tiny beast

The scientific name for a raccoon is procyon lotor. This translates roughly to "pudgy bear who rips open my garbage bags and spreads last night's Moe's chips all over the bed of my truck like a corn-based blizzard." Raccoons have weirdly human hand prints. My truck looks like a muddy baby crawled all over it. Are truck-climbin' babies common around here? I'm not well-versed in the native wildlife. Garbage bags have a tendency to be messy when ripped open by wild animals. I think it's mostly due to the fact that they are usually filled with garbage. What are raccoons afraid of? Maybe I could build a small statue of a fearsome creature. I don't really know how to build anything though. Every time I've tried, I've cut myself severely. Perhaps I could be the fearsome creature? That raccoon might take one look at a bloodied rascal trying to saw a 2 x 4 into some sort of winged avenger and roll up out.

carbonated tumble

I dropped my Diet Pepsi this morning. It crashed on the cement, rolled down two steps and eventually came to rest in the soft grass.
Funny that's how I feel.
Pressurized and dented, dirty and ready to be thrown away. But I didn't throw it away. I picked it up, cleaned it off and waited. Because I knew if I waited, I could open it up, and it would be ready to use. It was still dented from the fall, but that didn't matter to me. I still used it for the purpose it was made for.
Funny, that's how God feels.

ridiculous conversation

God: I think you'll like it here Adam. It has lots of fresh air, it's spacious and you're pretty much free to do what you want.
Adam: This is amazing! It's great here. I can't wait to look around.
God: Well, I'll leave you alone. You'll need to get started on naming all the animals pretty soon.
Adam: Sure, sure. I can't thank You enough for all...wait. Name all the what?
God: The animals. I've decided to let you name all the animals. Isn't that great?
Adam: I'm confused. You want me to name ALL the animals? on Earth?
God: Yes. Cool huh?
Adam: But there's like a million of them!
God: Oooh, there's a lot more than that!
Adam: Not the bugs. You don't want me to name all of them too?
God: Yep.
Adam: How am I supposed to come up with all those names? That will take years and years!
God: Well everything has to have a name. I do. You do.
Adam: Yes, You named me. And that's all.
God: It's not like it was easy. I mean naming the only human on the whole planet? That was very stressful.
Adam: But I have to name a billion!
God: Right. You can afford to throw in a few stupid names as long as most of them are clever. I'd never hear the end of it if I had named you something stupid.
Adam: Never hear the end of it from who? I'm the only one here!
God: Yes, now you are but in the future there will be many more of you.
Adam: How?
God: Oh right, I almost forgot. I've got to get to work naming this woman I've just created. Got to go. I have absolutely no idea what to call her. Get back to me if you think of something.

moon letter

According to discover magazine.com, "Laser beams bounced off mirrors left behind by Apollo astronauts show that the moon is moving 1.5 inches farther from Earth each year."

Dear Moon,
I noticed you haven't been responding to my emails or texts. Then I read this thing on the internet about you moving away. I'm sorry to say I've been so wrapped up in my own affairs I haven't even noticed. I hope you'll consider moving back. I'm not sure what I did to upset you but I have a few ideas. Was it all the cheese jokes? I know you're not really made of cheese, that would be stupid. I mean we've sent astronauts to your surface. They never said anything about dairy products. Do you feel bad that you only reflect the Sun's light and don't have any of your own? I know the Sun can be cocky. He reminded me yesterday for about the thousandth time that if he moved only a little towards me or away from me I would burn up or freeze to death, respectively. You just have to ignore him sometimes. He's really been insufferable since this whole global warming thing. What about giving you credit for the tides? That's got to count for something doesn't it? I mean where would I be without tides? I wouldn't be able to...umm...wash away sandcastles without you. I know that whole face on the moon fiasco embarrassed you. I mean that photo doesn't look anything like you. We've all had bad photos though right? Remember that picture of us at prom? My continents looked all squished together. Everyone starting calling me Pangaea after that. I hated that name. I still do. My point is, I'm sorry for everything that's happened between us. I do miss you though. What do you say? Move a half an inch back and see what you think. Meanwhile, I'll talk to all the other guys about the cheese stuff. Hope to hear from you soon.
Earth

Someone stole a English-Japanese phrase book from the library the other day. The culprit ripped the innards of the book outtards and left the cover and page that would beep to alert security something's amiss. Now something is a-missing. The book was about the size of a deck of cards and couldn't have been very expensive. Did someone need to know Japanese so badly and so quickly that he or she didn't have the time to earn the money to buy one or get a library card? Some Anime or Manga festival coming up that requires you to know phrases like, "Where is the nearest hospital?" or "How do I find the train station?" What's frustrating to me is that whenever this happens, the book cover is always lying around where the book is supposed to be shelved. Like it just flew apart. Or so many people read it that the binding melted under such rapid page turning. At least throw the cover away. If you're going to be a thief, at least try to be professional.

History is rife with descriptive titles such as William the Conqueror or Richard the Lionhearted. William evidently conquered things and Richard, one can only assume, killed gazelles. Take a person's most obvious quality and call him that forever. This wouldn't be bad if you were brave, powerful or had a strange animosity toward swift, horned quadripeds, but what if you weren't any of these things? What if the thing that people noticed most about you was some strange hobby or an undesirable social habit? Hey did you hear about Charles the 19th Century Silverware Collector? He's having his appendix removed. Poor guy...or Who did I see you with yesterday? Was that Thomas the Unreasonably Loud Whisperer? Perhaps it's best we call people by their names and leave these questions for history to decide. After all, if you hate gazelles that much, maybe you do deserve such a name.

buzz buzz

So there's this bumblebee hovering over our deck for about 2 weeks now. I say (actually I write) “bumblebee” but it could be “bumblebees” since I can't tell bumblebees apart unless they wear name tags, which they rarely do. This insect seems quite taken with this particular area of our deck. There is a bag of garbage that's been there for a while but he doesn't seem interested in it. Also, he chased off a bug of indeterminate species a few minutes ago. It's possible this bumblebee is wacko but I can sympathize with him (wacko or not). I spend most of my life hovering around the same patch of mental real estate never venturing out where life is or allowing anyone to get too close to my spot of land. I have staked it out so well I can find the edges blindfolded at night with no eyeballs. That's right. NO eyeballs. Why do I stay here? It's comfortable I guess. In the same way that a recliner in the middle of a pride of lions is comfortable. Yeah it feels good but pretty soon I'm going to need to run or act all crazy like some kind of crazy lion so they take a step back and are like “Is he for real?” and I'm like “Heck yeah I'm for real!” and while they're discussing whether they should eat me or keep their distance I use my jet pack to fly away. Then you'll see some pretty sheepish looking lions 'cause they know they should have seen that coming. Meandering prose can be difficult to reign in sometimes so I'm going to put several periods at the end of this sentence to slow things down..........That should do it. I stay because it's what I know and all that stuff I don't know is absolutely terrifying. Will I ever get off the deck? Honestly, probably not. Will the bee? I don't know. Ask an entomologist.