“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
– Zen Proverb
Through the panes of the French door, I could see the blood. Its varying shades, from fresh crimson to drying black, contrasted with the white concrete slab of the back patio, bright or bold even in the faint bluish light of these minutes before sunrise.
It was a clear, cool, Southern California morning in the middle of spring. As usual I was up before the dawn, and as likely leaving my live-in girlfriend, still sleeping, to piss her day away. So it was.
My first thought upon seeing the blood was that my dog must have gotten herself injured in the night. I wasn’t too worried: I could only see a few drops, and I was fairly desensitized to the sight of it from my time in The Middle East. I opened the door and followed the trail of congealing blood to the left. The amount of it increased as the drops lead me to her, to Bear, my big black Malamute-Lab mutt. She lay there, shifting about as she does when she’s done something naughty. Normally, she’d have been waiting happily to greet me at the door.
“Come here, girl,” I called, walking to her. To my surprise she got right up and wiggled to me with her head down and her tail between her legs, all submission and guilt. I ran my hands over her, feeling for blood, for a wound. Nothing.
“What happened, Bear? Huh?”
I looked back down at the blood trail and followed it further. And there it was, a dead opossum.
“Oh, Bear!”
She’d been tortured by that opossum for months. I’d seen it several times myself, having been drawn out back on a few nights to Bear’s barking at it, as it navigated atop the cinder block wall surrounding the backyard.
One night I knocked it off the wall with a shovel. Bear had been barking and leaping up the wall trying to get at it. But for some reason the opossum just stood there, not moving, teeth bared and mouth open in that classic opossum silent snarl. Looking for something to use in the faint light coming out from the living room windows, I saw the shovel. With it I approached the opossum, dodging my frantically barking dog. It didn’t flinch or budge as I closed in. When I came within shovel strike range I slowed my approach.
I reflected upon my growing fear of the opossum, confused by it. What did I fear, the opossum’s frozen pose, its bared fangs, its unknown reaction? Would it leap upon me and slash and bite at my neck? Had I survived two wars to die by the canines of a marsupial?
I poised for the shovel strike, winding back, telegraphing my move, hoping that the opossum would get the message and move on. Yet it stayed frozen, silently defiant despite Bear’s wild barking and my threatening posture. Leading with my hips I unwound. The shovel swung forward in its arc and the spade-shaped head covered its mark. I felt no resistance, heard only the dull smack of the fiberglass handle on cinder block. I thought I had missed. But the opossum was gone.
I now stood over Bear’s dead victim. It lay on its side. There was blood in its fur in a few places. A dark red puddle of it pooled under the opossum’s head, and more leaked from its mouth. In the mysterious predawn light its head appeared to be an already sun-bleached skull.
Fearing there had been a fight, I went back to Bear and checked her over again. There were no signs of a struggle on her, no cuts or scratches. She seemed fine, and no longer interested in the opossum. She hadn’t even eaten any of it. Bear had only been protecting her territory. I doubt that the opossum fell into the yard and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bear had finally jumped high enough to snag it with a snapping bite and bring it down. I couldn’t help but be proud of my girl and I gave her some love so she’d stop feeling guilty about what she’d done. There was no way I’d punish her for guarding our home.
But she must have pulled the opossum down into the yard. This reminded me of some of my fellow Marines – the gun nuts, the home defense fanatics. They’d actually say that they hoped someone would break into their home just so they could shoot an intruder. There were debates on the best firearms for home defense. They joked about shooting the prowler outside of their house then dragging him inside to make it look like a legal Castle Doctrine killing. Typically, such talk was uttered by those who’d never seen combat. But that desire – not just to guard, not just to be prepared – to use deadly force on what wasn’t necessarily a deadly threat… This instinct to kill seemed detached from its purpose of protecting.
The evolutionary, instinctual, desire was to perform an act that happened to achieve an evolutionary advantage. The desire was not to achieve that advantage itself.
I was kneeling beside Bear, petting her head and giving her verbal kudos as well, when I noticed movement in the opossum’s direction. I looked up to see the damned thing lifting its head and staring straight at me! Holy shit, it was still alive!
The opossum laid its head back down. I walked over to it. Sure enough, it was breathing, though laboriously; its eyes were open now, dazed, and slowly, randomly, looking this way and that. Clearly the thing was dying a slow death and Bear could have cared less about finishing it off.
Damn it! Because of this I was already running a little late for work. I had to get to the plant and open it up. But I couldn’t just leave the opossum to suffer. I could get my Sig 9mm and shoot it in the grass, but the sound would freak out the neighbors and possibly wake up Liz, my girlfriend, and I didn’t need that right now. I thought of beating it to death with the shovel – too gruesome. A knife? Nope. Fuck!
I could smother it in a trash bag, but it would probably tear out. I could bury it in a trash bag. Yes. The shovel was already out. I could bury it in the side yard in front of my truck. No one ever went there but me. The side yard couldn’t be seen from the front.
I put Bear into her dog run and went quickly into the garage via the living room to get the trash bag. Out back again it was easy enough scooping up the opossum with the shovel and bagging it. I took it around through the gate into the side yard, set the bag down and started digging.
Guilt nagged me. I was burying this thing alive! How could I hasten its death? Poison. There was insecticide spray concentrate in the tool closet right here in the side yard. Yep, there it was, and a rag. I soaked the rag with the poison, opened the trash bag back up, put the rag in and sealed the opossum’s black plastic coffin with a quick knot. Then I finished digging the little grave in no time and put the bagged, poisoned, near-death, opossum down in it. I piled what I could of the dug dirt back in the hole, scattered what remained, packed it down with the shovel, and lastly stomped on it all with my feet.
Mission accomplished. I was sweating in spite of the cool dry air.
As I turned to put the shovel away, I heard a car pull up into the driveway out front. I leaned the shovel against the wall and went to check it out. I heard the car’s door open and close, then footsteps leading away from me to the front door. As I rounded the corner to where I could see the unfamiliar car in my driveway, I heard a knocking on the front door, then heard its opening and closing just before I could get around to the entryway to see who it was. And now whoever-it-was, was inside my house, obviously welcomed in by Liz. I heard the deadbolt slide home as I finally made it to the door and reached for the handle.
“When you look for it, there is nothing to see.”
– Tao Te Ching
Twenty-five years ago, barely out of high school and fresh out of boot camp, I married my elementary school puppy love girl, Erin. She was a short, blonde, sweetie. We had gone from first through seventh grade together, then I moved to another school district, though still close by. We started dating in our senior year of high school and were pretty much inseparable.
All my friends went off to college. I alone had gone the enlisted military route, having had quite enough of school.
The marriage went well enough at first, but after six years came the time for my hitch in the Marines to end. After seeing how stressful my Desert Storm tour had been on Erin, I promised her that I would leave The Corps after that first hitch. But when the time actually came, I really didn’t want to quit. Erin said she understood and agreed to relieve me of my promise. She may have done so, but I soon learned that her absolution didn’t include things staying the same between us. She became increasingly distant. All the little things I did that she judged to be wrong, rather than let them go like she used to, she boxed them up in a little collection by which she came to identify me. I suppose that she felt I chose The Corps over her, and that was that: I was no longer the man whom she’d married.
I left her a mere year into my second hitch.
After Erin, I tried to avoid relationships for a while. Multiple overseas deployments helped to that end, but eventually I fell in touch with an old schoolmate, Himalia. By this time I was living on the East Coast, far from my home, far from Erin, and now far from Himalia. That was really fine by me. I was afraid of getting involved with someone I actually liked, only for her to end up being my rebound girl. The distance would let me reconnect with her without the stress and bullshit of dating.
Himalia’s and my relationship began on an intellectual level. A common friend referred her to me regarding a shared philosophical interest. Our email conversations were amazing. It turned out we were both non-Christian, and both pursued a more ascetic experience of things divine. We talked much of the various Eastern philosophies, of religions and the religious. Humor and banter inevitably worked their way into the correspondence, as did each other’s relationship status. Eventually, phone calls replaced emails and talks of meeting face to face ensued. More and more the relationship included a physical attraction, despite our not having seen each other in a quarter century. But if the pictures she sent me had been current, I wouldn’t be disappointed when at last we met. She was Persian, with big dark eyes, lashes that were long and long; skin that made me weep; the body of a belly dancer, fit and ample.
Her job at the time had led her to Nevada. She had been an investigative journalist working for some strange conspiracy theory website out of The Bay Area that supposedly kept watch on the Illuminati and the Freemasons. In that position she’d had access to mounds of FOIA documents and had stumbled across some seemingly innocuous data containing the medical histories of military personnel working on Edwards Air Force Base. She claimed that she’d identified a revealing trend in the data regarding Area 51, that the data weren’t even medical records at all, but were coded matrices of ionospheric readings. She mentioned a heretofore unbeknownst connection between Area 51 and a joint Navy / Air Force installation in Alaska known as HAARP. She mentioned coordinated efforts between Area 51 aircraft performing aerial chemical dumps and ionospheric agitation by HAARP. Himalia claimed that world governments, under the collective New World Order, were actually manipulating hurricanes, creating earthquakes, and gradually optimizing the earth’s climate to facilitate control over the earth’s atmospheric and subsurface natural phenomena. When she presented her hypothesis to the website’s editor, he immediately tried to hijack the project, to take it on for himself. Himalia promptly quit and fled to Las Vegas to continue her research alone.
At the time when we were communicating, Himalia was embroiled in a legal battle with the website, which was suing her for the rights to the research she’d conducted while employed there. I joked with her that someday I’d get my hands on her research and sell them to her former boss. She didn’t appreciate that humor.
As the time neared for our initial hookup – I’d planned to fly out to Las Vegas – her mood became erratic. She’d lash out at me more and more frequently, misinterpreting what she used to consider banter as my being intentionally hurtful. Right before my scheduled trip out to Vegas, she left a frantic message, telling me not to come out to see her, that she was leaving Vegas and heading to Alaska to poke around the HAARP installation. I was disappointed. She was preoccupied. Her emails became inattentive and short. She was mean-spiritedly critical of me for no reason, and rapidly progressed to being downright hostile. Everything I said she viewed as just another pickup line at a singles bar, just another angle to get her in bed. I tired of this and stopped communicating with her. She never apologized, never tried to contact me again.
Ending this relationship surprisingly took a big toll on me, harder than any other breakup, even my marriage from Erin, though it had never been physical. It was a shame. I’d felt like I’d finally found someone of a similar mind to my own, someone heading down the same spiritual path as me. I guess her whole existence hinged on the quest and never on the answer. She didn’t want me; she wanted to look for me.
In time I started up with Liz, my current live-in. She was a tenant in the same apartment complex. We met at a pool social and started dating. It was purely physical; she was young and hot. I don’t think she had any other interest in life but sex, specifically in getting me off. I’d never been with a girl so obsessed with the fruits of ejaculation. I mean obsessed, an extreme fetish. From a left brain perspective I found this a bit disturbing, but viscerally it was intensely gratifying, and so I was reluctant to give her up.
You’d think after Himalia that my relationship pursuits would be more meaningful. The explanation seemed to be that the drive in me to seek a companion with whom I was compatible intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, was neurologically cleaved from the drive to copulate with young women. I was familiar with the concept of neoteny in the context of evolution. I guess as far as my own conflicted self was concerned, neoteny was winning the battle of my procreative desires. I could see in some others no such conflict at all. They sought one or the other, social compatibility or visceral fulfillment. For me, visceral satisfaction was a quick fix. I knew that a more meaningful connection would be infinitely more gratifying, but such a thing was so hard to find, if it could be sought at all. I myself had only stumbled into Himalia, never imagining such a connection was possible until it happened; while the Lizzes of the world were plentiful. Would I forever have to choose between the two?
When Liz lost her job she moved in with me. After I retired from the Marines with 20 years in, I decided to move back home to California. She tagged along.
“…you loved him when you were both young, then you changed…”
– Gilgamesh
I stood there, staring at the outside of the front door of 1312 Jacaranda in SoCal.
I had my keys in my pocket but didn’t want to make the noise of unlocking the deadbolt, so I backtracked around through the side yard. The gate to the backyard creaked minimally and I left it unlatched. I stuck close to the back wall and crept toward the French doors. When I got beside them, my back pressed to the wall, I Sliced the Pie – a technique used by the military to clear areas around corners, doorways, windows, in an urban environment – but didn’t see anyone downstairs. I also noticed, out of the corner of my eye, Bear in her dog run, and realized that she had not barked at the car that had just pulled up. She knew this person. Cautiously, I entered the living room.
Immediately I heard voices coming from upstairs, a male and a female conversing. This would be too easy, catching Liz in the act. No messy breakup. The separation would be immediate. And she obviously had a new sperm donor to run to. I could play the angry cuckold or the disenchanted lover.
Stair steps creak less if you walk on the sides. I slowly, deliberately heel-toed up them in my well-practiced manner. It was easy without a carbine in my hands, easy without a chest rig full of loaded mags. I fairly glided upstairs and down the hall to just outside the bedroom door.
“So, yeah, I missed again,” I heard Liz say.
“Your period?” enquired New Sperm Donor.
“Yeah.”
“Have you told him?”
“Yeah. It didn’t faze him. But nothing does.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Shit, I’m getting rid of it. I don’t want this fucking thing.”
Unbelievable. It struck me then, the juxtaposition of Liz’s preoccupation with extracting the male reproductive fluid against her apparent disgust with having a child.
“What if it’s mine?” New Sperm Donor asked, weakly attempting indignation.
“Do you want it?” Liz snapped back.
“No, but still…”
“What?!”
“I don’t know…”
“Well, I’m just gonna do it, then tell him I must have miscarried.”
A brief silence. A rustling of sheets. Liz cooed, “Sooo, are we gonna talk all morning or are you gonna fuck me?”
I’d heard that line before and I must admit it worked every time. More rustling succeeded, as well as the consequential intonations of coitus. Anticlimactically, I decided against a dramatic entry and instead snuck back downstairs to the living room. I thought that I’d just drive off in my truck, which they’d surely hear, the bedroom window being right above the side yard, and leave them wondering how long I’d been there, if I’d been inside, what I’d heard. Clearly they’d fucked up and thought I’d already left for work. Who’d have known I’d be delayed by burying an opossum alive?
As I stood there deliberating I was shocked out of my thoughts by the sound of the deadbolt on the front door turning. Were they done so soon? Was New Sperm Donor leaving? How had I not heard him/them coming down the stairs?
Bear started barking.
A quick dash and I was out the French doors, back through the side yard past the little grave and down to the corner before the driveway. Now I would catch a glimpse of the man from whom I’d been getting sloppy seconds. Instead, when I peered around the corner, I saw not him, but his car still parked there and now a second unfamiliar car parked behind his. What the fuck?! A threesome?
Enough was enough. I strode across the driveway and in through the now-unlocked front door. I crossed the foyer and started up the stairs. Halfway up I was stopped in my tracks by the pop! pop! pop! pop! of gunshots coming from the second floor hall. Jesus Fucking Christ!
Close Quarters Combat training kicked in. I recovered from my shock and, despite being unarmed, moved to the sound of the shots. My bedroom door was open. I entered quickly, knees bent, ready to spring, sidestepping left.
The threat stood there across the room from me beside the bed, holding a handgun and pointing it down at the bed on which lay two motionless, naked bodies.
The threat looked up at me. I knew that face, her face. Big dark eyes. My firm and ample belly dancer. Himalia.
Her recognition of me occurred in the same instant as mine of her. Her eyes opened wide in shock and confusion. She looked down at the bodies on the bed, then back up at me. Again at the bodies. Again at me. Her expression changed. Her eyes narrowed, focused. Raising the gun, she leveled it square at my torso and fired. I didn’t feel anything, but looking down I saw the hole in my shirt. Fuck! An abdominal gunshot wound. Not good.
I looked back up at Himalia. The gun was still pointing at me. Another shot was coming. I turned to run. Crack! went the next shot. I didn’t know if I was hit again or not and wasn’t going to stop and look.
Gotta run. Get to the truck. Escape. Then hospital.
Down the stairs.
Crack! I felt that one hit my left scapula. I lost my balance and tumbled down the remaining steps to the foyer.
Back on my feet. Keep moving. Get to the truck.
Down the hall, through the living room. Keys still in pocket? Yes.
At the French doors. Crack! Glass shattering by my right ear.
Out the door. Move Move Move!
Getting weaker, dizzy. Stumbling to the side gate. Fumbling with the gate latch.
Crack! This one in the back of my head just as I undid the latch. I fell with the opening gate and to the ground, right next to the little grave.
In that moment I felt the sun rise as a ray warmed my cheek.
The earth had been moved, dug up. Black plastic protruded from it, torn open.
The opossum had dug itself out.
That was creepy as fuck! Well done Sir!
Ditto
Yes, creepy AF but very well done. Bravo.
Stossel does a long form interview with Rand,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=317ODBLJOxM
Wow.
*insert standing applause gif*
^this!
Wow. A job well done Plisade.
“You wish there was a pied piper for possums but there isn’t. So you’re just gonna have to keep picking them off with a 22. Buckle up because they’re f*ck*ng ugly. Of course, that’s not to say I have it all my damn self.”
I was kinda relating to the opposum thing. Had one the dogs could not be called off from on our back fence at our place in San Diego. Dragged them in (individually), and took a bat out back to encourage it to move along. Poked it and the stupid thing just sat there and hissed at me. OK. So I cocked the bat and swung. My neighbor had a pool also and I didn’t hear a splash so I assume I knocked the little sucker clear over it. Must not have killed it because he never said anything about it. Dumbest ass animal in the wild.
They aren’t bad eating, though, if you stew them with plenty of onions and such.
‘I was kinda relating to the opposum thing.’
Me too. When I was around 13-14 years old a rabid opposum come up to the the house and start attacking the cats. My father designated me as it’s killer and after I got it to focus on me instead of the cats I took my shot with the rifle and instead of killing it instantly I literally shot its ass off. It crawled across the yard for about twenty yards in a panic before I could square up and put it out of its misery.
As an aside: My family raised Manx and Japanese Bobtail kittens in a converted chicken coop as an extra source income. Somewhere along the lines it was decided that it was my job to dig a small hole for the kittens who got too sick to survive without a vet(which wasn’t going to happen), take them to said hole, then snap their necks like and bury them…
…I didn’t enjoy this particular part of my childhood…Ha!
Oh, I also was forced to dig the hole and shoot my older brother’s dog in the head after it got its back legs ran over by a tractor then bury it because he “sensitive” aka too much of a pussy to do it himself…
….I also didn’t enjoy this part of my childhood.
Look, I’m a carnivore and I agree with the idea of not eating something you are not willing to kill. That’s why I don’t eat seafood, aside from the fact I don’t like the taste. I will eat shrimp a small handful of times a year but that’s it. I can handle the Gulf of Mexico on a clear calm day. I ain’t fucking with the oceans.
The point being: I’ll kill animals to ensure my survival or the survival of the lives I care about without a second thought but I take no pleasure in it. Whatever thrill of the kill instinct we humans may have was lost on me. Maybe that’s why I never cared much for hunting.
Whatever lesson my father wanted to instill in me by forcing me to do those things was lost. I don’t like killing things. Even when I do(mostly stinging insects and venomous spiders) it’s ba reflexive reaction to the immediate threat of harm.
Okay, I’m fucking off now. Please resume your usual posting habits.
I also don’t like killing things, Trigger Hippie. My first deer kill was somewhat traumatic/euphoric. I’m glad I proved to myself that I CAN do it if needed, but I’m happy to pay someone to do it for me. Ironically, once the thing is dead, I have no problem butchering it and eating it.
Deer hunting is just something we did to eat, a tradition with my dad and brothers that I can’t let go of. They’re all gone now but when I’m sitting in the stand they are there with me. It’s my bucket list item. I was fortunate enough to do it again this year, I was worried I couldn’t make it into my stand but I practiced a couple times before season. This was a special year because it was much harder for me.
There’s no special enjoyment in the killing but there is in a good bullet placement that kills the animal quickly.
True, true. Once the light has faded from its eyes it’s just meat.
Final drunken thought… being forced to snap the necks of sick kittens was kinda fucked up…I like cats…ha!
The kitten thing was indeed a bit fucked up.
*Middle-aged prostate early morning piss and bleary-eyed check in*
Prevailing Thought: “I don’t like this. I don’t like this…I REALLY DON’T LIKE THIS!!!”
That was great! I honestly thought it was a true telling about three quarters of the way through. You had me fascinated then transfixed!
Now I need to work on getting an Editor’s Warning for my stories.
I wrote my latest submission and cried over the intro, TW
I missed the warning.
Very nice!
the first of a trilogy? or more?
What has Hamila found? Is LIz carrying an alien child?
It was the HAARP mind-control that made Himalia kill.
Good point.
And she was just driving off the author to keep him safe.
Jesus.
10/10 Plisade
If any of you is executor of my living will, and the choice of termination comes down to gunshot to the head or smother me in a plastic bag while I’m buried alive, please, please
Please invent a lifesaver like that joke from Men in Tights and give it to me, because that would be great.
Nah, stick a hand grenade in your mouth, and toss you out of a car window, at speed,
Whee! Haaa!
So much for tonight’s dreams.
I’m caught up on threads and saw your post about your wife. Sorry.
^this, I don’t know much, but God bless you both,
For a moment there, I thought this wasn’t fiction.
#metoo
Yep, hadn’t paid attention to the tag until I finished. Looked back up and went, oh, good.
I almost always miss those tags. Which is OK…helps build the suspense! ?
I’m going to need therapy after reading that. Well done, Plis.
Tangentially related, you all should read “Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (Almost) No Money” by Dolly Freed. Hard times a comin’.
Got done watching the BB interview with Musk a few minutes ago. Interesting, but the capitalist bastards make you subscribe for the second part. And the trailer makes it look like it’s the better half. It seems like maybe Musk loosened up a bit (more White Claws probably helped that). He was mostly pretty serious in the first part.
Go on…
https://youtu.be/f2Q9jX_g95g
Great tune…
Dammit!!!
Damn his nimble fingers. He beat you by minutes.
Many.
Yeah, that’s definitely (one of) my type(s).
This finally triggered a memory of a classmate in grad school. Oh gawds, she was stunning.
“She was a dark hair beauty with big dark eyes, and points of her own, sittin’ way up high.”
I have no sympathy for the possum. Nasty little creatures.
Great story plisade. Really gripping.
Himilia? That’s when I knew…
My Weimeraner was invited by my next door neighbor to take a look at his ‘possum that he was using to train his coon dog. She loved it, got that critter and shook the life out of it, took a few scratches on the nose, rolled on it. She would kill a rattle snake or a tarantula as long as she could roll on it.
She could read a newspaper but couldn’t turn the pages, smartest dog I’ve ever seen
Love it 4X!
Long read but probably worthwhile.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1473362460673515527?t=CNkQZLHY23U-C_0BhSJsDg&s=19
I sense many impending nutpunches.
If only the US could keep its dick in its pants if he does.
But I agree, the timing is correct for Moscow and Kiev has been too aggressive (with our encouragement).
I received a raise at work. I don’t want to brag, but it was substantial. I can afford haircuts (more than twice a year!) and a new pair of shoes. And more than two pairs of jeans I wear on alternating days. And the socks, so many socks, all paired, so perfectly paired.
I could afford those things before, but now I feel like I should dress the part.
Congrats! Never, ever change your style for money.
Ooh, new Socks Rule! good for you!
Congrats, that’s what life is about, measurable success. It’s an indicator that your work is recognized and rewarded. Good deal, CS
So, I take it that you’re buying for the next Glibs meet-up?
Seriously, congrats. Do well, young man.
Rounds all around, all night. I’ll drink to that. As long as someone drive me home.
Huzzah! Drinks are on cs tonight! ?
Dollar, dollar bills, y’all.
We are going to play the College course tomorrow, 20 degrees and 24 holes, it should be wild, maybe snow, maybe not, who cares!
I got about 2/3rds of my yard cleaned out, another 45 minutes and I’ll have the driveway done, until it snows again. Finish up tomorrow.
I have about 2 hours at the car wash, the ususal details, then off to play, it’s very insane to play, but hella funny.
Someone mentioned Men in Tights so now this happens.
Fourscore’s piece now this. Glibs upping the bar.
Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to read it until the tread was dead, but that was some good stuff.
Imma echo the others and just say: excellent.
Now I know why I do apples and not bananas. Little bastards are tough.
https://ibb.co/Y0kVjR7
Great work though.
oblig: https://frinkiac.com/caption/S09E14/355871
Sorry, just got home and going straight to bed. Glad ya’ll enjoyed it. Thanks for the kind words 🙂
The guys burying my grandmother averred that the coffin lid would crack under the weight of the earth we buried her under. Kinda ruins it a little when I visit her grave out back their house. Then I think of Grandad’s coffin, we buried him sixteen years ago, did his coffin crack in half like they say?
The Soul is gone, why care about a body?
My Wendy is dead,
The body is there, the soul, I have no idea. I want to be religious. I want to believe. But I don’t, and the idea of immanence confounds me.
Jesus, rewatching the graveyard scene in Kill Bill, she gets out of the ground like the cast of Fantastic Mr. Fox digging holes.
Mythbusters says yes.
The tables are turning. We are winning. We will win.
Now I’m having a hard Wendy is gone time, Ghaahhh! I miss her so much,
Ghaa! as hard as I try I can’t forget her, sorry to be a bug,
You will never forget her.
She is at peace.
Peace is yours to find. Please find it, my friend.
Thank you, I pray for peace, and jealous she got out before me, Bitch!
/we talked about it a lot
Always disturbs me when my parents talk like that.
I don’t know about your situation, Yusef, but were it my parents
We did speak of who died first and the implications thereof, I just drew the Bad Card, She met God, good enough for me, but Damn it hurts!
I always argued “hey, we are going to be married for 30 or 40 years, why argue about Bullshit?” Then we had a great marriage.
Fuck this, I just want to get it over with, what a waste,
Sorry for whining, Things will improve, just ‘Membering,
Ya know, I dont watch much TV. But tonight, during my convalescence I dug into Tall Cans™ and “The Kingsman”. Once it was over, right around 11, I decided to watch local news.
Once that was over, it rolled into Stephen Colbert and the late show. Dr. Dozer, my attending physician, was laying on the couch with me and I said “I bet he cant go 5 minutes w/o some Trump comment, or Ill pound this beer.”
1st bit of his monologue and Colbert called him “The Orange Pol Pot”.
Now, her I am back in front of Glibs with my desktop, TV off.
Go back to bed Tres!
/ a friend
Im healing and I work nights….its kinda breakfast for me now.
HEY YUFUS!
LET ER RIP!
Or at least change the channel. Yuck.
Oh, I turned that shit off.
I just knew Colbert couldn’t not make a Trump comment in his monologue. I didnt realize it would be 30 seconds in.
I thought my brand new furnace was short cycling, then I walked past my back door, I may as well have it open it leaks so much, I need more insulation, Crikey!
https://archive.md/Dlrqi/c51ca95c51a6a519a796011276860f1f011c3703.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.md/ahoUv/0d02a64fc600b0762882434161eef9bceefbd78c.webp
NSFW.
Needs way more FUPA.
https://archive.md/If1pp/ac2b90d1b8ccd1ea6a1b4717e4bf587d2a070a61.webp
NSFW.
https://archive.md/ncMrI/aae3cf92050db742a7b78b514810a1e452aded15.jpg
NSFW.
Dude….find me FUPA. I appreciate your work.
Not some broad my age with stretch-marks on her arms, and tits that look like some project from Michelin in the 80s.
https://archive.md/Jj6ll/56fde66ed80719503e527679d018333ce0b6376e.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.md/yAK93/042070f5ae237cb2725de5f603020e54a581eccf.jpg
NSFW.
I like the b/w dog in the background.
Now we’re talkin….thanks, pal
It’s what I do.
You’re a good egg, Noonan.
Well, work has started covid related firings. Employees who lied on their attestation about being vaccinated. More than a couple so far. Not sure how it was discovered. Fake cards, access to insurance/government databases, or just confronting likely ones, dunno. What a shit show.
My work allowed you to de-mask if you provided a vax card. I briefly considered faking one, but didn’t because:
1) They’d probably verify it somehow anyway and shitcan me.
2) Someone here – and forgive me, I don’t recall who – said that faking it has the same effect as complying from the government’s point of view. That’s not what we need right now.
3) In the event that there’s some kind of reckoning and restitution for this shit in the future, I want it down on record that I was fired for not getting the vax, not fired for falsifying documents.
Falsifying company records is an easy firing too.
The faking it will burn you faster than any other defense.
My accountant has another client that is a legit, no-shame, drug dealer. He lists his occupation as “contractor”.
He pays taxes on his income for the simple reason that, “they’re not going to hang me on tax evasion” which is what the gov’t uses a lot when they want to send someone away.
In fact, I think she says he deliberately over-pays, just for the cushion.
Someone learned from AL Capone’s experience.
Were I engaged in that market, id do the same.
Great story.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/12/mom-dumps-bleach-on-harrisburg-6th-grader-leading-to-fight-between-parents-students-officials.html
Wut?
Not on school grounds but they have to stick their dick in anyhow.
https://news.yahoo.com/know-covid-19-surge-delaware-211434149.html
“There are more people now hospitalized in Delaware than at any previous point in the pandemic because more people with non-COVID-19 ailments are requiring hospitalization. Many delayed care in the past year and a half, Kurfuerst said.”
Nobody predicted this….
https://www.ksnt.com/news/kansas/kansas-tops-the-list-of-best-roads-in-the-nation/
Well, sure…but no one wants to live in Kansas.
Checks front page… yep, still stupid.
“Nearly 8 percent of NYPD out sick as Omicron slams NYC
Of the 2,712 members, or 7.8 percent, of the department out of work, 342 of the NYPD officers were confirmed COVID-19 positive.”
::fires up calculator:: So….::tap tap tap tap tap::…about 12.6 percent of those out, or… ::tap tap tap tap tap::…just under 1% of the department.
Please check my math. I haven’t had much coffee yet. But at least I’m not a journalist.
…and good morning, rhy, Sean, & Scruffy!
Good Moring GT et all.
Quiet morning, no fires yet.
Hope it stays that way for everyone.
Good morning, ‘bodru!
Mornin’ GT
Mornin’.
Today is my team’s Xmas party.
Half a dozen socially inept IT types are supposed to fill three hours on Teams. Kill me.
FFS why?
At least I’m getting a free steak out of it.
Get drunk first, that’ll help.
***SIGH!!!*** My employer used to have quite a delightful holiday breakfast in early January (when banquet hall rental was cheaper, I presume,) complete with a sometime local TV personality as MC. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but I haven’t heard a peep about any holiday observance this year. ?
At least I get to run around and play Santa this morning distributing corporate mugs full of candy – and a personalized ornament! – to those hardy few of us who have to show up to work on site.
“At least I get to run around and play Santa this morning distributing corporate mugs full of candy – and a personalized ornament!”
Wow. With perks like that I’d expect a huge crowd. Do you get to keep the leftovers?
Right now, I’m planning to dump my candy into the box in the break room with the remains of some other candy a vendor gave us. So far (knock wood) I have been able to resist the temptation of THREE boxes of vendor gift candy – and not just any candy! CHOCOLATE!!! – sitting just a very few feet from my office door.
But I hit the mixed nuts pretty hard.
But I hit the mixed nuts pretty hard.
These euphemisms…
And yet they still push this garbage.
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/uk-being-vaccinated-doubles-the-risk?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMTYyNjE4MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDQzNTUyODYsIl8iOiJqRFkzTCIsImlhdCI6MTY0MDE3MzU2NSwiZXhwIjoxNjQwMTc3MTY1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNDQxMTg1Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.O60abZrqq8ONMDSevcV3FMD0CQvBAa7sBRliGBzRjZY
That comports with the data out of Canada that I linked a couple of days ago.
The rate of increase in cases in the vaxxed is at least twice the rate of increase in the unvaxxed over the past couple of weeks. That’s a pretty clear signal.
My money’s on the unvaxed having more natural and robust immunity on account of disproportionately actually having had it than of some kind of enhancement among the vaxed. Also, they tend to be younger and in better shape in general. Whatever the case, boosters ain’t the answer.
Possibly. But the disparity between the omicron and delta infection rates seems to negate that possibility.
Omicron looks to be driven by vaccines to me in that it’s what you’d expect to see from a natural selection standpoint from the stressing of the spike protein. Not surprising at all to degree of not medicine me, not sure why the drug company exec$ and researcher$ didn’t see it coming. Hmm, come to think of it I am sure why.
Omicron may well be a good thing though. A mild covid that effects everyone? end game.
It should be, but it probably won’t.
They just can’t quit it.
Exactly, if it really does turn out to be the mild Covid I’m going to go out of my way to get it. That might boomerang on me but it’d be worth the risk I think.
Day 4 of my covid. Pretty much 100% better. Would like to milk sympathy more but can’t in good conscience.
was vaxed .
Glad to hear you’re doing better.
Stay
chilldill.Glad you are doing better.
Would like to milk sympathy
That’s udderly terrible.
Mornin’ Glibbies! Well that was a hellish day! Finally got the OK from my overlords that I was of the blood. Go to brew my tea and find that Judi left a note telling me that my pay was light by about 1/3. Payroll company was one of the victims of that massive hack a couple of weeks ago. No worries, I’ll be made whole eventually. Open the blinds to discover a blizzard in progress meaning that my night just got 50% harder. That’s less good. Okay then, I’ll leave a half an hour early because I need to fill the tank and make time for a longer commute. Still breathing. Get to my first site and realize that I left the keys for the second site at home. Start seeing pink tinge around everything. Rush through my work and drive back up the hill, retrieve the keys and finally head to the other site. Get there and the staff has finally blocked out some time for me to run the floor-scrubber. Terrific! I start filling it and find that the filter cover underneath has failed. The replacement parts that I ordered 6 weeks ago have yet to arrive. Red tinge, growing… Finally get out of there an hour behind schedule and have to drive the limit home. Twice as long. Thank God Judi cleared the driveway after her own terrible day. She’s something else, I tells ya! 31 down, 2 to go.
Mornin’, Festus! Quite a day indeed, but now that you are officially of the blood it can only get better, right?
I doubt it. Columbia House never forgets.
Oh yeah, I still can’t get my seal of approval from the Gov. I think they are withholding it for Twice-bitten.
Nice. The beatings will continue.
Oh yeah. I had actually psyched myself that last night was the penultimate shift before my mini-break. That was a very sad Festus signing out at shift’s end.
Mornin’, reprobates.
Big mistake, I read Plisade’s post right before bedtime. Dreams of zombie possums do not make for restful sleep.
*checks upthread* Yup, the insanity continues unabated .
Son is recovering from the vid, should be good to return to work Monday. Mrs. Patzer got a contract tracing call, she was at a corporate gig last week and someone at her table tested positive. DOOM!!!
NJ Pachyderms are learning how to troll.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2021/12/it-was-a-very-sad-day-top-republican-says-his-partys-actions-marred-nj-assemblys-voting-session.html
Day #2 fever-free. After a week of subsisting on Ensure and Boost! shakes, keeping solid food down is still kinda challenging.
Current titty status: building immunity
suh’ fam
Good news!
“Current titty status: building immunity”
That is a vulnerability I have yet to shake.
Not sure if this was posted yet.
https://nypost.com/2021/12/21/biden-must-tell-fda-to-stop-blocking-lifesaving-covid-treatments/
“Why are we closing society and destroying the economy for 300 million Americans who are at risk only of a mild common-cold illness?”
Why, indeed?
It’s not just the FDA. The NIH is actively burying any alternative treatments.
I went back and read Plisade’s story. Well done, Sir! So much talent on this tiny site that I can’t even…
Concur. Very well done, Plisade.
Very well written, Plisade. I enjoyed the realistic character sketches that with few words conjured up memories many of us have of people in real life, or at least second hand through close friends.
The plot action was well paced and perfectly suited for the length of the tale. Gripping stuff. I hope you grace us with more.
On a side note, I used to work at BAE Systems; HAARP was always amusing to us because although it was some sweet high frequency electromagnetic stuff, its actual function is mundane compared to the reams of conspiratorial writings and plain fever dreams it spawned. Ah, good times.
Zombie possums FTW!