Sunday, September 13, 2009

Pavlov was a doofus

You towel off some amniotic fluid, look around and start trying to line up the pieces of life's mysteries. Many clues fit in several different places, so placement is critical. You twist the knobs and create a jagged silvery line that sort of shows how you got where you are, and then, for those unfortunate enough to have faulty equipment, the screen shakes violently and...poof...no more map. You clean off whatever mess has replaced amniotic fluid and start over. Eventually you have several individual scenarios that, when superimposed over one another, show a plot that would have been the best case scenario. This Utopian path is, of course, completely out of reach because you only live once; you are only young once, only old once, and only once at that fork in the road that leads where you are headed. As time wears away the edges, some slightly blurred pieces fit better in the wrong spots, and whose to say they don't belong there? And it's okay, because the moment you stop looking for reverse is where the real map begins anyway.

This didn't really go where I intended. I was sitting here thinking that some things need to last a lifetime, things like the feeling of walking on a warm sidewalk on a summer evening, barefoot and shirtless. The dusty smell of desert plants on a light, warm breeze. The feeling of being completely engulfed in a hug.
This led down the path to becoming an adult, transitioning from pajamas hanging loosely over a lithe body to pajamas riding up on various "cushioned" areas. When you once couldn't eat enough to keep up with calorie needs, failing to realize it was a temporary phenomenon, you developed a love for pizza, chocolate and bear claws. Instead of stapling your stomach, your taste buds should be removed. Or, someone could follow you around and whap you on the head in the spirit of Pavlov; whenever you thought of pizza... At this point, the stream of consciousness took a slightly negative turn, and I wondered how, from toweling off the amniotic fluid to thoughts of scraping taste buds off, we all take a very different emotional journey through very similar circumstances.
I'm going to make a computerized hat with an electric hammer that responds to voice prompts. "Pizza"...whap! "Chocolate"...whap! "Celery"...whap!
"Hey!"..whap! whap! whap! hahahahaha
I hate computers.

2 comments:

Echo said...

This is really, really good...still laughing!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for all the laughs. I'll reread it again to cheer me up on all the days with nothing is going right.