Part III: “What’s this? Two meals in one week?” – Dr. John Zoidburg

And now, the exciting conclusion!

When last we left our hero, he had been assaulted and robbed at awesome-point my men stronger, if not bigger, than he and left in a pile of laundry and hurt and shame. He could tell from the laughter outside his again-locked door that everyone was having a great time at his expense, but he was no longer in a mood to laugh.

It was at this point that Hoss decided that he was out of escape options. Which left only the window. Donning shin and knee pads and affixing a bike helmet to his head, he prepared for the escape and fight for freedom. He opened up his window, climbed up onto the fence outside and down onto the neighbours’ driveway.

After discovering the front and back doors to be locked, and realizing he had lost more than just the door key in the combat earlier, he returned into his room which, at least, was warm.

It was at this point, as Hoss had half-climbed back into his room that he was met with some company. Greta had come in, bearing some cold leftover food and a glass of water. She deposited them on the table and escaped the room before Hoss had a chance to make a break for the door, but the thought was appreciated.

AT least, it was appreciated for a couple minutes. For a short while later, an assailant burst again through the door, throwing a cloud of small green plastic BBs over the room already reduced to chaos. Hoss wouldn’t have been so upset, if the food he had been enjoying was not now filled with small green beads.

Despairing of freedom, Hoss found something else to do. He sat down at his desk and wrote letters. Some time passed. Eventually, the sound of the door opening broke him from his linguistic composition-ing. It was Greta.

“Y’know, the door’s been open for, like, 10 minutes?”

Hoss sat, finished his letter, and then emerged.

Ultimately, I sense, as an author, an anticlimax. But, like the nature of most pranks, it was never as much fun as it was in he first 10 minutes. I am encouraged to know I have so many friends who are willing to drop what they are doing and gather to taunt, mock, and in some cases attack me. Together. Like a family.

And it’s going to take a couple days before I work up the energy to try and fix everything in my room.

Part II: “I’ll be in my Angry Dome!” – Professor Hubert J Farnsworth

When last we left our hero, he had been bamboozled, swindled and otherwise hustled into a small, if not unfamiliar, prison.

As I looked about, I started thinking about how to escape. The window was always an option, but it was cold out and I’m not nearly flexible enough to do it quickly or quietly. That, and the climbing-out would necessitate a certain shuffling of stuff in my room which could only end badly. I am a bit of a pack rat, and the delicate ecological balance in my space is a beast best not toyed with.

Other options, however, were scarce. There was a hatch leading up into the attic, but upon climbing up there and looking, I remembered that the half of the house my room is in is an addition; and the attic over my room is separated from the nearest other hatch, being in T-Bob’s room, by a brick once-exterior wall. Of course, I didn’t manage to remember that without first letting big flaky tufts of insulation fall all over me and my bed. Woot.

My other alternative was a bit of a legend. I had heard tell (from voices in the next room) of the promise of freedom for he who would search hard enough within his prison. That perchance there was something in the room that could let me out. But my room, like I already said, is a bit cluttered, and to conduct a thorough search would be to invite chaos.

So I sat and endured as they called friends from all around town to speak with me and them on speakerphone and mocked and gloated. I got a bit of a scare when a couple of girls from 4 doors down jumped up at my window while I just happened to be looking at it. I screamed pretty loudly and high-pitched. I am not proud.

Eventually I discovered some leverage. For though they had left me with almost nothing of value in my room, they had left me with the room. And, through some great unexplainable accident, my room houses the circuit breaker board. I waited some time later, content to know I had the leverage if not desirous to use it.

After they began shuffling potato chips and spoons under my door, I decided I’d had enough. I opened the board.

Idiot. Big dummy fool putz. The key to the door was sitting there, taped to the inside of the breaker panel, waiting for me to find it.

What here follows is likely my single greatest miscalculation:

“Oh, a key!” I cried out.

What now follows is likely my second-greatest miscalculation:

I put it in my pocket and decided to wait until they weren’t expecting me to use it.

I’ve been looking for a way to adequately describe what happened next, and I think that my words will be insufficient to convey the frustration, terror, and nauseating effect of the following events. So however you imagine it to be after reading the following, please understand it was far more unpleasant than that.

Here goes.

I heard Jane’s voice through the door, “Hey, guys, you should go in there and take the key from him.” Shuffling followed; they were assembling a strike team.

Panic set in. What could I do? I’m a large man; they don’t call me Hoss for nothing. But I’m not great in a fight. And Ivan, just as big and twice as good in a fight, would obviously be taking point. And they had Bubs and T-Bob too. This was not going to end well. I began shouting, warning.

“I have weapons!” I yelled, grabbing a steel water bottle and a broken drumstick. “I will bludgeon and shank and kill!”

They did not heed my warning.

In a flash, three men burst into the room. I took a swing, but I didn’t actually want to hurt anybody. A hospital ride would take the fun out of everything. I had stuffed the key in my back right pocket. But that moment’s hesitation; lack of killer instinct, cost me. Ivan and Bubs grabbed me and took me down hard. I fought back, but I didn’t want to knock over stuff in my room. The interlopers were not nearly so considerate.

They began going through my pockets. But they only checked 3. The three where the key wasn’t. What luck, I thought. But it was not luck. It was doom.

Pinned to the ground, held immobile by the impossibly-strong and well-trained Bubs, Ivan began repeatedly wet-willy-ing me, demanding to know where the key was. I refused. T-Bob pulled off my sock and threw it in my face.

Somehow, the key fell out of my pocket, they took it, and made to make their escape. I was not going down so easy. The small two got out, and held the door for Ivan. He gave me a good shove into the corner and then made a break for the door. But they weren’t fast enough. I lunged for the door and got my fingers in the crack before they could slam it shut.

Yeeeoooow

Ivan, thinking quickly, burst through again, picked me up (did I mention I’m a large man? This was a move I had not expected), and dropped me to the floor, hard, on top of the corner of a small paper recycling bin.

I was down for the count. The assaulters left, locked the door, and listened to my pained moans for a minute until I stood again. Despite being sore and a bit dizzy, I was OK. But my room was a disaster.

“Thursday,” I mumbled to myself. “It must be a Thursday. I never could quite get the hang of Thursdays.”

Will Hoss find another way to escape his prison?

Will the delicate ecological balance of his room be restored?

Will he ever get to have his important conversation with Kumar?

Tune in next time for:

Shin-pads and Bike Helmets

Or

Killing them with Kindness

Part I: “Friends, the Guinea Pig Tricked Me…” – Dr. John Zoidburg

For the longest time, I have been sitting looking mournfully at my once-mildly-amusing blog and wishing there was something to write about. Some heart-warming anecdote or humorous tale to weave into your, the readers’, lives.

Well, batten down the hatches.

Last night I came home from a couple friends’ apartment in residence where we had been watching the new episode of “The Office,” which was as funny as I had hoped and brought a smile to my face. A nice ray of sunshine at the end of an otherwise rather trying week. After sitting about and talking for a little while, it was time to go home. So another buddy drove me home, which was pretty cool of him. We stopped briefly at Sobey’s so I could pick up some M’eggs for Dmitri; his birthday is tomorrow.

But enough of that; after acquiring the aforementioned confectionary, I was taken home, greeted by another gathering of friends. I handed the M’eggs over to Calamity Jane, who has taken them down south to Dmitri today, if all went according to plan.

This, however, is not a story about Dmitri’s M’eggs.

A short while later, the phone rang, and Tim-inator answered it. He then gave the phone to me, and ushered me into my room so that my voice, loud, resonant and rippling with the timbre of a great mountain oak (if such trees existed and if they made sounds) would not disturb the movie he and Ivan were trying to watch. I closed the door behind me and sat down.

On the phone was our good friend, who I suppose I must now name. I shall call her Chance. That have a nice ring to it?

Anyway, it was Chance on the phone. It was nice to speak to her; I don’t hear from her much since she moved back down south after graduating. She asked me about Rusty and Dusty’s upcoming wedding. She talked to me about life and the universe and everything for 10 minutes or so. And then she asked me an odd question.

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Chance?”

“You in your room?”

“Why, yes…” I answered uneasily. Should I be sitting down? Is this one of those really awkward conversations? Should I be worried?

“And the door closed and everything?” She sounded uneasy, nervous. Holy crap.

“…Y-yeah,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“Well… uh, you’re probably locked in.”

My eyes darted to the door. The knob was shinier, and had a keyhole facing me. Facing inside. Which meant the lock knob thing was on the other side. I had fallen victim to the doorknob prank. And was now stuck. I heard laughter from the other side of the door; perhaps people were listening to the phone conversation on another receiver?

And then I began to make a lot of loud noises. Many wails of “Why, Chance?” and “How could you do this to me?” and “After going to Paris and leaving me in the Ice cold dark, this? This!?”

Suffice it to say, I made a lot of noise. I felt like Carlos trapped under a bed.

The events of the next hour can be best detailed and thematically expanded in a separate composition, hence the demarcation between parts I and II. I would like to take some time, however, to expound on the moment of realization.

The point in which a person being pranked realizes the trick is the funniest part. By a mile. It was a good thing I was loud, because my captors had no visual reference to see my shock and dismay. And I soon realized my options for escape were limited – I had no tools with which to dismantle the lock or unhinge the door without damaging the frame.

Mostly, however, above shock, surprise, and even the “why” factor, what I felt was the pangs of betrayal. What had I ever done to Chance for her to be a willing accomplice in this ensnarement? How had I offended Tim-inator for him to be willing to assist in this attack? I could’ve expected it from T-bob or Bubs or even Oz – I give them reasons to be mad at me every day. In fact, it turned out that it was a peeved and upset T-bob who had initiated the proceedings. But the scores of willing participants, friends, and accomplices struck me. Even Kumar, on msn, was in on the joke. I had to sit down. Lucky for me I had furniture and clothes and whatnot.

I wish I could say I yelled and hollered and then sat and did something else for a couple hours, but everything was far more interesting than that. SO, tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of:

“White is the door and changed is the lock that leads to destruction”

Or

“Knock, and the door will be slammed on your fingers before you can get out”

Sadness

Disclaimer:

This post is not intended to be fun, funny, or amusing in the slightest. In place of my usual tendency for the anecdotal, allegorical, nonsensical and nostalgic, I have chosen to try and write something that is true. Any laughter you find is merely the product of your own imagination, and I'm pretty sure they have pills for that now.

---

I think sadness can be like a lot of things.

For lots, sadness can come in short, sharp shots. Like a knee-jerk reflex. Maybe a pang of nostalgia or regret. Something catches your eye or someone walks by or someone says something and for a brief moment you think on what’s lost, broken, or missed. That hurts. It fades, usually. It passes. Like a knee-jerk, your leg goes down, the small discomfort rubs away and with a bit of rubbing and trying to take your mind off it, the pain can go away really quick. Some of these are pretty low key. Some are big. Debilitating. But a lot of that depends on the magnitude of the hurt being remembered. And I think I’ve been learning to live with a lot more joy by identifying some of those triggers and taking proactive steps to change, heal, and figure them out.

A lot of the time, though, sadness is neither short nor sharp. Sadness comes at us less like a punch in the gut and more like a really bad winter. Comes on slow. You know it’s there when the first snow falls, but it’s been in the brewing for a while. And once it’s in full swing it changes everything. You walk different. You don’t go out. You grumble and complain. You can’t play or smile like you used to. The light of day comes far too late and darkness overtakes it far too soon. People talk a lot about the “long dark night of the soul”, but that makes it seem less horrid than it is. And far less prolonged than it often can be. For some it’s barely escapable. Some people just live there, in the North Pole with Santa. They walk in darkness, fear, pain, suffering. They don’t know what the warm kiss of a tropical wind can do to the heart. They don’t know what its like to be thawed, melted, and at peace with their surroundings. More people are like that than I think any of us would dare to think.

And having recently taken my first baby steps into spring, I look and see people stuck in winter still, shivering and crying. Trapped by the sadness. I don’t know what to do. It’s not so simple as “take heart; you’ll be OK.” It’s true, but it doesn’t help much. Is there anything I can do to pull someone from the pit of sadness?

I think that, like winter, this long dark night of the soul is not something I can fix. I cannot heal a broken heart any more than I can cause snow to melt or trees to blossom. I could try, I suppose, but my best efforts would mostly just be a temporary salve on a bigger problem. And the thing the one who walks through winter needs is not me. It’s God. The same God who turns winter to springtime melts the ice of a broken and wearied heart.

What can I do, then? Why would God let me suffer the agony of watching the people I care about walk in sadness if there was nothing I can do? He doesn’t. I can’t stretch the days longer or make the sun shine brighter. But while God waits for the right time to do that, I can shiver alongside the shivering. I can shovel his walk. I can brew her hot chocolate. It doesn’t fix the problem. I’m not qualified to fix the problem. But it makes it more bearable.

I make no secret out of my dislike for winter. Hence the analogy. But this season of despair – this “winter of our discontent” – that truly chills me to the bone. Keeps me awake at night. And with the sheer number of people around who are trapped in this hole, I’m going to need a new shovel, and some good hot chocolate mix.