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written for Orlando's Loose Lips reading, at the request of Tod Caviness  While I know that headlines mixed with apologies always come off as forced and insincere
I do want to apologize to Tod for agreeing to do this show tonight I don’t watch or read the news anymore so I am entirely unqualified to perform at this reading I can’t fully blame it on the 2016 election But that is the point when the mere mention of certain names Not just one name Certain names led me to thoughts that made me question my mental stability So I stopped following headlines apart from the inescapable ones And even then Rather than rub my hands together until some rageful Hadouken shot out of them I would close whatever tab or feed had let me know about … and try and find some weird animal story that calmed me down In Egypt, for the second time in a decade archeologists dug up the skeleton of a whale with legs We spent hundreds of years thinking birds were kaiju Creative paleontologists frankensteining bones into creatures that didn’t precisely exist so maybe there wasn’t a whale with legs Maybe a whale-like aquatic blimp thing swallowed another animal and like two lovers buried with their bodies intertwined their skeleton fused into a beauty our world hasn’t earned yet Or maybe whales used to have legs Not manatee-like dolphins or calm gray whales or smiling bottlenosed grampuses Nasty Anubis headed predators who terrorized whatever sea dried up leaving Egypt behind Whales that walked on land dove into the water and massacred Everything Whales with legs I was going to spend ten to fifteen minutes regaling you with weird little rumors because there aren’t yet any facts about whales with legs weird little rumors about their diet how fast the moved how they looked like some massive coyote and an enormous porpoise fucked in some unimaginable position How they probably used to have antlers because currently scientists think that whales with legs evolved from ancient deer which is not something I’d ever considered I was going to just try and entertain you with these ridiculous rumors but just after my plane landed in Orlando my phone let me know that Todd Akin died In 2012 Todd was a Republican nobody who decided to run for the US Senate His complicit idiot family would like America to remember him as a patriot who dressed up like a minuteman on the 4th of July every year and told stories about America’s evolution from British territory to Freedom Loving Paradise But if anyone does remember Todd Akin at all it’s because in a 2012 interview he was asked about his stance on abortion and Todd Akin said that womens’ bodies have a way of avoiding pregnancy in the cases of legitimate rape I didn’t know that whales evolved from deer cousins Shed antlers and webbed toes to better fish I don’t know quite how evolution worked in this scenario I am not a scientist And even the scientists don’t yet know how an herbivorous prancer Became one of the fiercest aquatic predators of its era But they do know And have known for at least decades that humans have not yet evolved into the ability to instinctively prevent a pregnancy through force of will Even shameful Republican senator wannabes who walk back their remarks and apologize claiming they were misquoted as though they had evolved a sense of shame and learned that their misogynist rape supporting propaganda was nothing but cruel and hurtful lies fabled to stupid men and complicit women Whales with legs would fuck up beachfront property rates Mitch and Marjorie toasting the sunset Hear a rustle from the garbage cans beneath the porch and begin shouting the least creative slurs in The English language at whatever seagull raccoon or member of their staff has disturbed their idyllic moment but we know raccoons don’t venture this close to the coastline anymore and seagulls have moved inland and become lakegulls because wherever a beach full of plump tourists and unsuspecting aquatic life gather is just an All You Can Devour Buffet to the ever-increasing army of Whales With Legs These four legged splashing leviathans with two webbed feet and two hooves that could swallow a family of four whole but choose to chew them instead because they love the sound of the screaming There is no escaping the platoons of oncoming apex predators Whales. With. Legs. In his 2014 memoir “Firing Back” written because his political career was over because being called a nice man … authentic to his beliefs by the woman who trounced him in the 2012 election doesn’t undo being the decrepit face that first uttered the phrase legitimate rape on camera In the 2014 memoir Todd Akin rescinded his apology and reiterated his chauvinistic fable about female anatomy Whales with legs have heads like Anubis A jackal decaying Heart pumping embalming fluid Whales with legs swallow apologies whole Shred memoirs in their sharp beaks I’m sorry Further research has shown that the gulls and Republican senators can return to the coastline Whales with legs were strictly freshwater hunters Descendants of deer who looked like dogs but swam like hippos Whales with legs ate rabbits and fish in equal measure Maybe? Nobody was there to take notes I’ve been told not to bring any science into this room so I won’t mention that next month NASA is enacting every 90s disaster movie by sending out missiles to blow up a Pluto sized comet that is only supposed to be heading kinda sorta near Earth Todd Akins isn’t even close to the worst Republican who ran for office in the 2010s but he is the only one held accountable His party offered him money to drop his stupid ass out of the senate race knowing he didn’t have a prayer of winning but if he’d just waited until 2016 he could have felt the party violently swerve into his lane and he could have been the president of the entire United Shithole States Whales with legs drink the blood of Anubis under the 4th of July moon Dress as minutemen and shout about the good old days before all the best rivers dried up Shriveled up fish on withered land Whales with legs stalk a world that’s moved beyond them They gnash their dentures at smaller whales with teeth Flail their tails Thin out the herd at both ends of the age spectrum until there is only one generation of whales left with enough legs to stand on I don’t know if at this point in my life I’m qualified to judge every piece of shit politician from any party for speaking their ignorant and/or hate filled propaganda Sure I have no power over any laws or any person and I outgrew downpunching edgy humor in my 20s but I’ve said some regrettable things that I believed in at the time Anubis weighs the hearts of the dead on a scale with legs that nobody can read Scales with legs are jackle headed gargantuans Digging up old shit the earth wishes it could forget Anubis the paleontologist whale finds Anubis the jackal with fins The Egyptian jackal whale Anubis Holds all of our secrets In his razorblade hooves Sniffs the garland of clover from the deserts of our past And flings us in or away from the directions of our beliefs I don’t hope Todd Akins is burning in Hell I don’t believe in an afterlife but I hope consciousness fades just slow enough for him to have realized his Heaven was unreachable My coworkers in the retail hell I’ve been suffering through for the last twenty years enjoy the curses I bestow on the rudest loiterers (never customers) When the mood assassins leave without buying anything instead ranting about prices or Amazon or their general inability to distinguish a specialty bookstore from a hardware store I say I hope he trips while crossing the street in heavy traffic But no car touches him He gets up and crosses completely unharmed but shits himself every time he sees a car and he has to bike to a boat to travel to some Gilligan’s Island where he lives out the rest of his life donating all of the money he earned to charities that help unbeknownst to him every retail worker he was ever rude to and one day when he is older and more in pain than my friends he suddenly understands how awful he used to be and decides to devote his life to undoing all the emotional turmoil he’s caused and as he looks to the sky to thank a completely absent higher power an unmanned drone carrying a tractor trailer truck falls on his head and crushes him Whales with legs carry grudges like busy servers in chain restaurants carry plates and the fear of getting sick without adequate healthcare and this is why it’s so difficult for them to apologize That’s the rumor anyway Science doesn’t have the facts to back it up yet
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Condoms should be free and frequently distributed.
A couple of lowkey, youngish teenagers come in and begin walking around and checking prices on things.
About a minute later, a woman in a non-matching Canadian Tuxedo (washed light on bottom, dark on top) cawed into the store. Canadian Tuxedo: "You wanna buy some squishamallows?" Me: "I'm sorry, you're going to have to put on a mask." CT: "No, it's fine. I've been vaccinated." Me: "You still need to put on a mask." CT: "No, I --" Young Teenager #1: "Mom. Shut up and put on your mask or leave." CT: "Touchy Touchy." She puts on her mask. "Squishamallows. I got a stack a squishamallows, I can get them to you for cheap." YT1: "Those are my squishamallows. They are not for sale." CT: "Sure they are. They're like Beanie Babies, you got to get in and get out before they're not worth anything. I bet this guy would love to buy the whole stack of squishamallows." Me: "Sorry. We're not buying squishamallows right now. Or ever, really." CT: "Oh, you gotta buy squishamallows. They're the Next Big Thing." I shrug. CT: "We've got old manga, too. You need to buy any manga?" Me: "Get me a list of what you have. If it's anything we need, we might buy it. But it won't be for much. Maybe $3 or $4 per book, most likely." CT: "Oh no, these ones are worth a lot of money. You're gonna die when you see what we've got. They're so valuable. Mint condition." Me: "Great. Get us a list and maybe some photos, and I'll let you know if we're interested." CT: "Are you hiring?" Me: "Nope." CT: "Not even for the summer? Oh, it's not for me. I mean, no offense, but I've got a much better job. It's for my daughter. She's very experienced she's got five years experience working at IDUGjhDGF,jDfgMNF." Her daughter is MAYBE 15, probably 14. She shouldn't have five years working anywhere. Me: "We're not hiring at all." CT: "Well, I can leave you my card. That will change in a few weeks. It gets busy in the summer, and you'll wish you had someone like my daughter working here." Me: "Sure." She sees that I have a box of food to my left. I had just had lunch dropped off when they'd shown up. CT: "Oh, I didn't know you were eating lunch. I'm sorry. Is it from Bridge Pizza?" Me: "No." CT: "Do you ever order from Bridge Pizza?" Me: "I'm not familiar with them." CT: "Oh, they're the best. Two pizzas for $17. Large pizzas, not the small ones. And the people there are so nice. And it's local. You should be supporting local businesses, not ordering from chains and what not." Me: "This is from Wrapture, which is about a block and a half that way. Very local." CT: "Well Bridge is the best pizza in town. And they're gentlemen. Not like these other place, you know?" Me: "Uh-huh." CT: "When do you work?" Me: "Constantly. There's no schedule though. I'm just here when I'm here." This is a Complete Lie. CT: "So if I come in in, say, a few weeks, you'll be here eating Bridge pizza and ready to buy our manga." Me: "You never know." CT: "Ok. Well, we've got to go. We don't need anything here right now. No offense." Me: "None taken." CT: "Last chance. A whole stack of squishamallows for a Very Reasonable price." Me: "Thanks, but we're not buying squishamallows right now." CT: "Hmph. Your loss." The nearest place called Bridge Pizza is about a half an hour drive on the highway. Faceless Torso On Grindr: U lookin?
Me: Maybe. (Spoiler alert: I'm not.) FT sends three pictures in rapid succession. Two are incredibly blurry face pics of someone who probably looks somewhat like me. The third is Clearly either His High School Wrestling Photo from 1993 or a picture of someone who is not him. Either way, not how you should be representing yourself to people when you are 45 fucken years old. Me: You wrestle? No Longer FT: Not anymore. Me: Retired? NLFT: No. I got injured. Me: Did you break a hip? Then he blocked me. I'm not sure why I thought of this today, but I remembered, perhaps, one of my most culturally ignorant but inoffensive moments of the last decade.
As many of you know, I went to school as a Deaf Education major. I was, many many years ago, near fluent in ASL, and tried to be vigilant about keeping up with Deaf Culture. Almost a decade ago, I started the Insafemode Podcasts, and put them up on my own website, as well as iTunes. They contain a couple of stories about a few of my Deaf friends from Cape Cod. A Deaf friend of mine messaged me and asked if there was a version that was accessible to the Deaf and Hard Of Hearing. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to justify my desire to not write up transcripts of the podcasts because I just didn't feel like I had time. And then I realized, I was reading all the posts from a book. Books Exist And Are Accessible To The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing. So I sent her the PDF, shortly after I slammed my head my head so hard into the counter that it made a dent. While I'm away, Comrade is playing the role of me in Harvard Square.
Insomnia Cookie Employee 1, eating a cookie his coworker just made: "This is underbaked, m'dude." Insomnia Cookie Employee 2: "They're the best that way. Insomnia cookies is the top of the underbaked cookie game." Comrade: "Insomnia Cookies , where the cookies are less baked than the staff." IC1: "True." "Come on girls, get those butts up, and down, and UP, and DOWN. Whose children are these, ladies? They're not our children, right? They're Destiny's Children. All the single ladies know what I mean, right? OOOT! OOOT! I wanna see you racing around those living rooms like You're Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive. Yea, I Sia! WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!"
So, the art of improv is alive and well at the yoga studio beneath our store. I posted a while ago about the Optimistic Reviewer I've encountered who gives almost everything five stars, including books that she never actually read because she ordered it online, and it didn't arrive.
This was today's gem: "Honestly, I picked up this book at the library because no one else had checked it out and I felt bad. I also kinda liked the cover. It was good! I enjoyed it emensly. Could use some more editing." Five stars. I can't wait for the day when I run across a review where she Doesn't give the book five stars. "This book abour mudering my parents wasn't really for me. Especially the part where the author came to my house and murdered my parents in front of me while I was reading the book. But I did love their use of punctuation!" Four stars. Kid Who Just Started Collecting Pokemon Cards: "Do you have any John Lennon cards?"
Me: "Um. No?" Kid's Friend Who Knows More About Pokemon: "I think he means Charmeleon cards." Me: "Huh. That's definitely a maybe." Working in collectible retail means you field a lot phone calls from people looking to sell collections of various things tangentially related to what your store actually sells, or Not At All related to what your store sells.
For the most part, people try and unload baseball cards, Beanie Babies, DVDs, video games, or National Geographic magazines. Today, someone Actually called the store, trying to sell a collection of pogs. Wannabe Pog Seller: "Do you know of anywhere that might be interested in taking them?" Me: "No. I took a collection of pogs to the dump once, and the employees tracked me down at my house and made me take them back." |
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