Fallibility

I know I got a little ranty, there. When I sent the link to the last post out to friends (personal RSS, baby, get on the list), I even mentioned that I would be a fantastic pundit. That goes on the same imaginary resume that features professional wrestling manager. See, to some that's some fallability right there, but that's because you don't appreciate wrestling the way I do. It's theater, like the grave diggers in Hamlet. It's also like Gravedigger, the monster truck (doesn't the Gravedigger guy look like Quint from Jaws?). Man, I want to talk about monster trucks now, but I gotta stay focused. All I want to say is that there must be a lot of cool as hell 80s screenplays laying around somebody's desk. "Like Red Dawn, but with Bigfoot! Imagine some Russian mangling the name Bigfoot as it runs over a line of T-72 tanks..."

Okay, I'm focused again, 100% on my fallibility. First of all, I 100% admit that I probably don't have to point out my fallibility. Catherine Zeta Jones, she has to point out her falliblity. "I was the awkward girl in school, I swear." I don't know for sure if she's ever said that, but I'd bet she has on some talk show. Every hot chica has. Ever notice the guys never say that. Like Clooney has never talked to Leno about how hard it was to get laid. It never comes up. Weird that Clooney remains infallible, but me and CZJ are mere mortals. Well CZJ is.

So far, I'm really botching this. And in the in my bean outline, I now notice that yet another girl is going to take it on the chin, but I swear we're getting to me. But first we need to warp back to 8th grade. There was this girl, Dawn. I swithched schools in 8th grade, so in order to fit in I had to do a couple things. I had to be really, really funny, and I had to get into a couple fights. Well I'm not a good fighter. One kid hit me so hard I couldn't hear out of that ear for a while. Fighting at Bair Middle was so much safer than fighting at Parkway Middle, AND I STILL LOST THE ABILITY TO TRULY APPREICATE "MR. ROBOTO" BY STYX. I never fought at Parkway. Parkway was a tough school.

Anyway, I was much better at the funny. Now I will be the first to admit that humor has changed. It used to be funny to put a rubber glove on your head. I didn't do that. Even that wasn't funny to me. I'll tell you how much things have changed. Robin Williams AND Whoopi Goldberg were considered funny. My thing, and the ladies of Bair Middle totally dug it, was to cut a mouth shape into an orange (thanks Mom, and Happy Mom's Day, too). Then I would do purposefully bad ventriloquist (before I was born, ventriloquists were funny), with the ultra-crescendo finale, me squeezing "Mr. O" and making him spit.

So one person who occasionally found me funny was Dawn. I'm not even sure she ate lunch with me, but I wasn't just funny at lunch. Then I went and ruined everything. We went to Tallahassee to learn about government. Eh. But in the Tallahassee Morrison's Buffet, history was made. I told a joke, non-orange related, that made Dawn shoot a whole strawberry preserve out of her nose. Now first of all, NO, I DON'T REMEMBER THE JOKE. Second of all, at first I thought I hurt her. Red and textured and coming out of the nose... It was an awkward moment before we all realized it was pie and not brain (I know this seems like just the sort of easy 80s joke I have been picking on, but this is reality). Then we all laughed some more. Except Dawn. Dawn never really talked to me much after that. By 12th grade, I was buying some Brach's Jelly Beans at Walgreen's, and she was behind the counter. Apparently I wasn't there at all.

Fast forward to last night. A cookout my friends Alexa and Laura were having to celebrate the end of the semester. Everybody's responsible for a dish. I had a whole plan where I was going to cut Entenmann's cake donuts in half and spread cream cheese icing. Green sprinkles for chives and voila, dessert bagels (I think Rose and I thought of this together, but if you think you thought of it mostly, then I apologize, chica). But our kitchen was being less than kitchenly while Mikey (my roommate... I assume everybody has either read my book, or knows me...neither may be the case) fixed the sink. So I went ready-made. Actually, a girl named Sara sans the H, like my prom date, but from Minnesotta, unlike my prom date, called me out asking how much space it would take to cut donuts in half...

Excellent question. I admitted that I'm the kind of person that would need to destroy a pristine kitchen to do just that. And since the kitchen was already destroyed, I bought a red velvet cake. Mmmmmm. First of all, yummy. Second of all, there's a sort of CSI/Eakins quality to the whole thing. Like you are dissecting something, because that's one healthy, visceral red. Well I commence with the consuming. They had a partyball! First of all, I was scanning the idea folder, and I actually had the line "rollin' like a partyball" in there. But I think that was because I didn't know they had partyballs still. So it was sort of kitch-y (as opposed to making an orange spit). Confronted with a real partyball, it didn't seem as funny.

So I go past comfy buzz to rambly buzz, and I don't seem to offend people. Then I spy that cake. I'm Quincy and that thing is lying on a cold, steel table. Why did that cake die??? WHY??? Well I had a generous slice, forgetting that dessert and drink are not friends in my stomach.

I get home, lay down, and I don't feel too good. And apparently type into the old idea file, "Afraid of throwing up. How will I know if I am sick...Like Dawn." Even though I didn't throw up, I guess that's about as full circle as this is going to get, Dawn. But hey, fallibility, even twenty years later we can share the wealth.

The Fallibility Scorecard: Afraid of vomiting red cake...check. Paul is fallible. Paul was watching An American President while writing this...check. Paul is very, very fallible. WAIT! Linked to Gravedigger AND Eakins? Paul is 100% infallible! Put that in your smug pipe, Clooney!