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Weak XLIII

22 October 2019

No. 7,413 (cartoon)

How can you live with yourself?

I don’t.

23 October 2019

Road Rats

Researchers at the University of Richmond in Virginia have taught rats how to drive miniature cars. People with small visions and stunted imaginations have pooh-poohed the experiments as wasteful spending, but I see amazing implications.

The most obvious ramification is that more rats driving cars means fewer aggressive rodents on the subway. The real significance of the discovery is that rats’ brains are significantly more adaptable than scientists once believed. If rats can learn to drive cars safely, then perhaps someday humans will too!

Nah, that’s just bad science fiction.

24 October 2019

Stupid Joggers

Elyse is not one to mince, slice, or dice words when it comes to the myriad things she finds infuriating. She has a long list of annoyances, so she’s never listless. This afternoon it’s the pesky people in the park who disrupted her reverie.

“Stupid joggers!” She complained. “They’re always running like maniacs even though no one ever chases them.”

Exasperation is the true fountain of youth; Elyse will certainly outlive me.

25 October 2019

Free Drinks for Life!

I just read about a man who was found innocent of drunk driving even though he had over the legal limit of alcohol in his blood. No one believed his repeated denials that he hadn’t been drinking, but finally he found a competent doctor who discovered that he had auto-brewery syndrome.

Yep, he was brewing ethanol right there in his gut. How ’bout them apples!

Anything that sounds too good to be true usually is, and free drinks for life is one of them. You need to be obese—often with the associated diabetes—to set up a brewery in your belly. Why is there always a catch?

Being corpulent and perpetually inebriated isn’t my idea of nirvana. I’m happy to spend a few dollars on cheap ale and wine to enjoy the first drink of the day. Mornings just wouldn’t be as wonderful if I showed up at the breakfast table legless.

26 October 2019

Ticking Off Moose

One of my dictionaries defines a tick as, “a parasitic arachnid that attaches itself to the skin of a terrestrial vertebrate from which it sucks blood.” Yep, that sure sounds like a tick alright.

And speaking of terrestrial vertebrates, I’m in Maine so I’m thinking of moose. A moose is, on average, as big as a moose. Thus I was surprised to learn that their population here is dwindling because of ticks. I thought the only way a tick could bring down a moose would be to transmit a disease like tularemia or Lyme disease, but I don’t know if moose are susceptible to those maladies. I’m not going to bother to find out anything about moose medicine, either, after I learned that a single tick can’t kill a moose.

Thousands of ticks are a different story; that many of ’em can drain enough blood to kill the giants. That’s how the little nasties are felling moose at an alarming rate.

I can imagine how the afflicted moose feels covered in blood-sucking parasites; I’ve had days like that.

27 October 2019

SMALL

I’m amused by the most modest tombstone in Evergreen Cemetery here in Portland, Maine. The only word on the diminutive monument is the word, “SMALL.” I’d like to think it’s a nice piece of conceptual art, but it probably has something to do with Sigmund the Shyster. I’m so glad I never read any of his neurotic quackery.

28 October 2019

Aggressively Quaint

I’ve heard Rockport, Maine, described as quaint, but that ain’t true: it’s aggressively quaint. Wilma showed me around Rockport’s compact downtown, and explained that was the most efficient way to see Maine’s cities since they’re all the same.

All the cafes and restaurants offered lobster this and lobster that, and all the merchandise featured images of moose and lobsters. Everything was overpriced and ... did I mention quaint?

I have more money than I need and don’t plan on returning to Maine for some time, so I’m putting this business idea in the public domain. Go to any part of Maine frequented by tourists and open Ye Olde Shitte Shoppe. Import cheap merchandise from Cambodia or Pakistan and have it covered in pictures of moose or lobsters. Reread the previous sentence carefully and notice the use of the word “and.” Most visitors have to choose between the two species, but why not give them both for the price of one? Even better, show lobsters attached to moose; that’s genius!

I guarantee anyone who does that will make lots of money. As I said, I’m not going to bother because lots of money is even more boring than aggressively quaint.

29 October 2019

Now With Extra Rat!

Vivian and I were driving on the coast of Maine this morning. I’m not sure if were driving up the coast or down the coast, the concept of north and south is all higgledy-piggledy up here.

I don’t know what came over me, but I made a snapshot of an abandoned factory. Her Bugatti is only a few millimeters above the road, so a concrete highway barrier dominates the foreground. I was about to throw the photograph away when Vivian told me the incredible story of B&M Baked Beans.

First, ignore the urban legend that the name refers to Bowel Movement; that’s a scatological juvenile joke that just won’t die. The truth is even worse.

George Burnham and Charles Morrill founded the company a century and a half ago. They concocted some poppycock about their beans being superior to their competitors’ legumes because they were baked in brick ovens, and people bought their malarkey and beans. By the end of the nineteenth century, the harbor was full of ships bringing fresh beans to the B&M factory and exporting tins of baked beans to every corner of the globe. (It wasn’t until 1927 that cartographers discovered that the globe has no corners.)

The first public access to deoxyribonucleic acid testing in 1986 marked the beginning of the end for B&M Baked Beans. Foreign competitors tried to reverse engineer the recipe and discovered the company’s secret, and it had nothing to do with Fabaceae or Leguminosae. The mystery ingredient turned out to be every kind of ground rodent. No wonder they tasted so good!

B&M Ratless Baked Beans, introduced after the scandal, never caught on, nor did the B&M Baked Beans “with Extra Rat!” introduced as a last gasp attempt to regain lost customers. The company went bankrupt in 1988 as did the rodent control companies who lost their only customer.

And that’s why Maine has more rodents by weight than baked beans. In case you were wondering.

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart