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Weak XII

19 March 2020

No. 6,775 (cartoon)

None of this will matter when I’m dead.

You’re hallucinating that it matters now.

20 March 2020

Instant Coffee and Poetry Death Wish

Bernie and Dahlia are a couple uncoupled at the moment. He’s under house arrest in Moldova for some sort of intractable visa problems, or maybe a passport snafu. It’s just one of those international things. In any case, he won’t be leaving the Savoy Hotel in Chisinau anytime soon.

I’ve never met Bernie, but it sounds like he’s having a breakdown. Dahlia said that he begged her to ship him a carton of instant coffee and suggested they recite poetry over the phone, “to keep their love alive.”

Instant coffee and poetry readings? Oh dear, that sounds like a cry for help if not a death wish. I’m not the smartest knife in the drawer, but even I know enough not to get involved in someone else’s romantic relationship, or lack thereof. I’m sure Dahlia and Bernie will sort things out; couples always figure these things out, unless they don’t.

21 March 2020

Pathetic Filler

I feel sorry for Enrico; he has way too much money. He misses out on seeing so much of what life has to offer by viewing everything through financial goggles.

He has lots of aides and contractors who take care of all of his wants and needs; I wouldn’t be surprised if he has someone on his payroll who puts the toothpaste on his toothbrush for him. I’m all but certain that he’s never experienced the insights gleaned from the involuntary meditation of housework.

I was washing the dishes this afternoon when I had a great idea, maybe even a brilliant idea. It was unforgettable, or, more accurately, it would have been if only I could remember it. I suppose that’s what I get for not drying off my hands immediately to take notes. As a result, this pathetic filler is all I scribbled today.

22 March 2020

Dr. Wiles Is Really Old

Dr. Wiles turned sixty-five today, but it’s an uneventful milestone. This is normally the age at which one can retire, but since he, like me, hasn’t really worked, that’s not an option. There’s no birthday party, either, what with the virus quarantine and all.

I decided to give him a celebratory call; that’s what supportive friends do in situations like this.

“Happy birthday!” I exclaimed. “You didn’t become old today; you’re now really old!”

“You got me there!” he replied with wine-flavored joviality.

“But you want to hear the funny thing?” he asked. “People younger than us are getting older too, so the joke’s really on them!”

Ha. Ha. Ha.

23 March 2020

Death and Taxes

As Benjamin Franklin sagely observed in his letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy centuries ago, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Or perhaps not ...

The deadline for filing federal income taxes in the United States has been moved back from 15 April to 15 July. Anyone who dies during that ninety-one day period will legally get away without paying taxes!

pResident Drumph has claimed that he’ll have done “a very good job” if he only kills a hundred thousand Americans through his inaction and incompetence, but I think he is, for once, misunderestimating his colossal ineptitude. I fear that hundreds of thousands of unfortunate people will win the federal death or taxes game of chance. At least it has much better odds than any of the state lotteries.

24 March 2020

Contemplative Chess Strategies

Abbie agreed that my idiotic idea that better chess pieces would make me a better chess player was idioticker than usual. She loving lectured me—or perhaps not so lovingly—that the most important thing about a chess set was its location, not its fabrication.

She said she only plays chess “in the most meditative room of the house,” her bathroom. She asked me if I wanted to see a picture of her marble board mounted on a brass pedestal that doubles as a toilet paper dispenser.

“Very classy!” I lied, “but I already have the image in my head.”

I was polite and didn’t add that I was doing everything I could to unimagine it. Urinating and defecating during a chess match to possibly gain a competitive advantage? Sheesh, it’s only a game.

25 March 2020

Shell Eggs?!

Food packaging amuses me, but since I’m having a good day today pretty much everything does. The jar of peanut butter contains this red flag: WARNING: CONTAINS NUTS.

And then there are the egg cartons. I can’t understand why anything is printed on the container other than something like, “One Dozen Chicken Eggs (Twelve in Number),” but then I’m not a lawyer. Instead, I found a disturbing footnote to the required labeling ...

* NO HORMONES ARE USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF SHELL EGGS.

Shell eggs?!

What other kinds of eggs are there? Are there genetically-altered chickens that just expel the albumen and yolks without all those redundant shells? Perhaps strapped into some sort of contraption that allows them to pass the gelatinous mass directly into some sort of single-serving packaging?

The hormone notice was supposed to make me feel good about the inexpensive embryos, but it had the opposite effect. When I read something like, “These chickens were housed in a nurturing environment and have never been subjected to verbal abuse,” the first thing I wonder is what other kinds of abuse they’ve suffered. I don’t want to think about how many different carcinogenic additives are in the hormone-free eggs.

In rereading the previous sentence, I spotted the solution to breakfast anxiety as well as so many other problems, real and imagined: don’t think.

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart