Cruel Irony

If I had to sum up the English language in one word I think it would be a toss up between Cruel and Ironic. Maybe i'd petition the use of a second word and say Cruel Irony. It's not enough for English to be the epitomy of Hypocracy, making usage rules for the sake of breaking them - even breaking rules that govern the breaking of rules; and it's not content to torture us with unnatural spellings and pronunciations; no English doesn't have the universal decency to stop at anything less than mockery of the handicapped. I submit to the jurry three examples. Let us begin with the letter "R":

I met a man from Boston the other day. His surname is Dumarri - note the presence of two R's. This is a horrible problem for any Bostonian because they don't use R's. One day some discriminatory Boston official said,

"Cast out the R's! Make them a hiss and a byletter! From henceforth replace the sound made by any R that approaches with that of the letter 'W' or the word 'ah' (which ever sounds better with the surrounding vowels and consonants)." And the dpeople listened and obeyed. Infact they obeyed so well that their style of R-shunning entered the gene pool and became classified as a speech impediment. now this was no crime made by the unjustly isolated R; however, the way in which it retaliated was most cruelly ironic: it placed the banished noise within it's own appelation, punishing the newly impaired and their children and their children's children and so on until the present day.

Mr. Dumarri can neither say nor spell his name aloud and be understood. For example, he may call a restaurant in Utah to make a reservation. The conversation might go like this:

"We'd be glad to hold a place for you sir. May I have your name?"
"Yes, it's Dumahwi"
"I'm sorry, did you say DoomOnMe?"
"No, Dumahwi. Let me spell it to you: D-U-M-A-awe-awe-I. Dumahwi"
"I'm sorry sir. Did you say Dumah'i... D-U-M-A-A-A-I?"
"No no. It's only got one "A" and two ahhws."
"Pardon me, I think there's a problem with the connection. Two whats?"
*Mr. Dumarri sighs* "Aahhwws. AaWwahs! I'm fwom boston and we don't use them... awe as in 'wip' and 'widge.'"
"Excuse me, did you say 'W' as in 'whip' and 'wig?'"

We leave Mr. Dumarri now as he plants his face in the palm of his hand and examine an ugly word: "lisp." Again eglish mocks the verbailly impaired. The test to check for a lisp is to have the candidate say "lisp." If a person can't say it then he's got it, so send him to get some professional help with it. English rubs salt in his wounds as he goes home to tell his wife that he needs to start seeing a "Thpeech Therapitht."

Finally, we close our case with the fear of long words. A fellow with this problem can get along with english decently on any given day - depending on who he's talking to. However, should he ever hear the name of what he suffers it could take him the rest of his life to recover from the jolt he gets from his "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia!"

Mattel made WHAT?

And now, for the first time ever, a Barbie that boys will like more than girls: complete with angry ravens comes the Barbie from "The Birds." Too bad Hitchcock isn't around to see this. I wonder if they are going to put out a new Alfred line... maybe we'll get a “Vertigo” play set complete with Monastery Bell Tower.

Just pray that they don’t decide to honor Edger Allen Poe…

Bl-ah-g

Post 18

I just posted a post in the which I made apologies for being away for so long and posting a topic that I'll discuss soon. The "cyber-ether" absorbed it with some mysterious error. I think the keeper of the void has it in for me. I still apologize, but not so nicely. Unpolished topic intro follows:

Topic will be:

"Most things you consider to be evil are really just lonely and lacking in social niceties"

Feel free to comment on the topic before I do, as I can't right now. Consider this virtual circle time.

Write in such a way that if your blog is called upon to die prematurely (as mine are prone to do) they'll have a happy reunion with the good blogs of the past. However, it's likely that their tarnished descendants (like this one) will end up going to the postMaster Demon (and yes I know that's not what it is, but Demon is far more appropriate than what's his bucket)

-Schlange

Inviting Yet Fruitless

(Post 15)

I just had a hollow experience. I attended an activity where food was provided (likely as an incentive to improve attendance). Amongst the table's insentivery chief weaponry were gourmet crackers with ranch dip, grapes of two varieties, orange juice, and a twinkling gem: pastries of some wonderful nature or another, glazed with gleaming sugar, and most temptingly oozing apple or raspberry filling from every crevice. I excitedly took one of each kind, found a corner free of distractions that might take from the experience, and lovingly lifted the apple pastry to my salivating taste tester. I placed the treat delicately between my teeth and applied pressure slowly, so as to extend the sensation of watering my tongue with sugary fruit goodness.

The expected flavor bomb never arrived. I began to chew vigorously and discovered that what should have been a masterfully crafted vehicle packed full of natural (but chemically enhanced for preservation) gifts for the nerve-endings in my tongue was nothing more than a thinly breaded carpool of the gasses that make up air. It was as a fig tree full of leaves but barren of fruit. (Fig tree's produce fruit before leaves… seeing leaves on a fig tree means you can expect ripe fruit).

After the crash of disappointment I looked at my raspberry pastry. "Little raspberry manna-cake," I thought to the sister of the sinful apple hypocrite, "your counterpart must have surely been a dud. You most certainly will not fail me. Not with such beauty in your figure and promise in your eyes… or icing in their absence." So I popped the raspberry pastry into my mouth. More disappointing than the first, this air pocket gave a hint and promise of forthcoming flavor that vanished with the breeze generated by the air escaping it.

I was crushed. But I yet could not believe that what I had sampled was the standard for all the beckoning desserts upon the table, so I ate four more. Whited sepulchers, all of them. It was like watching the food channel, but worse. Everything you see looks amazing and you wish that you could reach into the screen and pull out a sample. Well in this case you can, but when you bite into it you find that cable can't broadcast substance (which may be true in more senses than this one).

I'm fairly certain that the heinous company that made these tempting little heart breakers isn't going to make it through Armageddon. Particularly considering that the amount of residue that the filling on the OUTSIDE of the pastry left on the box they came in was greater than the filling occupying the centers of these great and spacious baked buildings.

So, I have some parallels to draw and re-reference; morals to extend; and lists to number:

• One: Don't be like a Pharisee… you don't want to end up like the cursed fig tree.
  
• Two: Sin is like a bad pastry. It tempts one with much, and leaves him with no fruit fillings. The more one places it in his mouth because he thinks it'll be better this time, the fewer flavors he'll have in life, along with a continued longing for the realization of never to be fulfilled promises.
  
• Three: A handful of God's own good grapes can make the world right when all joy has vanished.
  

-Schlange

~ Sunday, February 24, 2008 ~

The meaning beyond the satire.
(Stop here if you just wanted to read a rant about pastries. If you're looking for more substance click here. Also Schmetterling's post on The Eccentric Sage links this post to another fellow's post for the sake of making an interesting point. I recomend that you check it out.)

It's the Simple Things

(Post 7)

So, sometimes being a janitor at a dorm full of Freshman sometimes isn't all it's cut out to be... and most don't cut out very much of it. However, there are many many benefits to being a janitor... one of which is the associated Janitorial Zen that can be achieved by select Janitorial Zen Masters. Today I experienced two of those benefits, and I want to tell about them: 1.) There is something sadistically comic about a phenomenon that I as a janitor experience on a nearly daily basis. It usually presents itself in this way: I go to the closet, get out the yellow "closed" sign and set it up in the hallway. I lock the bathroom doors and hook up the hose so I can spray down the showers. Inevitably, before I get a chance to turn the water on I hear a set of sounds that make me as jolly as the Grinch would have been if he'd heard " all the Whos down in Who-ville [...] all cry BOO-HOO!" First the door handle to the left jiggles; then it rattles. Next, the door thumps back and forth on the doorframe. Fists pound the door while someone screams "NOOO!" or "Awe-Man!" or "#$@!" or my favorite, "Not AGAIN!" This is then repeated on the right door. Sometimes I hear one final kick at the door's footplate before I hear frantic running in the direction of the next bathroom. I really start to glow by this time, and my whole day just seems to go much better. Call me cruel, but cruel is as cruel does, or something like that... 2.) You meet interesting people as a janitor - like the guy that dances up the stairwell while his iPod is blasting. Today I met a coworker from one of the other buildings. He's from some Hispanic or Latino country. He makes me feel like I'm living "The Mummy" because he sounds almost exactly like Benny - you know, the guy who says "What friend? You are my only friend." and "It is better to be on the Devil's left hand than in his path." So anyhow... it's the little things that make life good.

-Schlange

Unintentional Conversations

(Post 5)

So... I have this incredible power: I'll give you an example first and then tell you what it is.

Two years ago I was in a public restroom stall. An other fellow walks in, sits down in the stall next to me and says in a very friendly voice, "HEY!"

"Hi... " I say in a tone of voice that indicates that my right eyebrow is raised.

"So, what are you doing?"

"Um... " (This was not the kind of question I was expecting.) "I'm using the toilet. How about you?"

At this point my friendly neighborhood restroom goer changes his tone of voice dramatically from one of friendly and outgoing to one of extreme annoyance, and uses it to say, "Hey! Would you shut up please? I'm trying to talk on the phone here!"

I laughed for days. It was really therapeutic actually.

So there it is from time to time I attract a cell phone user who is engaged in a conversation to be around when I'm not aware that they are in a conversation. I then speak and receive responses in a very real feeling pseudo-conversation. I wish it would happen a little more often. Some days I just need a good laugh.