House of Eratosthenes

You see, the Daddy Fridge that sits outside and assumes the responsibility for storing all of the alcoholic beverages, sits at a certain height above the ground. The door is pressed shut with a magnetic seal, possessing sufficient power to suspend a suitcase full of overfed ferrets from a light fixture so it won’t fall. There is significant jerking force required to rip the thing open, and the door has a certain mass to it. The lower part of the door is elevated above the cement at a height greater than the fleshy part of your foot, but less than your toenail…

Cringing yet? You can see what’s coming?

William the Conqueror I am not altogether sure what worked me into my agitated state this weekend. I do remember something had sapped my patience, and it was time for a refill. And so out I went, to the balcony, to tap into the Daddy Fridge and replenish my supply of mead. My sense of awareness suitably diminished, I pried the door open out of its powerful magnetic beam, and the heavy tempered-glass door went crashing into my toenail, driving it into the fleshy part of the toe. This, naturally, infuriated me. Such insolence! How dare this inanimate object presume to tell me what’s what and what-for. And so I channeled my surge of adrenaline toward slamming the beast shut, so it should know its proper place…bottles of sparkling water atop the fridge, sent flying in all directions by this display of bravado.

Like a Neanderthal brandishing a club, I gripped my twelve ounces of ale by the neck, slamming the screen door shut behind me. And I made it known that, in my capacity as Lord of the Manor and Master of all he surveys, I had asserted my dominance over this inanimate object and taught it a lesson about who rules the roost. A lesson it shall not soon forget! Ha ha!

The Queen of the Castle then informed me that I seemed to be getting some inanimate blood on her inanimate rug.

Nonsense! Quick as a flash, His Lordship sat all cross-legged Indian-style on the couch, pulled over his mini-notebook to continue reading His Royal E-Mails, and in one deft motion pried the metal top off of his mead. But then — hark, what is this? A sanguine solution, warm to the touch, began to pool up under his royal butt cheeks where his toe rested. His Lordship looketh down and beheld the thick reddish liquid gushing out of his extremity.

Begone with ye, intoned Her Ladyship. Hie thee thence to the bathroom sink, and let me not lay eyes upon thy chauvinistic ass until thou hast bandaged thy wound, and acted to stem the flow of thy bodily fluids upon my living room finery.

And so the household patriarch did sterilize his own self, quite obediently, as best he could. He doth knowest his place in the castle.

So who has emerged victorious in that melee, man or machine? I claim victory, for I have made my message clear. One does not throw the fight merely by emerging from it wounded. But I am hoping to keep that toenail. In the next day or two, we shall see.

On a different subject: At the beginning of April, we acquired some new neighbors who live downstairs. We think they might be giant insects in human costumes; humans aren’t supposed to have that many kids. I’m sure they’re breaking the fire code six ways from Sunday. But that is not the worst of it.

They seem to be foreclosed-upon homeowners. Every single one of their fifty-or-sixty kids m-u-s-t have a bicycle, and these are chained out in front of their apartment. Nobody is allowed to wear shoes inside…so these are strewn about as well. Dinner in that household is late, like 9:30 or 10:00. I can tell this because they are fond of East Indian spices, including Curry, Clove, Fennel, Turmeric and sweet Chutney. I’ve given up trying to figure out which among these provokes the allergic reaction my girlfriend has in the wee hours of the morning.

Naturally, each one of the precious chillun’s has a teevee bigger than the one we have in our living room…and the one in their living room, is a freakin’ monster. And naturally, they like to have the volume cranked. Heavy on the bass.

Furball I was just noticing our new neighbors, friendly as they were, seemed to be doing just about everything wrong without even realizing it. Almost felt bad for them. Almost. One day, I had intoned out loud…or silently to myself, I cannot remember which…there’s only one thing they have not yet done. They have yet to acquire an annoying, cantankerous, anti-social, rodent size irascible little yip-dog.

Guh…Morgan. Bad Morgan. Dumb, dumb, bad ol’ Morgan. Why did you have to go and think that?

What do I call the new arrival? HFH for Hound From Hell…or SWT for Snowball With Teeth?

I heard the miserable cur before I saw it. I was hauling home some groceries and I saw a little boy about seven years old coming the other way, but before he came around the corner I heard the barking and the yipping and the snarling and the yelping. This is Folsom, so at first I thought nothing of it — our suburb is filled with people who think they’re walking their dogs, when the dogs are really walking them. But this really was a wild beast. Big as a softball maybe, but still thoroughly dedicated to the ways of the jungle. The scrawny kid continued to pull on the leash in a vain effort to estabish dominance, as I had (more successfully) done with the refrigerator…

And as we crossed paths, something surreal happened.

I began to feel this sensation on my ankles. As if a starving kitten somehow thought I was carrying milk down there. I thought…could it be? No. And I peered down between the grocery bags in my arms, and sure enough, the little demonic furball somehow was laboring under the delusion that my jugular was down there and was lunging for it. The little boy continued more futile endeavors to assert human supremacy, and I continued on my way. “Oh my God,” I thought to myself, “that was the one thing they hadn’t done yet.”

Our apartment unit is the preferred location for birds to build their nests. I know this. I have conducted an informal survey all around the building. Other units have zero nests. We have four.

There is bird shit all over the place. Birds dive at us as if they’re the residents, and we are the interlopers. Worse yet, by international treaty, the government I support with my taxes says the birds are correct about this. It is illegal to relocate a bird’s nest. I suppose we’ve put these laws together to demonstrate our benevolence and harmlessness as a biped species, to get the avians to like us more better. Well, let me tell you, it ain’t workin’. Unless lifting your tailfeathers and leaving a big ol’ trail of white crap all over my stairs, and then dive bombing me on top of it to add insult to injury, is some Audubon Society way of saying “we think you’re just swell” — and I have serious doubts about that — they fucking hate us.

The blessing in all this? I know I’m sensitive to these slights only because my biggest problem in the world…for now…is that by Friday night I might be down to nine toenails. I don’t have any problems bigger than that, and for this I am thankful.

But still, it’s death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts. There are piles and piles of bird shit. My girlfriend’s upper respiratory system closes down some mornings, if we forget what’s going on and leave the windows open, which used to be a favorite summertime ritual of ours. And on the weekends there is that yip-yip-yip-yipping from that untamed, wild furball. I’ve lived in Folsom for a lot of years by now. Poeple who think they can train their dogs, and can, do not annoy me…people who cannot train dogs, and know they cannot train them, also do not annoy me. People who hang onto their untrainable dogs, thinking they can train them while the dog proceeds to whip them into shape — I find that annoying. I see it as a form of animal abuse.

Female Viking Maybe this makes me chauvinistic…again…but it is clear to me that dogs have been built to respond to the sound of an adult, male voice. If when you belt out a command, either for real or in rehearsal, and it doesn’t come out as an octave below middle-C or lower…then, I’m sorry, but you do not have what it takes to train a dog. The canine ear is not going to listen to you. It’s long past time the world became aware of this. Watching these grown women and little boys “walk” the dogs here and there, after awhile it just starts to wear on you. The soprano and alto voices, curtly telling “Oscar” to heel, stop sniffing that, come, sit, sit, sit…and Oscar doesn’t give a shit about any of it. It really starts to get tedious after awhile, all that ineffectual squeaking. It isn’t that I hate dogs. I just don’t think dogs are being treated fairly, if we’re going through the motions of training them but not really training them.

I ordered a disc from Uncle Matty. We’re going to view it one time, for content, then bundle it back up again and leave it as a present, in the middle of the night. It’s about the most neighborly way to handle the problem. We’ll just make that a gift from a secret admirer, if ya will.

But no one is sick. Nobody is coming after our paychecks. No one’s dead, no one’s dying. I’m walking with a slight limp, but what of it? I am descended from Vikings. If they walked around with a slight limp, it meant one thing: A battle had lately been concluded, and if they were around to do the limping then they must’ve won. You should see the other guy!

The Daddy Fridge — whether it’s ripping out chunks of my flesh or not — is stocked full of delicious cold suds.

Life is good.

I have a daddy fridge as well. But as apparent kidney issues are being diagnosed, I am having to lay off of things with alcoholic content. See… it makes them uncomfortable with a slight burning sensation in recent days. Not good. Awaiting CATScan results and a probable followup with some urologist.

Daddy not happy. Daddy likes his beer.

You know, I once left an ad for a bark collar in an inconsiderate neighbor’s mailbox. Inconsiderate to his dog, and inconsiderate to me and the rest of his neighbors.

Fortunately, they moved.

On that note, methinks you should look for a programming job in the Midwest where you can afford to buy a free-standing structure for a home and as an added bonus, your second amendment guaranteed right is still relatively intact. This greatly minimizes noise from neighbors and insulates you from most unwanted spice aromas. Plus when you see Pelosi on TV, she’s from some other state where a bunch of people who think that Government has all of our solutions if we just hawk another future generations’ livlihood for it.

Of course if you move to my state, you’ve got to deal with Claire McCaskill’s mug, but see here there’s a chance in hell she’ll be kicked out of office in a future election — maybe even this one. Oh … and not replaced with another Donkeycrat-Socialist.

And all that being said, may I suggest you buy Her Ladyship the Viking costume shown in the illustrative photo…. and play Hagar the Horrible for a while.
- philmon | 05/18/2010 @ 20:20
“Oh my God,” I thought to myself, “that was the one thing they hadn’t done yet.”

AHhahahahhaaa….Brilliant.

As for your flying rodent problem, I’d suggest investing in a pellet gun. Either that, or a cat or two. Personally I’d find that decision a tossup, so I’d get both.
- pdwalker | 05/19/2010 @ 05:13
Reminds me of an incident a couple years ago at my brother-in-law’s cottage. Had just gotten down there Fri. after work, enjoying a beautiful summer afternoon and some solitude before every else arrived, fishing rod in hand…then I went to the fridge/beer tap to pour a cold one, first of the day. Removed frosty cold glass from freezer and set it on top of ‘fridge. For some reason I can’t remember I tried opening the freezer again but it was stuck as they do after opening/closing in the summer. Well I jerked the handle and the frosty glass fell from the top and crashed on the boathouse floor, shattering with one large shard slicing a significant portion of my little toe. I look down and thought, “Oh, no biggie, hell it’s barely bleeding”. Until I moved my foot a few seconds latter and saw the rather large pool of blood getting larger.

Long story short, got 10 stitches the next day and was swimming in the lake with the most gorgeous creature I had seen in a bikini in a long time. Life was indeed good again.

Btw, your dog/apartment story reminds me why I bought a house and makes me feel better about owning in regard to last week’s post about the misery of home ownership.

From my very real personal experience, living above that particular ethnic group – buy a fire extinguisher. Guarantee they won’t own one and they like to use oil to cook…’nuff said.
- tim | 05/19/2010 @ 09:48
I hope the toe gets better, soonest. I usually compound the issue when something like this happens to me by breaking something… anything. It’s a reflexive reaction and always makes me feel worse, not better. Guilt and all that. But there IS momentary satisfaction to be had from naked aggression, the guilt follows later… especially if I break something expensive.

Apartment living. Here’s the lyrics, coz the vocal track in the clip is murky.
- bpenni | 05/19/2010 @ 13:33
There goes Rhymin’ Simon! I love that album, and about the time I discovered that song, I was living it in dormitories and apartments. So it has a special place in my musical lexicon.
- philmon | 05/19/2010 @ 14:30

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