Sudden Afternoon

She walked into my office with a look in her eye that spelled doom.  Her legs were like one of those little Ham Sandwiches with the toothpick in it; just a little taste of heaven with something lethal packed inside.

I knew she’d try to play innocent on me, and that was the first tack she used; the first of many.  This dame had enough tacks to lay carpet at the Waldorf. 

My eyes were still bleeding from a hangover bad enough to make a Jesuit Monk rip the skin off of an otter with a fine toothed comb.  A hangover like that’s no picnic, and I’m all out of Potato Salad, which is a favorite of people who like food-borne illness, and I’m not one of them.

She was wearing a pair of black silk gloves, that fit her like a designer dress.  She spoke very little Portuguese, and that was just fine with me.  Maybe if she had, I wouldn’t have found myself in the spot I’m in today, but the clock was ticking, and they had already canceled our appointment with destiny.

She needed help, she said, and she told me a story so completely lacking in imagination, I fell asleep fourteen times, and I wasn’t even tired.  The setting was old hat; a loading dock down by the pier, and I couldn’t make sense out of the player’s motivations.

Why would the man with the burnt ears go for the cabbage, when he could’ve had the Samoleons?  What was the license plate number of the car that drove over Lefty’s left foot?  Would people be calling him Righty from now on?  How late do they serve appetizers at the Starlight Room?

I was having a hard time buying her song and dance routine, and when she started to juggle live monkeys, I had to draw the line.

“Look sister,” I growled sympathetically, “I don’t need to hear grotesque, made-up scenarios before lunchtime, and there ain’t a cat in the world that could’ve fired that .45.”

I had long ago arrived at the conclusion that her train had left the station, and there wasn’t another one coming for quite some time. 

“You’re too smart for me,” she conceded far too easily, “I confess.  I killed him, but it was an accident.”

She delivered the line with such sheer drama, that I half expected the members of the Academy to walk out, and hand her the Thalberg, and then without even pausing for air, launched into an even more horribly illogical tale of depravity and lost underwear.

I quietly upended a quart of fine Tequila, and studied her carefully through the bubbles.  She had been very beautiful once, and still was, for the most part, other than the two heads.  I shook off the momentary Tequila Hallucination, and was relieved to see only three eyes again.

I shook my head once more.

Two eyes.

Bingo.

Her story had left me with a sick feeling, like an Italian pallbearer with a case of Gout, and the room was spinning like a dwarf falling down a spiral staircase in slow motion, wearing Gaucho pants.

“Look, I can’t take much more of this!” I shouted, grabbing her sternly by the collar.

“I understand why you were loading the fish onto the truck.  I understand why the two ex-choirboys were saluting the guest horticulturist.  And I have no trouble at all seeing why you’d have to kill a man if he were really doing that to your leather upholstery.  I don’t believe a word of it, but I understand it.”

I fell against a table, and dealt a hand of gin to a potted plant.

“Look,” she pleaded, “you’ve got me.  I only killed him for the fifty billion dollars.”

She trained those beautiful eyes on me, and for a moment I was looking at an Angel, a creature of such incredible virtue as to force a man into early retirement, on an ant farm in Florida.

“You’ve got to believe me, if it hadn’t been for the money, I wouldn’t have hurt anybody.”

Her voice grew more urgent.

“I’ll give you your cut; you won’t be left out in the bright sunshine; I’ll do anything; anything!”

She probably would too, I thought with the glee of a neutered puppy.  And then she’d stick a cold steel shaft into whatever part of my body looked soft and fleshy.

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” I said, lighting a cigarette, and jamming a paper clip under my nail.

“What’s that?” she asked, with a pouty look that would set the hens dancing again.

“Why did you come in here?  This is an insurance office.”

The Horror of the Counting Sheep™

The Horror of the Counting Sheep™

I went to the Serta™ website, and I ordered my very own Serta™ Counting Sheep™.  I thought they’d send me a stuffed doll, but instead I got an animated sheep with the number 43 on his side.

I was amazed.

“How can you even exist?” I was compelled to ask the artificially generated creature, to which he could only smile.

“Animation has come a long way since Disney first strung together some painted cells,” he sniffed pompously, “I’m the combination of years of hard work by geniuses, and your overworked imagination.”

“That hardly seems likely, or even possible,” I countered, feeling I’d made a pretty good point.

“Just wait,” he said, “it gets better.”

To me, those were the most ominous words ever to come out of the mouth of an animated Counting Sheep™, and I wondered if anybody realized that I actually sleep on a futon.  What could this bizarre cartoon character be speaking of?  I got a chill, and went to close a window that hadn’t been open at all.

“I’ve never actually counted sheep to try and fall asleep,” I informed him.

“That’s what you say now,” he countered abruptly,  with a look that would sour goat cheese.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said, turning the tables, “when you ordered me, did you click a little button that said ‘send Counting Sheep™?’”

“Yes, but I don’t see why...”

“And did you click a second little button that said ‘stop sending Counting Sheep™?’”

“What?” I bellowed, astounded.

“You heard me,” he laughed.

“You have to click a second button to get them to stop sending sheep?”  I was enraged, and sad at the same time.  Had our society really devolved to this level?  And if so, what other products could I expect to see delivered day after day, laden upon me like rice on a palm tree?

“You might want to re-examine that last sentence,” he said with a wink.

“That’ll be the day when I take grammar lessons from a hallucination,” I said glibly.

“You wish I was a hallucination, pal.”

With that came a knock at the door.

“Flowers for Mr. Simpkins,” said a voice.

“I don’t believe you,” I answered, and I really didn’t.

“Candy; candygram for Mr. Simpkins,” it said.

“No, there’s no candygram either,” I hollered, “so go away!”

There was a moment of silence.  It resonated sweetly throughout the house, and the cinnamon apple slices that were baking at exactly 325 degrees.

“Land shark.”

“Give me a break,” I lamented, “you’re just trying to get me to open the door, because you want to deliver another sheep.”

“Sheep?  That’s preposterous,” said the voice.

“I think you should open the door,” said the Counting Sheep™ with the number 43 on his side.

“If I drink this Gin, will you disappear?” I asked soberly.

“Try it and see,” said the animated sheep, hoping I would.

“Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?” came a falsetto voice through the door.

“How many of ‘em do you think are out there?” I asked my unworldly companion.

“How many what?”

“Sheep!  Don’t play dumb with me!”

“It’s probably just the Fed-Ex guy.”

I pictured hundreds of Serta™ Counting Sheep™, grazing on my lawn, patiently waiting to be counted, and I had to ask, “how high do the numbers go, anyway?”

I was sure that in the commercial I hadn’t seen anybody over 43, but how carefully had I really watched?  And I think an even more important question is, do they show all of them in the commercial?

What the hell am I talking about; this can’t even really be happening.  Animated sheep don’t exist in the same dimension as we do, so there must have been something in that chicken, or perhaps I’ve fallen asleep again.

“No, you’re not asleep,” said the feisty little Number 43.

“Great.  Not only can you talk, you can read my mind.”

The front door was bulging inward, groaning under the strain of what must have been thousands of insane animated sheep with numbers on their sides, each more wicked and bloodthirsty than the last, with thousands of tiny scissors and knives, ready to rip me to shreds; a memory for those who knew my name.

“Maybe it’s the doctors,” said #43, out of the side of a smile.

Over the groaning of the door, I heard several gunshots, and I had to wonder how they could shoot without opposable thumbs; a problem so fascinating, I considered calling someone, but they’d cut the phone lines.

“Hello, operator?  My house is under attack by the Serta™ Counting Sheep™, and they’re armed.  What should I do?” I screamed into the dead line, and a voice came over it, much to my surprise.

“Sir, I’ve run this past my supervisor, and the Mayor, and the Governor, and the consensus appears to be that you should let them in, and drink some nice cocoa.”

“That’s no operator, it’s one of THEM!” I screamed, slamming the receiver down, and going mad.  Eeeg Pobaggy Mmmmrrrrrfffffff?  Gna Gna Gna!

I ran (potato wanawaki!) into the kitchen, and reached into the giant floating clown’s head that was really my cupboard, and ate twelve Sominex, washing them down with flat Diet Pepsi.

“Mmraoarghhh!” I said thoughtfully, starting to feel like myself again, when the door came crashing down, and the room filled with animated sheep with numbers on their sides.

I leaned against the cupboard door, which was a cupboard door again, and not a clown’s head at all, and with a sickly smile, all squiggly like a cartoon smile, began counting.

I didn’t make it past 8 before I was unconscious in a puddle of drool.

“Plorp.”  “Blap.” my nose and mouth sang in perfect harmony.

When I awoke, the sheep were all milling about, grazing on my living room carpeting.  Outside, trucks were pulling up, filled with more.  They were dropping them from helicopters, and they’d land with a mighty “splat!” and then bounce back into their normal shape, as animated creatures are prone to do.

I lay back down, my head splitting in a thousand directions.  All I could do was wonder what else I’d ordered over the internet.

How to Cut a Pineapple

First, You will need a Pineapple.

You will also need a knife.  Make your first cut here.

Lop off that top!

Lop off that bottom!

If you want it to be more manageable, cut it in half.

Two halves of a whole.

Cut the bumpy part off like so.

You can round the corners a bit if you like, and here's what you get.

Now you need a skinny knife.

Cored!

 

Sliced!