| the blog of human failure
Hello again. Is anybody out there? I know it’s been a long, long time since we last spoke. Did you end up having that thing checked out? Was it cancer? No? A baby! See, I kept telling you we had sex when you were asleep but you didn’t want to believe me. Well you’re glowing and it’s great to see you again. You’re a pleasure; keep your nose clean. It’s time to get back to business.
The economy, am I right people? The economy so bad! So bad. Some of us haven’t worked in a long time. It was pretty horrible for a while but then we got these pills and for some reason it wasn’t so bad anymore, even though we still don’t have a job. What’s that about? It’s in this constant state of looking for employment (i.e. watching television) that a few interesting ideas have started to occur to me. Money making ideas. Honey baking money making ideas. Booty shakin’ honey bakin’ money makin’ idears. This brain of mine is a temple. A temple brain with a tent pole frame. Assonance baby! God I love these pills.
Ok, so my first idea is to break people’s things and then fix them for a price. So let’s say for example that you had a chair. Now let’s say I took a steak knife and stabbed it a couple dozen times. Now you’ll say something stupid that nobody cares about, about how I “broke your chair.” Now comes the part that’s going to take some finesse. I’m going to tell you, “Hey, no problem. I’ve got a chair guy.” Next I go to the furniture store and find a chair that looks just like yours. I get out my steak knife and stab the chair, but just once. Then I go have a sandwich and get back to the furniture store around closing time where hopefully they’ll be out back throwing away the stab chair. I bring it over to your place and say something like, “Tada, new chair baby.” And then you’ll say something stupid about the one stab mark in the chair. Then I tell you my guy couldn’t get that one out. “That’s a diagonal stab,” I’ll say, stroking my beard. “Very tricky. $40 dollars please.” So far I’ve tried this with all of my friends and I’ve made $40 dollars, tax free. And the best part is I’m my own boss.
Another idea that I’m liking a lot is kidnapping. So let’s say for example that you had a kid. Now let’s say I took out a steak knife and stabbed it a couple dozen times. You really have to scuff it up so that they don’t want it anymore. Well guess who turns on the broken record and complains about me stabbing his kid too much: it’s you. Now if you thought the chair con was going to take some finesse this one is going to make that bamboozle look like a grilled cheese sandwich. I’m going to have to go kidnap a kid. Where am I going to get a kid? Are you kidding? I see them all over the city in their own personalized shopping carts. Also, there are babies at the airport. So I hand you one of these kids I found. But then you won’t give me the $40 because apparently, “one is too many” steak knife stab wounds in a baby. It’s like with honey where you’re not supposed to stab a baby for the first year. Well if you’re such a great parent then why is your baby always crying? See, that last line is actually good news because it turns out the new baby is still alive.
I’m taking my chair back.
It’s really only in my happiest moments that I consider committing suicide. Do I hope to go out gloriously and on top? Is it my fear that the rest of life will be a beige disappointment? I think I probably just get overwhelmed with the excitement of success and confuse self destruction with some kind of fireworks display of the soul. Also, of course, I would enjoy the petty little irony of, “Oh, he’s always killing himself when he’s happiest. What an unimpeachable enigma that Jason is. Let me be the last to have sex with him warm…blah, blah…”.
The conflict between almost every religion and suicide is confusing to the point of being suspicious in my view. What almost certainly happened is that a religion was set up, pick your favorite, exchanging good deeds for everlasting happiness at some point after death. A lot of people probably got their good-to-bad-deed batting average comfortably over .500 and then killed themselves immediately – wisely inferring that they had short circuited the god machine and gamed their way into heaven. Add that to the otherwise nice seeming people who were just sad and decided to kill themselves and religion had a mighty big problem on its hands. Suicide was declared against the rules. I hope the people who had the foresight to harikari before the law was on the books got grandfathered into heaven. It’s like date raping in the ‘70s. I mean she agreed to go out with you right? What did she expect? You had to be a sucker not to do it. No reason the crafty should be penalized retroactively. Otherwise we stifle innovation.
But does anybody know? Is there a religion where you still get into heaven, or whatever the positive equivalent is, even after committing suicide? I can image it not even being dependant on good deeds. Once you can do 100 pushups, and they’re not messing around – they’re talking about perfect form here, you are technically allowed to kill yourself and still go to heaven. Pushups aside, there must be a religion where you’re allowed to kill yourself. And if you’re allowed to kill yourself, well that’s almost tacit encouragement to surely kill yourself. What the hell are you waiting around for? Don’t you have faith in BimBop the Sky Spider? The best part about this religion is that they must be taking converts. They’re going through fresh bodies like a bowl of Cheese Nips. I wouldn’t be surprised if there used to be such a religion and then another religion killed them off, figuring that everyone would convert and then kill themselves – again back-dooring their way into heaven. I hope there’s still one still around, just in case I start getting religious in middle age. It would give me a special pleasure to sit in the cheaters section of heaven, laughing with my comrades at all the suckers.
As a final thought, wouldn’t it be funny if the point of life was to kill yourself? You die old of natural causes, get to heaven, and god is like, “Uh, sorry stupid, no dice dancing at this party. How obviously painful was I supposed to make it? Better luck next time coward.” I take much more comfort from that scenario.
Henry was happy to set Mitch up with a job at his PR firm. He had risen to the ranks of vice-president and was for the first time in his life able to buy himself and his dog separate toothbrushes. Mitch started off at the job very strong, reeling in a few big clients, and spent less and less time crying at his desk each day. Things took a slow nose dive as a malaise settled over Mitch. He turned up for work later each successive day. He stopped making showering a routine habit. He was frequently caught borrowing Scolnick’s dog’s toothbrush. Then came a week when McCulloch simply didn’t show up for work at all. Scolnick didn’t know what to do. On one hand he didn’t want to have to fire his friend. On the other hand he couldn’t have an employee he hired not showing up for work for an entire week. His employees would think he was a pushover and he had already spent so much money on extra wide, stabilizing footwear. On the other hand he couldn’t be personally responsible for every decision the company makes. Echh, it’s got three hands, thought Scolnick. Keep it away from the children! He obviously had to calm down. He didn’t even have any children and if he did, they would certainly have the appropriate protective netting. What he needed was a plan. Before he could even begin thinking Mitch burst into his office.
“I can’t do this anymore,” said Mitch bursting into tears. “I can’t hack it in the real world any longer. I’m moving back to the island.”
“Listen, I’m sorry if I was so hard on you but I’ll buy you your own tooth brush for god’s sake,” said Scolnick. “It’s just gross.”
“It’s not about the toothbrush. It’s not about my job or my wife. Life just isn’t the same since I’ve gotten back from that island. I left something of myself there and there’s only one way I’m going to get it back,” said McCulloch leaning on the chair next to the desk.
“Because I can’t pay you for that week you missed,” said Scolnick. “And I’m certainly not moving back to that island, Mitch. I’ve got a wife now and fancy shoes. I mean, look at me. I haven’t seen a jelly bean in three months!”
“I don’t want you to come with me,” said McCulloch, putting his hand on Scolnick’s shoulder. “You’re my best friend Henry, and you were always there for me. I want you to know that if I could pick any book, CD, and person to bring with me on a deserted island I would bring Absolute Power by David Baldacci, I Don’t Want What I Haven’t Got by Sinead O’Connor, and you my friend.”
The two men embraced and Mitch McCulloch raced out the door towards his destiny. That’s the craziest son of a bitch I ever met, thought Scolnick smiling, standing by himself.
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