Frivolous Friday

by Geoff Young on Dec 20, 2002

I swear, I work in a freakin’ David Lynch movie.

Guy walks into a store carrying a bagful of candy. He buys every piece of candy in the store and throws it all into his bag, so that the bag is overflowing. Snickers, lollipops, Milk Duds fall to the floor and everyone else in that part of the store scrambles to grab their share.

Over on the other side of the store, all is calm, but people are starting to notice a commotion. They meander over to find out what’s happening. The scavengers are still in a frenzy, but by now, the guy who originally dropped all the candy has left the store.

Meantime, the folks who were minding their own business on the other side of the store begin asking the scavengers questions: Where’d they get that candy? Why are they running around in a frenzy? Who are they?

The scavengers remain preoccupied with gathering and protecting their candy. And they complain about what they have. The guy with the Milky Ways is allergic to chocolate; the woman who grabbed up all the Mentos would rather have Jolly Ranchers. But no matter how much they may dislike the candy they have, they’ll be damned if they’re going to share it with anyone else.

And the people without the candy are still asking questions, but the scavengers grow defensive; they’re convinced that the questioners exist only to take their candy from them. They ignore the questioners. They hold their candy closer to themselves and begin to squeeze: the questioners will have to pry the candy from their cold, dead fingers.

Of course, the questioners don’t actually want the candy (neither do the scavengers, but it’s all they have); they just want some information. But the scavengers will have none of it. They continue to ignore the questioners, who in turn become more persistent and agitated in their questioning, which causes further defensiveness among the scavengers.

Eventually, after several hours of this, the scavengers squeeze their candy so tight that it slips through their fingers and oozes into one giant mess on the floor. Everyone stops for a moment, stunned at this development. Then the questioners go back to asking their questions and the scavengers start shouting at each other (still ignoring the questioners) before scurrying away from the store.

The store manager finally comes back from her lunch break and sees the candy strewn across the floor. She asks the questioners what they’ve done. The questioners protest that it wasn’t their fault, but the manager throws them out of the store anyway. Then she calls the custodian, who is mildly stoned, and tells him to clean up the mess.

He brings out a bucket and a mop, gets some industrial strength detergent going, and blasts the latest Marilyn Manson through his headphones. He slowly drags the mop across the floor and pushes the mess around the store. Hours later, the store manager returns and sees that he hasn’t finished what should have taken only a few minutes. When confronted, the custodian claims that the mop is at fault. So the store manager takes the mop and throws it in the garbage bin out in the alley.

Me? I’m the mop. Or the bucket. I forget which.

Bigger and Better Things

Man, that was a terrible story. Sorry about that. But I feel much better now.

And speaking of cleaning up, here are a bunch of items that have tickled my fancy over the past week or so that I haven’t gotten around to posting. In keeping with the spirit of the season, I thought I’d pass along the joy.

Rule 5 Draft

Interactive Stupid Fun

Blogs and Blogging

General Weirdness

Back to baseball on Monday. Still workin’ on that Padre Top 30 prospect list, although at this point it’s more like Top 39, with comments on about 15 of ‘em. Hope to have something ready by the end of the month.

Meantime, I’ve got to pull myself out of this dumpster and finish cleaning the floor…

Comments are closed.