Tag Archives: Walmart

Summer’s Guilty Pleasures

2 Replies
Photo by Judy Zechariah

Photo by Judy Zechariah

Hooray, summertime is here! And what is summertime good for? Sun and fun and maybe an indulgence or two. An extra scoop, one more cocktail, a quick stroll down Low Brow Street. What’s a little junk food for the body and the mind going to hurt? We’ll make up for it after Labor Day, right? If we make it to Labor Day alive, that is.

Here’s hoping and here’s my Summer Guilty Pleasure To-Do List. Do you have one? Share it with me!

Bryan’s Summer Guilty Pleasure To-Do List

Movie: “Slow Motion Explosion VII: San Diego Zoo 3D”

Beach Read: I Just Ripped My Bodice; No Seriously, I Ripped It Pretty Bad

TV Series: “Matlock Undead”

Concert Festival: Swamp Music Acid Nightmare 2014

Dessert Topping: Sugar-coated sugar sauce

Dessert Topping for my Dessert Topping: Dexedrine

Adult Beverage: Coors Factory Recall ‘87

Catch-Phrase: “Talk to the hand because that’s my face right now SWAMP MUSIC ACID NIGHTMARE FESTIVAL!”

T-Shirt: I’m With Stupid…Melvin J. Stupid, And He Said He Put Me On The List. Don’t Give Me That Look, Check It Again Smart-Ass!

Recreational Sport: The two-legged race where I’m ankle-cuffed to the machine they sell at Walmart that both draws your blood and feeds you liquid cheese intravenously

Serious Commitment Sport: The softball team that skips the game and drives straight to McSporty’s for fried chicken sticks and beers the size of windsocks

Vacation Spot: Global Warming Village – “We’ll Leave The Lights On For You…Forever”

Campfire Story: Man With The Hook Hand’s Botched Colonoscopy

Sunburn: Third Degree Equator Bake

Fast Food Restaurant: Risk Burger

Snack Food: Candy Toothpaste – Now With 38% More Whitening Frosting!

Unnecessary Surgery: Kidney rotation

Hobby: Checking off the items on my To-Do List while cackling with the bear driving us the wrong way on mountain switchbacks

Becoming A Literary Character

2 Replies
SlaughterHouse5, Dresden, Photo by Keith Gard

SlaughterHouse5, Dresden, Photo by Keith Gard

The occasion: A good friend and fellow book-lover is turning 40 next weekend and he and his wife are hosting a birthday party wherein the guests are required to come dressed as their favorite literary characters. My first thought was, well, I’ll just come as myself because aren’t we all as we are just characters acting in our own private narratives? But this overcooked philosophy might be seen as a narcissistic cop out and I’ve already pledged to my doctors I’d keep those to a minimum this year.

So who should I turn into this weekend?

Maybe Tom Ripley, nattily dressed in stolen clothes, carrying a bloody broken oar and convincing everyone that Dickie Greenleaf is still alive, he just can’t bear to see anyone right now? Or what about Olympia Binewski, the albino hunchbacked dwarf from Geek Love, scheming to protect her daughter from the exploitative Miss Mary Lick?

No, it’s got to be Billy Pilgrim from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. But how to convey the sense that I’ve come unstuck in time? Basically, the novel jumps around in Billy’s life as a prisoner of war in WWII, an optometrist in Ilium, New York, and a human creature on display in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore. The trick is to find articles of clothing or other elements representative of these moments and then find a way (with either duct tape or Velcro) to stick them on and tear off at random times during the party.

Potential roadblock: Billy Pilgrim is naked while on Tralfamadore. Would my being true to the book break the hosts’ no gift rule?

Potential solution: Represent the planet Tralfamadore by recreating a Tralfamadorian, described in the book as: “…two feet high and green and shaped like plumber’s friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts…were usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm.”

I believe you can buy a Tralfamordian at any Walmart. KV would be so proud.

Okay, so while I put together my outfit let’s pretend you’re going to this party. Who among your favorite literary characters would you go as and how would you dress?