Mr. Sandpig

While battling insomnia last night, I resorted to one of my favorite keys for unlocking the door to sleep: Think about something interesting yet completely unimportant. Last night's conveyor belt to eye closure was the question "Why do pigs grunt?"

Of course, this is not a question that has an easy answer. In fact, the more I asked myself this question, the further I seemed to get from finding an answer. So I thought to myself, perhaps the best way to tackle this puzzle is to ask a similar question, but in a different direction.. The outcome was:

What would happen if pigs did not grunt?

But that question also had no easy answer, so I proceeded to the next question: Why don't pigs moo, or coo, or cluck or neigh?

Once again, I ended up back where I had started: No answer. So the interrogation continued:
Why don't cows grunt, or pigeons or cats?....All non-grunters. I continued to an even bigger question, "Why do humans grunt?" For example, Maria Sharapova.

At this point, it was clear to me that pigs and humans have a lot more in common than I thought. For example, all of us could join hands to sing the following childhood tune at the top of our lungs:

A-grunting we will go,
A-grunting we will go,
Heigh ho, the dairy-o,
A-grunting we will go!

But, alas, no answer again! Nevertheless, I fell asleep at this point, silently singing the above little rhyme over and over until the dairy-o left me surrounded by a bunch of Holstein cattle singing along with me, not a pig in sight.

Somewhere Over the Corn Row

Last Saturday night, one of the TV stations showed a fun movie: Jeepers Creepers II. (I have never seen Jeepers Creepers I). It had a weak story-line and it was largely predictable. In a nutshell, the movie consisted of a bus carrying the entire high-school football team breaking down on an isolated, desolate state highway that seemed to have no other traffic throughout. (I kept thinking that the film was set in Nebraska, or maybe Kansas, somewhere with lots of cornfields and crows. A lot of scary flicks seem to take place in settings with lots of crows and cornfields, but very few people.)be located somewhere like that.)

As the movie rolled along, one member of the football team after another got knocked off by a fascinating horse-size coal-black critter that seemed to be a cross between a giant absolutely black locust and a vicious crow with large, ugly teeth. The winged critter would stay out of sight for a while, and then swoop down from the skies, grab another victim from the football team, and then whisk away back up to the heavens.
The end of the movie turned out happily and more than a bit too syrupy. A couple of the guys from the football team even knocked the critter off, though I do expect him to show up again in a third installment of a trilogy. I hope so. The special effects were worth staying up late, very late, to see the movie. Hmmm...a lot of things in the movie could have come from the Wizard of Oz. I suppose a little plagiarism doesn't hurt a thing

The Sounds of the Fury

"drip......drip......drip"
The kitchen faucet is at it again. I lie here in the bed, asking myself 50, 51, 52 times why I didn't check the thing before I got all comfortable under the covers. After much moaning and groaning and finally accepting the fact that the hand of fate is simply not going to display a sudden act of mercy by turning the cold water knob just a hair tighter. Yes, that is one of the sounds in life that sends me into a quiet frenzy of madness. But there are also a few more:

The "ting! ting! ting!" as silverware strikes against porcelain as a large group of people around the dinner table politely dive into an otherwise splendid meal. Somebody, please, give them chopsticks!

The "beep! beep! beep!" as the laser printer screams that it is out of paper again. Our old office printer rarely did this because it held four times the number pages that our current one does. I'm sure my company had a good reason for upgrading to this newer model, but they aren't telling me.

The "tootle-loo! tootle-loo! tootle-loo!" (hmmm...have you noticed that all of these sounds come in sets of three...I am sure there must be a message of cosmic importance here, but please don't tell me) of the cell phone belonging to the young lady across the aisle from me on the subway. She purposely lets her phone ring a few more times and then whips it out importantly and begins talking so loud that there is no one in the cabin who does not know what's going on in her life.

The "click-click-click" of all my officemates working furiously at their computers. My own keyboard somehow seems silent unless I really concentrate on it. For some reason though, the lady sitting next to me is always complaining about how hard I bang away on my keyboard. I have absolutely no idea of what she is talking about!

Those Frolicking Easter Dust Bunnies

Now that St. Valentine's Day has sprinted out the door after winning all of our hearts and minds, the next two big days lie just over the horizon: St. Patrick's Day and Easter. But since I no longer drink beer, and particularly not any pea-green beer, I will skip directly to Easter. Now there's a holiday. Ol' Jack Rabbit does his best to fill all those Easter baskets to overflowing.

Of course, now that I am over 50, my mind usually busies itself with much more mundane issues, such as planning to clean my apartment, and then letting another week go by without tackling that frightening task. So, now that a number of weeks (which I politely refuse to specify here) have gone by without prompting me to pull out the vacuum cleaner, the more inaccessible corners of my apartment are steadily turning into breeding grounds for families of very nimble, hard-to-catch tiny dust bunnies. When I swat my hand at them, they prove as evasive as butterflies and as relentless as bottle-flies. They have now been there so long that they are gradually turning from dirty-brown gray to more appealing colors that match some of my towels, T shirts, and bedtime blankets.

They are all taking on such a personality of their own that I hate to condemn them to a slaughterhouse in the deep caverns of my vacuum cleaner. So I think I will wait until after Easter. By then, some of them will have blown away as I start opening my apartment window to allow some fresh spring air in. Perhaps the bunnies will grasp that as an opportunity to escape and live another year. That will leave my conscience must more at ease. I can then collect the dust bunny eggs they left behind, and I will save my list of pet dust bunny names for next year.

Got Nails?

One topic that has been on my mind lately is nails – as in fingernails and toenails. When I was a child, I frequently heard tales about how a person's nails keep growing even after death, and that if you open a coffin years after the burial, the dead party will have nails that are a foot long or more. According to the myth, nails just keep growing and growing, like well-fertilized kudzu. I now know this myth is nothing more than just that, but the spookiness of nails still fascinates and haunts me. Sometimes, weeks seem to creep by before my nails experience any growth, and at other times, it seems that I am having to cut them every day.

Now, as if my mind has nothing better to occupy itself with, I find myself trying to figure out just what the nail growth algorithm is. For example, do nails grow at a steady pace of, say, two micrometers a day? Or do they grow erratically, sometimes not at all, within a 24-hour span, and at other times two millimeters overnight? Do certain types of food and drink affect the pace of nail growth differently? For instance, does chicken bone gristle act as a nail growth catalyst, while white chocolate or very hot chili sauce brings the growth process to a complete standstill?
I would google for an answer, but I really don't want to know any more than I already do. So I tried to analyze why I don't want to be enlightened about all things nail. Which made me realize: Postulating about nail growth is a very enjoyable passtime. Sort of like visiting Disneyland -- just toss out the world of the rational and known, and dive deep into the galaxy of the whimsical and unknown. Admittedly, this is not a highly logical or rational approach to life, but it is a lot more fun. Even adults need a playground now and then.

The Spaghetti People

My dreamworld has been active lately. A frequently recurring dream is populated with tall, very tall humans, 12 to 14 feet tall, spiked hair not included. In most of these dreams, the tall people are at a cocktail party at Georgetown University. (I can't figure that one out. I've never been there.)

The party is definitely elitist. No one under 12 feet tall is admitted. (Even Yao Ming wouldn't make the cut!)

I, too, am not an official party guest. I'm merely a disoriented moth fluttering from one light to the next. My main objective is to remain inconspicuous. There's nothing like getting swatted at by a 14-foot fellow nicknamed Slinky.

The tall people appear to be a calm folk. They largely live in a world of their own, almost a different species. They are known as the Spaghetti People because they are so long, thin and willowy...and intelligent and successful. They have no shoulders, chests, bellies, hips or butts to speak of. Their arms are as long as the average guy is tall. There is something worm-like about them, pliable and bendable, even though they have long, long backbones, giving giraffes a run for their spots.

In my dreams, the Spaghetti people never do much. At the party, they sip their cocktails, nibble lightly on party snacks, and drift around holding small talk with the other tall, tall guests. They all seem to know each other.

Every now and then, I spot a half-full (-empty?) glass left on a table, counter, or mantelpiece. Bravely (or foolishly), I swoop down for a quick sip. Where, I ask myself, do these long-bodied creatures ever find beds long enough to accommodate them? I take another sip from the glass, and decide to flap back up to the ceiling. My head suddenly starts spinning. The vodka in the glass was strong stuff.

Big Giggle Behind the Pearly Gates

This morning, eight zillion tiny locusts invaded my head, all chirping in unison over and over and over again a pesky childhood jingle that I have not thought about in years:

Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,
Chopped up monkey meat,
Petrified parakeet,
And I forgot my spoon!
And I forgot my spoon!

I simply could not get rid of it. I tried all sorts of tricks, including trying to supplant it with a second plague of locusts chriping another childhood jingle:

I found a peanut,
I found a peanut,
I found a peanut just now,
Just now I found a peanut,
Found a peanut just now...

But the first plague of locust quickly devoured the peanut clan, and went right back to chirping, chirping, chirping their pesky song.

When I was a child, I remember our parents trying to prohibit us from singing either of those two jingles. They somehow found the little tunes ungodly.

But I never understood that logic. In my concept of God at that time (and now as well), he was not such a dour fellow. In fact, he enjoyed a good laugh, and probably spent lots of time figuring out new ways to make his fellow heavenly holies laugh at our expense. Hmm, now that I think of it, God is probably the one who set this jingle loose in my head. So, God, all I can say is "Ha Ha."