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Weak XV

9 April 2021

No. 492 (cartoon)

Why do you abuse yourself?

I can never rely on my so-called friends.

10 April 2021

Lizzie the Deuce Widowed

“Poor Lizzie the Deuce,” Rhonda lamented, “her ninety-nine-year-old husband and her ninety-nine-year-old cousin both died yesterday.”

She was referring to Prince Philip, whose only duty in life was to have sex with his cousin the queen and produce more inbred royal parasites. Four shots, three male heirs, good innings!

Having discharged his royal duty, he then spent over half a century insulting and offending people around the world with aplomb. Here are three of the many examples she sent:

“If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes.” (To a British student in China)

“How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?” (To a Scottish driving instructor)

“Do you still throw spears at each other?” (To a group of native Australians)

“It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.” (To a Paraguayan military dictator)

“You look like you are ready for bed.” (To Nigeria’s president, dressed in traditional robes)

Oops, make that five examples; I had a hard time even stopping there.

I asked Rhonda to explain why an over-the-top parody of an offensive colonialist buffoon was being mourned, so she did: the rest of the royal maggots are even more appalling.

11 April 2021

Old Chair, New Chair

I had a very unsettling visit with Sherri. She mentioned in passing that she was using a chair that belonged to her greatx-grandmother in 1869. (Greatx means I forgot how many “greats” were in the title.) She disclosed that casually, but I recognized it for what it was: a cry for help.

She put on a positive face, but the message was clear: anyone who’s still using furniture from a century and a half ago is in deep trouble. She’s too proud to ask for help, but her subtle declaration of poverty was all I needed to know. (She drives a new German sports car, but I think that’s just to mask the dire financial situation she must be in.)

When she was in the bathroom, I wrote “new chair!” on a fifty-dollar bill and put it between a couple of frying pans in a kitchen cabinet. She should find it in a couple of days. That’s more than enough to buy a brand new chair shipped all the way from Sweden. I know it will be persnickety to assemble, but once she does she can use the old chair for firewood.

I hate to be so optimistic, but that’s the way I’m wired. A new chair may be just what she needs to turn her life around, or at least avoid the embarrassment of being seen with such ancient furniture.

12 April 2021

Compensation Cliché on Steroids

I love it when clichés come to life; that makes any day a good day.

I was sitting in a parking lot this morning when a ridiculously mas macho car pulled into a nearby parking space. It had ludicrously huge tires, a farcical bumper that might be useful in a collision with a moose, and spotlights on either side of the windshield covered in heavy steel grating. That seemed especially risible, since any flying rock—or perhaps a meteorite?—would certainly smash the unprotected windscreen glass.

I was wondering who’d drive a vehicle advertising that it was powered by a laughably huge four-liter engine when a child opened the door and used a step on the side of the car to climb to the ground.

And then I looked again. It wasn’t a boy, it was perhaps the shortest man I’ve ever seen who wasn’t a dwarf or a midget. I don’t need to say this, but I will anyway: of course he was balding. I respected his privacy and didn’t photograph him with his car, but had I done so I could have probably sold it to someone writing a psychology textbook to use as an illustration of compensation.

I love it when clichés come to life on steroids; this is a great day.

13 April 2021

Ripped Toilet Paper

Time can be measured in many different increments, including rolls of toilet paper. At the end of such an interval today, the center of one of the last few squares of tissue ripped away leaving the rest of the roll intact. The readymade cried aloud to be photographed, so I answered.

If I was a serious artist, I’d spend hours tearing, ripping, and shredding toilet paper and exploring the results. Since I’m a lazy artist, this will have to do, at least for today.

Perhaps chance will bring me something better mañana. Until then ...

14 April 2021

Wondering Aloud

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Roscoe bellowed.

“What are you on about?” I asked. “What’s with the outburst?”

“Oh, nothing really,” he replied. “I guess I was just wondering aloud.”

Yep; very aloudly indeed.

15 April 2021

Tagged Toilet

I have very little interest in popular culture in general and youth culture in particular, so I’m not at all au fait with tagging, the practice of using spray paint or an indelible marker to put one’s stylized signature on buildings, signs, and in other public places. I think it may be the equivalent of a dog urinating to mark its territory, but with indicators that can be observed with eyes instead of seen through a nose.

I mentioned that to explain my confusion when I saw that a couple of people had tagged the portable toilet I used this morning. Why would anyone want to claim a plastic box full of urine and excrement as her/his own, especially when it may be a hundred kilometers away next week?

I may have answered my own question: basic biology. People have sex with strangers on vacation, at conventions, seminars, et cetera because of the primitive urge to spread one’s deoxyribonucleic acid over a wide geographic area. The next time I see a kid walking around with a can of spray paint I’ll ask if s/he driven by a primitive biological imperative or just a misanthropic little sociopath.

No I won’t; I’m too shy to talk to strangers. Too bad; I’m sure that would be an interesting abstract philosophical discussion.

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©2021 David Glenn Rinehart