Weeding Out Reality

[Warning: I took a lot of hey fever medicine and followed it with too much chocolate ice cream and not enough sleep. Happy reading.]

Having spent some time thinking about what to rant about, I spent time weeding out my more abstruse thoughts, like why can’t people who are smoking cigarettes during my daily strolls be encased in a giant, flexible plastic bubble so the carcinogenic fumes are trapped with their owners, while I stride by inhaling air, largely tainted by diesel fumes and people wearing far too much perfume and aftershave?

Another brilliant idea I wedded out is why hasn’t someone invented a mini crutch for under my chin that would rest on my collar bones or sternum so I could nap in in appropriate places like funeral homes and other places of worship? An indispensable napping device. Alas, reality strikes again and my wishes and wants remain unfulfilled and I am left with practical thoughts. Like how do I handle the imperfections of spring?

Today was a perfect example of what warm weather and sunshine bring out — beauty-spoiling, grass-molesting, flower-strangling weeds. Sure, while spring has finally arrived with some warmer weather, and the flowers are rising and the lilacs are blossoming, you still have to deal with the rebellious scum of nature: the weeds.

I spent 1 full hour, or 60 minutes to those of you who are more granular and anal in their timekeeping, using a metal weeding tool designed by Finns, no less, and ripping out weeds from the small patch if grass that is at the front of our house. It made me feel good to rid the space of those unruly horticultural whores who will pop up anywhere and everywhere. Made me feel like a man. With gardening equipment. I had the power of weed life and weed death for a brief shining moment. And yet, I still wasn’t totally satisfied.

Weed Remover

Like the unfortunate election of who some people are calling the Cheeto Mussolini, some things don’t work out the way we want them to. He’s an ego-ridden schmuck, but he is the duly elected POTUS (with some help from Russia). People wanted a change, an outsider, someone who would shake things up! And instead they elected a loud-mouthed, pathological weed who should be sprayed with some kind of industrial paint remover, and maybe cat urine. But some voters got what they wanted. Sort of.

We don’t always get what we want, even when we get what we want. I want free chocolate and danish as part of a healthy and nutritious breakfast, but the powers that be say it’s not healthy, and therefore I am thwarted. Instead I am forced to pay for, and eat cinnamon buns and almond croissants. It’s morally wrong, I tell you.

But with this ever-returning metaphorical and literal weed garden, we receive the gift of fodder for discussion. The stuff of comics and talkshows. That which keeps my father livid and his blood pressure elevated. It keeps me in comic heaven and gives me mental sustenance that can’t be provided by simple daily occurrences like work, the kids and giving the government vats of tax money.

Steady

Weedy reality will always be there. The steady hand of chaos and messiness that keeps me awake at night, dreaming of free danish and forever low glucose readings when I am getting my checkup.

Quizzically dizzy and sleepily silly,
Johann of the Suburbs