Flush With The Future

there's something about christmas that brings .....

plumbing crises .....

years ago i was preparing the usual big christmas dinner for my mother and others, and the kitchen sink got blocked; nothing would go down, not a thing, which left, well .... stuff ..... lots and lots of stuff, leering and winking and progressively stinking .... you don't even try to get repair people in on christmas; you just work with what you've got .... i don't remember what we did or didn't do with the sink, but whatever it was, we survived ....

a few years have passed without incident, but this year one of the toilets started to run and run and run, so i turned off the input valve ... as a disaster it's not been much, but the timing is never good, especially when--as we did--you've got house guests staying with you .....

in addition to plumbing crises, christmas is always a time for reflection, and i did my share of reflecting as i hunkered down and angled an arm around the toilet to get at the input valve .... i'd fill the tank, flush the toilet, then turn the valve off and .... i'd reflect ....

most people probably don't give this much thought, nor is there any reason that they should, but .... flushing the toilet doesn't carry the doodoo far away from the house; the shit moves a couple of inches, gets out of sight, out of mind and, one can only hope, out of smell .... the next flush carries it a little further, the next a little further, until it finally makes its way to the main drain .... from there i guess it goes to the white house cafeteria ....

no .... ha ha .... i'm kidding, of course ..... why, those people eat plenty of shit without any help from you or me .....

but seriously .... here's what occurred to me:

the electoral process is like flushing shit down the toilet; just one election, just one flush, and the shit doesn't go very far at all; you've got to flush and keep on flushing before you get a clean, new bunch into office ..... i'm serious, i really am: think about the '06 elections; why, you'd have thought we roto-rooted the clogging old shit out of offices around the country, but nothing's changed, has it? same old assholes, same old shit ..... and now we're coming up to .... ha ha ..... new national elections, and it just seems like the electoral toilet is badly blocked; following the 'news' is like watching turds circling slowly in the bowl; you've pulled on the handle, you've heard the swoosh, whoosh, and gurgle, and ....

they're still there, just bobbing around in a reeking brown stew ......

same old assholes .....

same old shit .....

what else?

well, the boys turned three .... their birthdays are three days before christmas, and we observe hannukah, too .... that's a problem, because if you do all the gifting you're "supposed" to do, that'd be a lot of gifting .... i don't feel any pressure to buy the boys stuff; they're still at an age where they're as happy playing with the box that something comes in as with the thing itself .... but it brings up all kinds of control issues for me, because people like to give the boys things, and they're generally things i don't want the boys to have, or they're things i wouldn't let in my house, let alone into my boys hands ....

i'm not talking about firearms; i'm talking about spiderman toothbrushes and sugar candies and anything from walt disney .... we came back from one kiddy christmas party with bags of stuff that the boys had been given; i weighed up all the candy in each bag and figured that santa brought the kids an ounce and a half of pure sugar each .... you do the math: that's forty-two grams of sugar per each thirty-two pound kid .... believe me when i say that sugar causes extravagant behavioral changes, and they're behaviors i don't want to deal with in my children: cocaine's for horses, not for men, and the same goes for sugar ....

people look at me as though they were dogs i'd just shown a card trick to when i start shrieking about how i don't want my kids eating the kind of shit that bovine americans graze on, and the same thing happens when i drag my boys away from the twelve foot plasma screen that's showing the latest pixar epic tied up to some product that's just been launched on the pre-and post-potty population ..... i'd rather they read hustler magazine than be exposed to that fucking homunculus mutant winnie-the-fucking-pooh or ........

no .... hey .... i'll stop now .....

but i'll just say that they were given so much shit that they didn't play with any one thing; they'd rip the paper, open the box, drag out whatever, then look for the next package that they could shred ....

you know what i'm saying: just like every shallow, greedy, mean-spirited, spoiled, spiritually impoverished cocksucker in my neighborhood ......

but at least my boys'll fit in .....

something i've never quite been able to do .....

excuse me now .... i need to push the shit

just a little further

just a little further

just a little bit further .....

gonna flush the shit

just a little further

just a little further

down the line .......

have a happy new year ......

next: dr. pete wipes .....