The Irrelevant Legacy of the Kid

(Strange Thoughts)

They say that slow and steady wins the race. Yeah, sure it does. That is, if your opponent happens to fall asleep before crossing the finish line. Lets face it. That damn Tortoise wouldn’t have had a shot in the world if it weren’t for the fact that the Hare was a lazy good for nothing piece of crap who couldn’t wait till after the race to take a nap. But to suggest that slow and steady wins races in general, that’s just plain nonsense. As a matter of fact, if you happen to be a slow guy in a race, you might as well not even bother trying to be steady, cause ain’t no way your sorry slow ass is winning anything.

I like to carry around live pigeons in my pockets just so, in the event that people piss me off, I can “flip ‘em the bird” without making any obscene gestures.

They say “the proof is in the pudding” and I truly believe it. So here I find myself once again, fat, naked and alone, consuming vast quantities of instant pudding in search of a proof that has thus far eluded me. Some might call it a burden. I prefer to think of it as a quest.

I bet when they first discovered that the world was round it must have come as a terrible blow to all those poor bastards who had based their lives on the premise that they were just part of a really gigantic board game.

I read the other day that in some small French town they baked the biggest cookie in “recorded history.” Of course, that still leaves the door open to the possibility that the cavemen may have at one time made an even larger cookie, which by the way, would go right along with my theory that extraterrestrials once visited the Earth and taught the ancient peoples how to produce oversized baked goods.

When someone is speechless people will often say “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” Well using the same logic, I like to ask constipated people if the cat’s got their ass.

I recently discovered that “peep shows” do not really feature little yellow sugar-coated marshmallow bird-shaped treats and let me tell you, what a damn let down!

I truly feel blessed. Perhaps it’s because I sneeze quite a bit.

They say that “two’s company and three’s a crowd.” Well try telling that to the Three Musketeers, the Three Stooges, the Three Amigos, the Three Blind Mice, the Three Wisemen, the Three Little Pigs, the Three Men with that baby, Charlie’s Angels, My Three Sons, the Father the Son & the Holy Ghost, Huey Dewey & Louie, Alvin Simon & Theodore, Snap Crackle & Pop, Peter Paul & Mary, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Crosby Stills & Nash once they ditched that stinkin Young, and last but not least, those three friggin Wise Monkeys. You know, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

They call them restrooms and yet I still get strange looks every damn time I curl up to take a nap at the foot of one of those urinals?

I really hate the term masturbation. It’s just that it sounds so unromantic. Instead, I prefer to think of it as sleeping with myself and I must admit, I do sleep with myself quite regularly. I reckon you might even say that me and my hand are in a committed relationship. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are times when I do cheat on my hand and have sex with my wife, but I can honestly say this happens only very rarely and in my defense, my hand is always present and usually involved in it, so I guess it’s really more of a threesome situation now that I actually think about it.

What the hell is so damn international about the House of Pancakes?

So, it turns out that “finders keepers, loser’s weepers” actually isn’t one of the Ten Commandments. I guess that means I’m not as righteous as I thought and I probably should give my neighbor his lawn ornaments back. That sucks! Next they’re gonna tell me it was wrong for me to have been coveting his wife all these years.

Jesus must really be a pretty righteous dude, because if they took the day that I was tortured and crucified and started referring to it as Good Friday, you can bet I would be mighty pissed off. Seriously, I’d be like, “Good Friday, my ass! Forget about that whole forgiveness of sins business, cause all y’all can go straight to hell as far as I’m concerned!”

Dead men tell no tales, but if they did, I imagine they would be quite spooky.

Who let the cat out of the bag? Does it really matter? I mean, anyone with even a shred of decency would release a poor cat trapped in a bag. The real question is who stuffed the cat into the bag in the first place?

Ironically, I don’t think hot cakes actually sell like hot cakes.

The other night when I was gazing up into the heavens I decided to wish upon a star. Well moments after making my wish, I realized that the star I had just wished upon was moving in the sky. That’s right, it became sadly obvious that I had inadvertently wished upon a plane. I say sadly on account of the fact that aircraft don’t grant wishes. And that sucks too because I really think I would have made a terrific fairy princess.

Why did they have to say "Beware the Ides of March". I mean what's with this Ide nonsense. Do you really think your average person is going to have any clue what that is? It sounds like some kind of strange creature or something. The point is, if you want to provide someone with a warning, don't get all fancy pants with your terminology. In this case, if they just simply said "Beware March 15th" old Julius could have taken the necessary precautions and maybe he would still be with us today.

Does that whole thing about not putting all your eggs in one basket also apply to the hard-boiled variety? I thought perhaps that could be the exception to the rule.

Every time anything halfway decent comes along, people start saying it’s “the best thing since sliced bread.” Now I enjoy a nice sandwich just as much as the next guy, but come on. Don’t you think this sliced bread thing is a little over blown?

Everyone knows that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Less well known, however, is the fact that cauliflower will scare off the mailman.

Let me offer you this small piece of advice. If you happen to be putting together your resume in order to land a better job, don't make the same mistake that I did. Don't advertise the fact that you're "potty trained". It just doesn't look all that impressive on paper. Of course, if you're short on experience and feel you really need to put it on there, at least refer to it in a way that makes it sound more significant. For instance, if I had it to do all over again, I'd have referred to myself as "schooled in the art of pooping" or even better yet, "poop certified".

One thing about the Grinch. The guy stole Christmas for crying out loud. Now I know he had a change of heart, quite literally, but I don’t think that’s any justification for making him out to be some kind of a hero. Sure he returned the stolen merchandise, however, you gotta realize, the way he haphazardly stuffed all that crap into one big sack, most of it had to be damaged. I don’t recall his using any packing material. And I tell you, for that reason alone, if the Whos down in Whoville had any guts at all, they would have run his sorry ass right back out of town. But no, instead they give him the honor of cutting the roast beast. It’s just a disgrace is all.

If it’s true that those who do not learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them, then I just want to make it known that the mistake I made last weekend, sitting around watching football and drinking beer when I was supposed to be doing yard work, well, let’s just say I don’t think I learned a whole lot from that.

Are you familiar with the Super Friends? If so, then you know all about the Wondertwins. I know, they were more of an afterthought with the likes of Superman and Batman roaming the Halls of Justice. But the thing about the Wondertwins is this. Every time they activated their powers and that guy wondertwin took the form of some water product, he knew full well that there was always that chance that the powers would never be deactivated again. Suppose they got separated or the girl wondertwin just decided she liked being the shape of some particular animal. Or suppose their shady monkey sidekick Gleep became disgruntled and pulled some crazy stunt. Under any or all of these circumstances, that poor guy wondertwin would be left to spend eternity as a bucket of water or some damn ice thing. Just think about that for a moment.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Just to illustrate the point, take the old coke machine example. You can try to get the machine to take your dollar once or twice at most and then walk away thirsty and dejected, or you can continue to try again and again, repeatedly jamming the bill into the slot for hours. Eventually, and I know from personal experience, you will find yourself on your knees, reduced to a delirious quivering wretch, not knowing whether to blame the machine itself or your crinkled-up dollar bill for this terrible betrayal. OK, maybe that’s a bad example.

Things have changed so much since I was a kid. I remember being six years old and riding the train with my Dad. I would always wear my little railroad cap and pretend to be the conductor collecting tickets from the other passengers. It never seemed to bother anybody. In fact, most of them couldn’t get enough of me. They would go on and on about how cute I was. Now, when I do that, most of the other passengers avoid eye contact and make me feel like some sort of a freak. It’s as if they’d never seen a naked guy in a railroad cap before. It just makes you wonder what this world is coming to.

Does anyone actually, and I mean really deep down, wish they were an Oscar Meyer Weiner? Cause it seems like that just wouldn’t be all that great of an existence.

It occurred to me that the phrase, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” must be pretty disconcerting to cats.

Wouldn’t it be really neat if a guy could take a little puppet and make it seem like the puppet was actually talking when really it’s just the guy pretending to be the puppet by moving the puppets lips and keeping his own lips pretty still while talking in an imaginary puppet voice?

They say good things come in small packages but, apparently, only to those who wait. So I guess that means impatient people get big packages full of useless crap.

If there’s one thing I learned from Dickens' “A Christmas Carol”, it’s that you can probably get away with being a real bastard for most of your life, just as long as you make an effort to clean up your act when, in your later years, you finally do get that wakeup call from the ghosts.

Based on the premise that you can't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes, clowns really have it made. I mean, sure, you could throw on a pair of clown shoes, but if you're not a trained professional, you'll be stumbling around so much, walking a mile would be out of the question. For this reason, when it comes right down to it, clowns can only feasibly be judged by other clowns and you know how that goes. You never see clowns judging each other. It's just not done. So there you have it. Untouchable clowns impervious to judgment. It's no wonder they get away with acting so damn silly.

You know that saying, "Something's rotten in Denmark." Well, next time you meet someone for the first time, just try blurting that out during the middle of conversation for no apparent reason. You'll find that it acts as a nice ice breaker. That is unless of course, the person you're talking to happens to be from Denmark, in which case, it probably wouldn't go over very well.

You may have noticed that a lot of the foods at McDonald’s have Irish sounding names. Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets and Filet O’ Fish to name a few. As an Irish American, I have no problem with this. It’s just good natured fun. But the same cannot be said for what Burger King has done. Their attempt at poking fun at the Italians is simply inappropriate. I mean the Whopper, come on. I think that’s taking things a little too far.

Why has the term "chicken" become synonymous with being afraid? After all, it's not like you'll ever see a chicken with its head stuck in the sand trembling at the first sign of danger. Not like those cowardly stinkin ostriches. Yet you never hear anyone taunt someone else with a phrase like, "What's the matter, you ostrich?" Of course, by using the term chicken you have the opportunity to follow it up with the "bak bak bakah" and that arm flapping business to really hammer home the point. With ostrich, you don't have that option. So there you go, I guess I answered my own question.

Can you ever just come right out and shout sweet nothings or do they always have to be whispered in someone's ear?

I stopped going to the psychologist because it seemed like he was always trying to over analyze everything I would say. Like when I told him I was deathly afraid of my neighbor's cats and that I was sure they were out to get me. He couldn't take that at face value. He just dismissed the notion that these were evil angry cats bent on orchestrating my demise. As a matter of fact, he took the onus off the cats entirely. He implied that my fears might actually be the result of my own paranoia. Now how ridiculous is that?

Most people have heard of the "Grapes of Wrath", however, only a precious few are familiar with the "Blueberries of Indignation". Why is this? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that grapes are more intimidating than blueberries. I mean if you've got a bunch of furious grapes coming at you, that's a real attention getter. In contrast, angry blueberries don't pose much of a threat to anybody and therefore, they can very easily be ignored.

Why do I usually carry an onion around in my pocket when I go out in public, you ask? Actually, it's to preserve my tough guy image. Allow me to explain. You see, I have a tendency to get all sentimental and emotional over certain things. For instance, those touching love stories you sometimes see on TV or in the movies often set me off. So whenever I feel a good cry coming on, I just whip out the onion, break it open and proceed to rub it directly in my eyes. That way, instead of coming off like a sappy little sissy boy crying over a love story, I reinforce my image as the bad ass dude who's both tough and crazy enough to rub raw onions directly in his own eyes for no apparent reason.

If I ever do get arrested and charged with the possession of narcotics I think I'll have to remind the Judge that possession is only nine-tenths the law. Oh yes, and believe me, I'll emphasize the significance of that other one-tenth until it seems impossible to ignore. Then, to put the icing on the cake, after I've gone on and on about that last tenth, I'll close my argument with something along the lines of "There's your shadow of a doubt right there, Buddy!"

Whenever I'm in the city and I come across some crazy who claims to be the Queen of England, I always ask him for his credentials. Of course, the reality is, I have no idea what Queen of England credentials are supposed to look like, so if he showed me just about anything with his picture and the Queen's name on it, I guess I'd have to accept that as proof. Fortunately for me though, those crazies only very rarely seem to carry ID.

You know that saying, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride." Well, it seems to me that women who fit that description should at least take solace in the fact that they don't fall into the "never a bridesmaid, never a bride" classification.

I've always wondered if those guys in the Trojan Horse shouted "Surprise" as they popped out of there. I mean before they started killing everybody and all that.

Whenever somebody accuses me of being “all talk and no action,” I have to remind them that talking, in itself, is a form of action and for that matter, so is curling up in a fetal position at the first sign of trouble.

They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that the same rule applies to other foods as well.

I’m assuming that whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword must have been referring to one of those cute little plastic swords that you sometimes see holding finger sandwiches together.

They say “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” If you think it through, that must mean that there aren’t any scorned women in Hell. So now you know why I spend so much of my time in drag trying to get people to scorn me. The way I see it, that’s my ticket to Heaven. Of course, it’s fairly easy finding potential scorners when you’re a six foot two inch weird guy running around in a dress. Most folks you approach do tend to scorn you, after all. But then there’s the little technicality of my not actually being a woman. I sometimes wonder if God will overlook that. I tell ya, things would be so much more straight forward if the saying simply could have been “Hell hath no fury like a lazy dude who tends to over eat and enjoys watching sports."

My friend told me that I should see that “Omen” movie. He said it would “scare the pants off me” but I’m a bit skeptical. I don’t know, it’s just that I simply can’t imagine any possible scenario in which I would become so frightened that I would feel compelled to remove my slacks. Then again, it would give me a good excuse to run through the theater naked, so I may have to see it after all.

As far as I’m concerned, horses have a pretty crappy selection to choose from when it comes to footwear.

I’ve always wondered if Justice really is in fact blind, or if her lack of sight is simply the result of that damn blindfold she seems to have on all the time. And what’s with the scales? I’m sorry, but I don’t know if we should be putting all our trust in some blindfolded lady in a robe who, apparently, is obsessed with weighing stuff.

There was an old lady who lived in a shoe. In a damn shoe! Would you believe that?

I never did understand that whole “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” business. First of all, telling someone to sleep tight is just bad advice. I mean, you’re much better off sleeping loose. Sleeping tight, in the end, will only lead to stiffness. And as for that part about not letting the beg bugs bite, hey listen, if the bed bugs are looking to bite, there ain’t nothing you can do to stop them, especially while you’re asleep. So why even bring this up and instill pointless fear in someone just before bedtime. As I see it, the entire phrase is extremely negative and totally counter productive. Of course, it’s not as bad as that “if I die before I wake” bedtime saying. If you ask me, that one really takes the cake as far as negativity is concerned.

They say that revenge is a dish better served cold. I guess in that sense it’s not unlike fruit salad.

A joke that never seems to get old is me standing in the fresh produce section of my local supermarket alongside a big bin of apples and screaming “How do you like them apples” in the face of every poor bastard that passes by. Of course, the punchline comes when I begin pelting them unmercifully with apples as they walk away. I have to say it’s a pretty good gag.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery and it’s so true. I mean, I can’t even begin to tell you how flattered I feel personally to have been mocked by so many people over the years.

I think that little orphan Annie was a true pioneer in the field of meteorology. I mean, singing forecasts, what a brilliant concept.

They say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” but then again, who cares? I never felt that old dogs made good magicians anyway.

One thing I’ve learned over the years in dealing with conflict is that, no matter how angry you may be with someone, it is never a good idea to resort to name calling. Instead, let sticks and stones do your talking for you.

Looking back now, I sometimes wonder if the monster in my closet was really just a harmless gay guy not yet ready to come out.

The next time some punk offers me a penny for my thoughts I think I’m gonna have to try and hold out for at least a nickel.

They say that “all roads lead to Rome” but I’m starting to become a bit skeptical.

I’ve long suspected that Charlie Tuna was, in fact, the ruthless leader of an elaborate undersea underworld. Oh yes, and you can be damn sure that any flounder who didn’t play by his rules found himself “sleeping with the humans” in a pair of balloon shoes. Of course, I could never prove that.

I think that if I was a bull I’d be mighty tempted to just meander into some random china shop, but instead of breaking stuff, I would be real cautious and very calmly browse around. Then, after a few minutes, I’d make a small purchase and exit uneventfully.

They say that the “early bird gets the worm.” Well, to tell you the truth, I think I’d just as soon not have the worm anyway. I mean, what the hell am I gonna do with a freakin worm. Just let me sleep, damn it!

I happen to have a small fortune. Oh yes, I got it out of a Chinese cookie. Apparently, “my principles mean more to me than money or success.” I guess that explains how I wound up a penniless loser. And to think, I had always just assumed that it was a result of my degenerate gambling.