"What?! I'm fired? I only snaze..."

I had a dream once. I use the word "dream" very loosely, because it was more like a psychological disturbance, a kink in the REM waves or something. It was about a rat factory. Prior to my dream, I had never known there to be such a thing, nor would I think about rats at length. In fact, among my top five fears (which also includes job interviews) are mice in the house. The entire dream was drab, gray, and looked like an illustration Stephen Gammell would do (see http://jschancellor.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/scarystorysamsnewpet-1.jpg). My job as a rat factory worker was to separate the dead rats from the live rats. COULD THERE BE A WORSE JOB?
I submit that there can. Or at least, one that's neck-and-neck. And that is...
A feather packaging plant.
Now, you may be asking yourself, "Kami (actually, you would say "Self", since you're asking yourself...lol), how could working with soft, downy feathers compare to taking rats off a conveyor belt?" But just consider this. If you sneeze, feathers would go E-VE-RY-WHERE. Drafts, same sad story. An 8-hour a day shift of that would be enough to drive anyone to the madhouse (where hopefully they are down pillow-less)! I wonder what staff meetings are like for feather-packing employees. For some reason I picture the managing staff like the aunts on James and the Giant Peach... One, really tall, gangly, and spectacled and the other short, stout, and ornery. Both in suits, both ready with tazer in hand.
"Do not sneeze. If you sneeze, you will be terminated.
Do not open doors. If you open a door, you will be terminated.
Do not open windows. If you open a window, you will be terminated.
Do not whistle. If you whistle, you will be terminated.
Do not move unnecessarily. If you move unnecessarily, you will be terminated.
Do not breathe out. Or in. ..."


Which brings me to another point that has nothing to do with rats, Stephen Gammell, or staff meetings, and that is the English language, and, more specifically, a tense I have originally devised. Say the word "breathed". "Breathe-D". It's a horrid noise to add to an innocent atmosphere. So, for each word that has a "long e" sound (for all who are not English buffs, those are words like breathe, leap, sleep), in the past, it is now changed to a "long a" sound, with (and this is important), NO D at the end. For example:
Breathed becomes ---> Brathe (ahhh, isn't that a breath of fresh air? It sounds so much cleaner)
Leaped becomes -----> Lape
etc.

So, in the morning you can say, "I lape into bed last night", or "Hey, I snake up on you, and you didn't even see me", or "Dang, I just brathe in a bug"... Things like that.
Try it out! You won't go back!

Car Confusion

I have a beast of a car, an '85 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. Its name is Moby, because at one point it was a "great white whale". Now it's more of a cream/gold color, but the name stuck. I keep a stuffed whale on the dashboard, I have to hit the radio to get it to work, three of the doors open funny and the fourth doesn't open at all, and it has no headliner so I have people sign my ceiling. It is an old car (heck, maybe I should take that to the Antiques Roadshow!). So, I decided on a brilliant strategy, and that is: Buy a "new car" scented air freshener. That way, people will see my car and say, "Wow, that is an old car." BUT, when they get inside (once they can figure out how to jimmy the doors), they will be more or less transported to a different dimension/generation, and say, "Wait. Is this a new car?" and slyly I will wring my hands, mission accomplished and say, "Yes, why yes it is."

A brand-new car.

Ah, ah, ah (mischievious laughter).

The Rings of Saturn: Truth Revealed

I remember well, learning about astronomy as a child... Making styrofoam ball planets, watching Bill Nye the Science Guy bike to where those planets would be proportionally in the galaxy... Learning mind-riveting facts about each...

Like Saturn. We learned that the rings of Saturn are made of meteor rock and ice, which apparently reflect light much like a rainbow does. I, however, have discovered that science has been deceiving us all along. Through experience, mostly that of losing countless "other" socks and virtually millions of bobby pins, I have made my own discovery, which is that the rings of Saturn are actually made up of just lots of lost stuff. Your dryer is an intergalactic transporter, which keeps only one sock of any given pair and SHOOTS the other one off into space, to be collected into Saturn's rings, where it is held to another by bobby pins. The same rule applies to lost luggage... It is also flung into space. In fact, all those things you say, "Now what did I do with that?" could well be attributed to the same galactic problem. So wonder no more where your screwdriver went, or why you can't seem to locate your 5-year old*. Saturn. It's all about Saturn.

*I do not actually advocate misplacing children and blaming it on a planet.