I've fallen off of the Peng Challenge and I can't get up!

Noba · June 2, 2002

I was going to berate you for your ignorance until I noticed you were Odztraylyun,

Of course, ignorance is yours.

There is one thing I really want to know, ...are the vowels on your keyboard working now ?

Noba.

Noba · June 2, 2002

I don't even think you have the standing in the MBT to start a sanctioned thread...waffle

Well you must have slipped in after that poodle of yours. No doubt the dog felt sorry for you and handed over his ID. Your standing is about as high as his cocked leg. Oh, that is right...he's missing some. There you go.

Noba.

Noba · June 2, 2002

I don't even think you have the standing in the MBT to start a sanctioned thread...waffle

Well you must have slipped in after that poodle of yours. No doubt the dog felt sorry for you and handed over his ID. Your standing is about as high as his cocked leg. Oh, that is right...he's missing some. There you go.

Noba.

Noba · June 2, 2002

Posted by Her (non) Luminence:

Mace, let me help you out...weekends are good...Mondays are bad.

My Lady, this coming monday in the West is fabulous - we are having it off ! For our Foundation Day.

Thankyou.

Noba.

Noba · June 2, 2002

Posted by Her (non) Luminence:

Mace, let me help you out...weekends are good...Mondays are bad.

My Lady, this coming monday in the West is fabulous - we are having it off ! For our Foundation Day.

Thankyou.

Noba.

Berlichtingen · June 2, 2002

Originally posted by Noba:
My Lady, this coming monday in the West is fabulous - we are having it off ! For our Foundation Day.

Is that when you celebrate no longer sleeping on dirt floors? That tradition must go way back... at least to 1999

Berlichtingen · June 2, 2002

Originally posted by Noba:
My Lady, this coming monday in the West is fabulous - we are having it off ! For our Foundation Day.

Is that when you celebrate no longer sleeping on dirt floors? That tradition must go way back... at least to 1999

Yeknodathon · June 2, 2002

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:
You, Sir Joe Joe Shaw were responsible for more anarchy than I.

Joe

Joe Joe... anarchy... floppy ears...

Oh, dear, oh deary me... this must be Joe-Joe Binks Two of 'em twice Joe-Joe Joe-Joe... exponential spawning *sigh*.. multiple quires abandoned, *sigh, sigh*... exit zone chaos, quire record-keeping *sigh* missing or inaccurate... *sigh*... I shall make a note with me thickest crayon:

Joe-Joe Joe-Joe - slack, needs monitoring.

Yeknod o' tha Thistle

Yeknodathon · June 2, 2002

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:
You, Sir Joe Joe Shaw were responsible for more anarchy than I.

Joe

Joe Joe... anarchy... floppy ears...

Oh, dear, oh deary me... this must be Joe-Joe Binks Two of 'em twice Joe-Joe Joe-Joe... exponential spawning *sigh*.. multiple quires abandoned, *sigh, sigh*... exit zone chaos, quire record-keeping *sigh* missing or inaccurate... *sigh*... I shall make a note with me thickest crayon:

Joe-Joe Joe-Joe - slack, needs monitoring.

Yeknod o' tha Thistle

Noba · June 2, 2002

Posted by my Grand Liege:

Is that when you celebrate no longer sleeping on dirt floors? That tradition must go way back... at least to 1999

Sigh. They say you can choose your friends, but not your rellies. (Anyone want to swap ?)

Noba.

Noba · June 2, 2002

Posted by my Grand Liege:

Is that when you celebrate no longer sleeping on dirt floors? That tradition must go way back... at least to 1999

Sigh. They say you can choose your friends, but not your rellies. (Anyone want to swap ?)

Noba.

Seanachai · June 2, 2002

You know, when you live alone, many interesting things can happen to you. Well, not interesting, necessarily. More like annoying.

For example, the other night the aging UberGnome got up in the wee hours of the night to answer that age old call of nature. Stumbling through the dark, groggy from a night spent reading all sorts of gibberish on the Thread of threads, I managed to smack my foot, primarily the big toe, right into the door frame of the bathroom. After a few moments of rather unseemly, Capt-esque language, and a bit of hopping around, I finished what I'd gone in there to do and went back to bed.

In the morning, of course, I awoke to a swollen, distorted foot. And pain. Let's not forget the pain.

But for anyone who has actually lost to Bauhaus, pain is not that big a thing. I was even cheerful, later in the day, speaking to Berli on the phone.

But, as evening moved on and the steady throb increased, I decided that icing down the damaged appendage was the best policy. I proceeded to the freezer compartment at the top of my fridge in order to fill a baggie full of ice.

When I opened the freezer door, a three pound tupperware container filled with frozen chicken shot out of the compartment, plummeted straight down, and landed edge on squarely on the already damaged foot, just where the big toe meets the foot.

If the previous shrieking of expletives was reminiscent of the Capt, this was more Meeksian in its impact. I hobbled, whimpering, back to my bed, and prayed that the next day would be better.

The next day, Thursday, I was in agony. The whole foot swelled up, and I lay in my room with it up on a pillow. The temperature went up to 90°, and I hadn't dragged any of my fans out yet (no air conditioning here at Casa Gnome, thank you), and now I was crippled and couldn't get down to the basement to get them. By evening I was taking 4 aspirin at a time, sweating like I was in hell because it was 95 in the bedroom, shaking with pain, and all but delirious. Friends were calling and after speaking to me for a few minutes they'd ask: 'Are you alright, you sound a little strained?'

And I'm yelling "No, goddamnit, I'm not alright! The bed is soaking wet with my sweat! I can't think straight anymore, and I can't get to the bathroom, so pretty soon there's going to be more than sweat on these sheets! I can't make food for myself, and I'm choking down handfuls of aspirin on an empty stomach, and my stomach's starting to bleed! And the pain! With every throb of my horribly swollen foot, it feels like hot pokers are being run up my leg and right into my groin! I'm filthy, sweating, starving, bleeding internally, and damn near rigid with pain! I'm in hell, I'm in hell! Someone shoot me! Please shoot me, shoot me!!"

And they'd laugh, and say, 'you know, even when you're under-the-weather, you're still a funny guy. I'll call back later when you're feeling better', and they'd hang up with my despairing screams in their ear.

So I crawl out to the kitchen. I can no longer even bear to hop on one foot, as this is putting horrible stress on my bad knee. There's no food. Worse, there's no drink. No beer. No wine. No Irish Whiskey. No 'stolen minis of horrible E&J brandy from the honour bar' of the last hotel visit (room charged to someone else's card). Nothing.

I roll back on to the bed, and clutch the cordless phone to my sweating, shaking chest. Through encroaching delirium, I scream at myself to think! think! Will anyone bring me food? Pizza. I can order pizza. I crawl back into the main room to get my checkbook, and remember that a friend recently surprised me by telling me that a local liquor store actually has a delivery service.

I find my checkbook contains one check. I have no cash. I go to the check box in the drawer, and find the unsent 'time to reorder slip'. I am beginning to weep quietly to myself. But I know what I must do.

I dial up the liquor store, and tell them I need a delivery. I need it right now. Will they take a check? Well, they prefer credit cards. But they will take a check, if I don't happen to have my card with me? I get a grudging, 'yes'.

"I need to order for delivery. Personal check."

"Have you paid by check with us before, sir?"

"Christ yes. I'm not a customer, I'm more like a goddamn investor."

"Umm, alright. There is a $40 minimum order on a delivery, sir, and a $10 delivery fee."

wild laughter from my end of the phone

"Is that all? I'm an incredibly rich man! Money means nothing to me! Do you understand?! Money means nothing to me!!!"

"Yes sir."

"And you'll bring it right to my door, right?"

"Yes sir."

"Do I have to be walking?"

"What?"

"What if I'm lying on the floor when he gets here? Is that a problem?"

"Er, sir, are you alright?" extreme nervousness

"Perfectly all right. Perfectly. But I'm...I'm handicapped. I lost my big toes in an industrial accident, and you can't maintain a sense of balance without you big toes. You know that, don't you? So sometimes I have to crawl to the door. Disorientation. Imbalance. It takes me that way sometimes. There isn't a problem, is there?"

"Well, sir, we don't like to deliver to anyone who...er, well, might be, I mean, if there's any question of 'abuse' well..."

"THERE ARE LAWS, YOU KNOW! LAWS TO PREVENT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE HANDICAPPED IN THIS STATE!"

"Okay! Okay, sir, no problem. I'll explain to the delivery guy."

I begin to order anything I can think of. I only moderate my choices when I can hear anxiety creeping back into the voice at the other end. We finally round out the order.

"What about food?"

"What about...food, sir?"

"Yes. Food. Do you have any there?"

"Well, no, sir, this is a liquor store."

"No chips or anything? Beef jerky? Christ, haven't you people heard of cross-merchandising?"

"No, sorry, nothing like that. Well, we have lemons and limes, for cocktails and stuff. And some jars of pickled onions and mushrooms. And nuts, you know, those nuts you put in some drinks?"

"Filberts. Alright. Give me two jars of the mushrooms, half a dozen limes and lemons, your choice, and two containers of the filberts."

"Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes. For now. For tonight. You people don't have demerol there, do you?"

"What?"

"A joke. An old, crippled man's little joke. What's the total?"

"$175.00, sir, with the delivery fee."

I'm unemployed, but what does money mean when you know you're not going to make it through to morning?

"Could I have your address, sir?"

"Why? What the hell do you want that for?"

the voice on the other end is getting definitely shakey

"For the driver, sir? So he can make the delivery?"

"Why not just say so, then, and not piss around making people paranoid? Are you Australian?"

"No sir. I'm from Illinois, originally."

"That explains the hideous accent. Alright, I live at..."

And I proceed to give him my address.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear all that."

A sudden gentle but imperative beep-beep sounds from my hand. I look at the handset of the cordless phone, the phone I've kept by my side night and day for the last two, horrible, pain-filled days, and realize the 'recharge' light is blinking. All those calls from telemarketers. All those phone calls from jolly friends who laughed, rang off, and have not brought me food, or drink, or even just a clean lethal injection. The battery is dying. I shout my address into the phone, and hear only the tiniest, incomprehensible thread of sound back. The phone goes completely dead. I crawl back into the main room, and clutch at the cords, intent on dragging the base unit down to use the speaker phone (South Minneapolis: Only one phone jack in the entire one bedroom apartment. Only one phone), and as it comes over the edge it misses my clutching hand, smashes into the desktop, and comes apart in several essential ways.

After that, things became a bit hazy.

I was next fully conscious of my actions a few hours later, when I found myself sitting in my underwear in the kitchen, legs straight out before me, beating a sodden lump of rapidly deteriorating frozen chicken into mush with the handset of my cordless phone, screaming "Think you're tough, eh?! Think you're tough, mister frozen chicken brick?!!! Well meet mister hammer, you bastard!!" The walls and cabinets around me were spattered with gobbets of half frozen chicken.

The landlord had let himself in with a passkey, and I could see the poor bastard who lives upstairs from me, who I often hear passing outside my windows holding intent, muttered conversations with himself about remembering to take his medication, peering in horror over the landlord's shoulder. Poor fool. It must have sounded like a remake of the Amityville Horror to him up there, crouched on his sofa, counting out his pills to make sure he'd taken today's, and that whatever was happening under his feet was not another episode.

"Dear God, what's going on in here?" This from my landlord.

Several replies quickly went through my mind. But, with a keen eye to the appearance of evidence in a mental competency hearing, I calmly looked at him and said:

"I always find chicken a bit tough for my taste, don't you? I'm tenderizing it. Can't a poor, afflicted man prepare a simple meal in his own kitchen without harassment?" I pointed out my foot to him. They both fled.

Some of this, of course, involves a bit of conjecture on my part. But, in the long run, it is the only explication of the circumstances that can rationalize everything I discovered the next morning when I woke up.

Seanachai · June 2, 2002