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Weak II

9 January 2021

No. 5,843 (cartoon)

I’m a fountain of wisdom.

You’re spewing shit.

Consider yourself blessed.

10 January 2021

Speedy Dizzy

Lara was feeling dizzy so I poured her another stiff drink. That may sound counterintuitive, but only to someone who doesn’t have my grasp of modern science and planetary physics.

A lot of people blame Coronorama for their spectrum of current woes. Two million dead people make a strong case against the virus, but it’s not the source of most mild complaints. Nope, here’s the reason you and Lara are out of sorts: the earth is spinning faster than ever. As a result of the quicker rotation, the timekeepers who periodically add a lead second may, for the first time, need to subtract one. (When that happens, I’ll leave it up to the linguists to determine whether that’s still a leap second, a leap back second, or perhaps even a new word entirely.)

And if you too are feeling dizzy, take off your mask, pour yourself a cocktail or perhaps some smelly tea, and relax.

11 January 2021

Slasher Wine Bottle

I’ve handled tens upon tens of thousands of bottles—sorry about the large, vague guesstimate; I gave up keeping an accurate tally when I was seventeen—over the course of decades of imbibing: absinthe bottles, ale bottles, beer bottles, bock bottles, bourbon bottles, brandy bottles, champagne bottles, cognac bottles, gin bottles, mezcal bottles, porter bottles, rum bottles, sake bottles, scotch bottles, sherry bottles, stout bottles, tequila bottles, vermouth bottles, vodka bottles, whisky bottles, and more.

Let the record show that I’ve never had a single problem with any of those bottles. (Their contents are another story for another day.)

I took wine bottles off that alphabetical list this afternoon after I slashed open a finger on a bottle that I didn’t even open. I didn’t believe what I saw with my only eyes; I’ve learned to rely on my Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar in these situations.

There is was: a sharper than razor-sharp shard of glass extending perhaps two or three millimeters from the smooth surface of the bottle. It appeared to have been there since the molten glass cooled. My profusely bleeding finger and my Makro-Planar agree that I’m not imagining this one-in-a-daxillion manufacturing fluke.

I put the corked bottle on a remote shelf for my next show-and-tell party or if a blizzard prevents me from a scheduled trip to Lonnie’s Liquors, whichever comes first.

12 January 2021

The Paradox of Time

Penelope interrupted her whining about how thoroughly bored she’s been for ten Coronarama months to confide that she’s afraid of a premature death.

She said all of that in the same breath. Two at the most.

I love the paradox time; there’s so much and yet so little of it.

13 January 2021

Colon Meat Stew

I owe almost all I know about grammar, punctuation, and all that technical wordy stuff to Dr. Arnold.

Please reread the previous sentence if you’re thinking about pooh-poohing his prowess and note that I wrote “all I know,” and not, “all he knows.” Those two conceptual brainial volumes are several orders of magnitude apart.

I’ll never forget the first tutorial he gave me about how critical the right punctuation is. He showed me two sentences, one with a comma, and a variation where it’s replaced with a colon.

I hope you’ll enjoy your luncheon, meat stew.

I hope you’ll enjoy your luncheon colon meat stew.

Even I could see how the difference between the comma and the colon completely changed the meaning of the same words. That lesson stuck with me. Since then, I’ve never used a colon when I should have used a comma instead.

He tried to learn me a lot of the other ends and odds any competent writer should know, but I’ll be danged if I can remember a consarned one of them.

I shall conclude on a positive note. I did learn something in the last twenty-five years of writing, so it’s entirely possible I might pick up something else in the next quarter-century.

14 January 2021

Problems, Solutions, and Precipitants

Let us cast our gaze on the political and apolitical spectra for a moment. I don’t want to yuck your yum, so that’s enough of that.

There’s something that unites everyone across the myriad divides, chasms, and even incongruous realities: stupidity.

A friend—a friend who really should know better—asked me if I was part of the going to be part of the problem or part of the solution. (I’m not mentioning his name in order to anonymize his idiotness.)

I couldn’t resist the temptation to respond to a cretinous question with a moronic declaration, so I didn’t. (Didn’t resist, that is.) I told him that if he’s not part of the solution then he’s part of the precipitant.

He said he’d have to think about that. That was his face-saving way of buying time until he could be alone with a dictionary and look up “precipitant.”

I was satisfied with the way the inane discussion concluded; I was pleased to be part of his problem.

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©2021 David Glenn Rinehart