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Anybody Wanna Help Me Staple a Pillow to a Wall?

Holy chocolate crapsicles, is it cold! Damn!

I had no idea it was gonna be fricking freezing today. And it's not just cold outside -- nuh-uh. My house is cold, my office is cold, and -- make no mistake, people -- my crotch is cold.

Look, I hate to be indelicate, but the only time I could feel my testicles on the outside today was in the car, on the way home from work.

(Because, as you may remember, my car doubles as an industrial flamethrower. You know, as opposed to the recreational 'throwers we all grew up with, and kept under our pillows. Ah, good times. Singed eyebrows... but good times.)

Anyway, the little fellas finally came out to say 'hello' a few blocks from home. It took me off guard, to tell the truth. There was kind of a rumble, and then a double bump-bump, and out they came, with an audible *ploop*. I didn't know what the hell it was. I thought I'd run over a couple of squirrels or something. It was freaky.

And, I'm sorry to say, my reunion with the 'boys down under' didn't last long. One step into the cold wintry air, and up they went again, nestling themselves somewhere in my ribcage. I'm afraid to cough too hard, frankly. I might accidentally shoot 'Lefty' across the room. And he's the smart one -- I can't afford to lose him. He's basically running the circus down there.

All of which is to say -- rather longly and lewdly -- that it's freaking damned cold around here. Seriously. Cold. Really.

So, let's see -- that's probably enough talk about my genitals.

(For now, at least. You folks need a breather now and then.)

So what other trouble can I get into? Let's see...

Well, for one thing, I've been contemplating my eventual accidental death at the hands of my staircase. It's a straight set of steps -- that means it doesn't curve, by the way, or take a turn along the way; it doesn't mean that it's not a 'gay' set of steps.

(And maybe it is -- how the hell would you tell? A rainbow-colored runner down the middle? Frilly lace on the bannisters? No idea.)

Anyway, about halfway down the flight, the wall drops down to meet the ceiling of the lower floor. It's tough to estimate exactly how far away that hunk of wall is from the ground there, with the steps at different levels and all, but it's pretty obvious that the minimum clearance is somewhere around six feet. And I'm six-foot-three, if that tells you anything about the anxiety this staircase is causing me.

So far, I've managed to remember to duck just a bit, or to put out my hands to catch myself on the upcoming wall, and slide my head underneath. But one day -- one tragic, yet inevitable, day -- it'll happen. I'll bound down the stairs in a rush, or I'll be carrying a bunch of laundry, or distracted by some shiny object or naked ass (real or imagined), and I'll solidly bonk my head on that damned wall, quite possibly knocking my brain out of my head in the process.

Now, you may be saying to yourself:

'Hey. Look, Charlie -- you seem like a smart enough guy. Don't you think you can manage to do this one thing reliably? Seriously, how hard could it be?'

To which I would say, 'Smart? Smart?! You really haven't been reading this dogflop, have you?' But, leaving your poor judgement of mental capabilities aside, I'd also concede that it seems easy to simply not hit your head on the stupid wall. And, in any given instance, it is pretty simple. But those eensy-weensy chances of perma-denting the old forehead tend to add up, and it's just a matter of time until I bonk myself silly. Which is way worse than boinking myself silly. Seriously, who couldn't use a good boinking now and then, hmmm?

But there's one other thing that positively convinces me that I'm destined to head-butt that wall one day -- it's happened before.

Yes, that's right, folks -- there's precedence for this sort of brainless braining. I haven't danced with this particular stairway, but I've been down that road before. Oh, yes, and I've got the poor memory and dysfunctional social skills to prove that something happened to my brain along the way. I choose to blame a run-in with a similar staircase in my youth.

(Hey, mom said she was off the sauce and the smokes by the third trimester. That's probably fine, right? Um, right? What was I talking about again?)

Anyway, I'm pretty sure speed-bumping my head against a doorway when I was ten or so didn't exactly help anything. I mean, I'm no fancy head doctor or anything, but I've been told that teeth-jarring blunt head trauma isn't exactly the best way to keep your marbles in place. I forget who told me that, though -- it may well have been a giant invisible rabbit. Or Tinkerbell. Anything's possible, when you live in my world.

As for the actual cranium crushing itself, there's really not much to tell. Like I said, I was ten or so years old, and I was bounding down the narrow stairwell that led from the attic to the second floor of our house. I can't remember now why I was in such a hurry -- maybe the phone was ringing, or a good cartoon was about to come on. Maybe I'd just discovered the neat tricks my penis could do, and I was running to tell my folks. Who knows -- I can't remember anything that happened before the accident, so it could be anything. Ask Harvey, or Tink. They probably know.

Anyway, there I came, hoop-te-dooing down the stairs. 'Dum de dum de dum.' Or something like that -- I always was a hummer.

(Yes, there's a joke in there somewhere about a hummer. But it's probably at my expense, so I'm moving on. Catch up when you're ready, folks.)

So, *hop hop hop* down the stairs, easy as she goes. I hit the next-to-last step and pushed off, reaching for the floor, and -- bam! I slammed into the top of the doorway, right at eyebrow level. That was bad enough, of course. But to add just a pinch of pissy to the experience, the blow dropped me on my ass on the third stair, and I slid the rest of the way down on my backside. The whole thing probably sounded something like this:

*THWACK!!!*

'Ungh!'

*plop* *boogity boogity boogity thud*

'Ow. That's gonna hu -- Oh holy fuck! OUCH!'

Anyway, once I could see straight again -- the next winter, I think it was -- I shook off the cobwebs, dusted myself off, and was right as rain. Of course, I forgot what the hell I was running for in the first place. (But it obviously wasn't for a bathroom emergency, or I'd have left a trail of some kind on the way down the stairs. And I didn't -- really, I checked. Lots of pain, but no stain. Miracles do happen, it turns out.

In any case, that's how I know I'm gonna eat it some day on the stairs here in the house. If it happened back then, it's almost surely gonna happen again. Seriously, I haven't gotten any smarter since then -- it's even reasonable to assume that I lost a few IQ points that afternoon. They might still be lying there in the upstairs hallway, for all I know. Maybe the people living there now will send them to me. That might come in handy, next time I need to win an argument, or talk my way out of a traffic ticket. Maybe I'll look into that.

Now, if I could just remember the address of the house where I lived for eighteen years. Um... uh... guh. Shit. I guess that was part of what got knocked out. Dammit!

Comments

Posted by: Jon | December 3, 2003 1:23 AM

Posted by: Empress | December 3, 2003 12:46 PM

Posted by: Buzz | December 3, 2003 7:13 PM

Posted by: lynne | December 3, 2003 8:14 PM

Posted by: Lara | December 5, 2003 6:01 PM