omission of the comma between “Please” and “No” was intentional.

19 April 2012

Levon Helm

Levon Helm recently died from throat cancer. That has to be a terrible way to go for anyone, but especially for a singer. It seems that anybody who ever worked with him praised him in one of the eulogies and obituaries I’ve read.

Of course. How can anyone not like a guy who hailed from Turkey Scratch, Arkansas?

20 April 2012

Four-Twenty

Today is the twentieth day of April, an occasion that means different things to different people. This is the birthday of Adolph Hitler. For hippies, this is Marijuana Day; “four-twenty” is shorthand for marijuana. Why they chose a three-syllable nickname instead of using the established, one-syllable word “pot,” this I do not know. I guess it’s because stupid things aren’t stupid when one is on drugs.

And so, hundreds of hippies are in the park smoking kilograms of marijuana, dozens of Nazis are distributing their vile little pamphlets, and every one’s a bit dumber than yesterday.

21 April 2012

Cochineal Beetlejuice

The Starbucks megacorporation has a problem. Megaproblems, in fact, but here’s the relevant one for today’s story. For some reason, a significant percentage of its customers are complaining about the color of the company’s strawberry Frappuccino drink. Or, more accurately, the source of the beverage’s garish color: crushed cochineal beetles.

The company dealt with the outcry by announcing their chemists would use tomatoes, not beetles, to color the “strawberry” beverage. This may just be a temporary measure. A trade journal, Genetic Engineering Monthly, reported that Starbucks researchers are scrambling to engineer some sort of naturally red fruit with which to color their overpriced drinks.

22 April 2012

No Future

“In the future, please don’t leave your boots in the stairwell,” Cheryl requested.

I agreed that I wouldn’t, then went on to pour each of us another glass of wine.

When Cheryl came back with another bottle, she asked why my boots were where I left them.

“I thought I told you not to leave them there,” she reminded me.

“But you said in the future,” I replied.

After uncorking the new bottle, we proceeded to have an ill-informed discussion on the nature of time. I argued that we could never be in the future or the past, only the present. Cheryl made the persuasive argument that I’m an idiot. We squabbled until be both got bored and changed the subject. Nevertheless, I felt I won because she forgot to ask me to move my boots again.

23 April 2012

Love in Egypt

Egyptian lawmakers are trying to increase the opportunities for love—or at least sex—at both ends of the age spectrum. One proposed law would lower the legal marriage age to fourteen. A separate piece of legislation would make it legal for a husband to have sex with his dead wife up to six hours after her death. Egypt’s National Council for Women protested both bills, but backers of the latter pointed out that it’s not sexist: woman can also have sex with their dead husbands for the same period.

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©2012 David Glenn Rinehart