freak up your day

Happy Freaksgiving!

When the pilgrims first made their pilgrimage to pillage Pilsbury, a great new tradition was started. Freaksgiving, a joyous day in which we all gather together to freak up the days of the ones we love the most. And it all started with a man named John Smith. I mean, Jim Smythe. Make that Gene Smoothe. Anyway, Gene Smothers was engaged to Joan Smatherson, but he was in love with the beautiful Disney character Pocahontas. Tragically, Pocahontas did nothing but refuse his every romantic gesture and Candygram. One day she had enough, and told him she never wanted to see his face again.

"But Pocahontas," he said, "I... I love you. I love you. I love you. How else can I emphasize it? There aren't enough typefaces in the world to describe my love for you!"

"Go back to Britannica, Johnny. I don't like your weird accent and mischievous yet charming casual dress style."

"Don't say no to me, Pocahontas. You are my one and only. You are like the maraschino cherry atop an otherwise extremely nasty soy-based dog food sundae."

"Why don't you leave me alone and bother somebody else? Go talk to my cousin, Orthodontas. She's crazy about British dudes."

"No! Never! I'll never love anyone but you! Besides, the last time I tried talking to your cousin, all she did was try to fix my teeth."

"Your teeth could use it. Now go away. Don't make me Taser you."

Poor Gene walked away, his dreams crushed into a fine powder, stirred into milk, and frozen into a creamy center of an orange popsicle. Not knowing where else to turn, he came to visit me, Bensaki, at my summer home in northern Greenland. Unfortunately, that was the day that the evil Bundt Cake Witch had turned me into one of those fortune-teller booths that dispense little pieces of paper with stuff like the future and advertisements written on them. So i couldn't help Gene when he came; i could only stand there in my ridiculous hat and dispense a little piece of paper. I watched helplessly as Gene read the recipe for my Cornbread Crabclaw Cranberry Crumbcake and interpreted it as a sign to help him win the heart of Pocahontas. He always was a superstitious one. If i could have spoken but one word of warning to poor Gene, that word would have been: "Indigestion." But it was too late. Gene headed into the kitchen.

But it seems that stories like this have an uncanny, irritating tendency to work out in the end. Gene's only real talent, it seems, was culinary, and he turned a potential vomit fountain into sheer bliss, winning the heart and tastebuds of his one true love. Freaksgiving was born.

The next day, i was turned into an orange juicer.

For real, you guys. I wouldn't joke about something like that.

So i'm going home tomorrow for T-giving break. Gonna give some major T. I don't intend to stop posts while i'm home, it's just that they might not be as frequent... or long... or good. But fear not. Thanksgiving will definitely become Freaksgiving, if i have anything to say about it.

If this country knew what was good for it, it would invent remote controlled meat tenderizers already.

Freak up your day, your week, your month, and even your year...
(Today's title brought to you by the brilliant and hilarious Anna)

Snow is reasonable. I can understand snow. Large portions of land covered with a thin layer of frozen water? Makes perfect sense, considering most of the earth's surface is water anyway. But mashed potatoes? There's no excuse for that. I don't know whose wiseguy idea it was to shoot down a plane carrying nothing but instant mashed potato flakes, but it certainly wasn't funny for a pilot and copilot hanging in the sky by parachutes, and the recently flooded farming community below wasn't laughing either. At first, as the deceptively serene white flakes floated out of an unassuming grey sky, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Little drifts even built themselves up in a holiday fashion, like the wind had been anticipating them all along. But something was horribly wrong, and it wasn't long before everyone knew it.

Can you imagine getting hit full in the face by a grapefruit-sized ball of mashed potatoes? How about putting on those new wool mittens and starting to make a snowman, only to find a sloppy mess of deconstructed tubers infiltrating your garments? And how would you explain to your mom the logistical laundrogical nightmare that you caused by making a mashed potato angel? This was just the beginning of the small town's woes.

The recent flooding left things ripe for disaster. Growing undercurrents churned the mixture of river water and instant potato flakes into fluffy white fields of mashed monstrosity. Farm equipment across the countryside choked on fourth and fifth helpings of homestyle goodness. Stores, restaurants, and small businesses were forced to close due to side dish overdose. Unlike snow, instant mashed potato doesn't melt away and evaporate. It stays around and rots, like so many square miles of pig intestine. Needless to say, this phenomenon is bad for civic morale and olfactory well-being. Something had to be done. But what?

(Cue audio: In the distance, the long low whistle of the gravy train.)

What could save this small rural community? A superhero? Government intervention? A candlelight vigil/buffet? No, the answer was far more simple. A certain disreputable fast food chain (for anonymity's sake, we'll call it McRoger's) made a few closed-doors agreements with city hall, and overnight, the mashed potatoes were gone from all the gravel roads, rich topsoil, and manure stockpiles, and there was a tasty new dish in town! Another victory for corporate symbiosis. Try some Farm Fries today!

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(Now, i don't usually do this sort of thing, but i got a cd the other day that merits breaking my usual blogging guidelines and telling you about it. If any of you don't own Starflyer 59's 'Everbody Makes Mistakes' album, go out and buy it now. You need it.)

Actually, upholstering the inside of a coffee mug wasn't as useful an idea as you had us all convinced it was.

Hockey requires a lot of protective equipment, but not nearly as much as Scissorball®.

Sublimate ice cream, and what do you get? Gas cream.

Today's post is about time. ("What, you mean it's about time for today's post?" "No, squeeze-cheese-brain, the subject of the post is time.") Also, i might add, it's about time for today's post.

When Time was a young boy, they used to call him "Timmy." Timmy waited for no man, and he soon gained a reputation for flying by without anyone knowing where he went. Timmy ran so fast, he was the 3rd grade class' best kickball player, and the team that won was always the one that had Timmy on their side. Of course, like all the other kids, Timmy moved much more slowly during class. This stayed true when he got his first job as a teenager. At that point, he started to call himself "Tim."

Tim worked in an appliance repair shop, making everything like new. No challenge was hard enough to turn back the hands of Tim, which never stopped moving. Tim worked his way through medical school, and married a girl who just didn't have enough Tim in her life. Afterward, of course, she wound up with too much Tim on her hands.

Establishing himself as a respectable practitioner, Doctor Tim started going by his full name of Time. Time could heal all wounds, and this made his competitors violently jealous. They made several attempts on his life, but Time always seemed to get away from them. After everything, the end of Time was brought about not by the competing doctors, but by a group of lazy restaurateurs. They were bored, so they decided to kill Time. Not knowing how to dispose of the body, they carved him up and made him the main ingredient in a new entrée. The name of this dish is quite an apt ending to the story: Time to go.

Book of Lactosians, Chapter Four

And on that day, the Lord did take all of the milk He had created, and gathered it before Him in a great holding tank that stretched to the ends of the earth.
And out of that tank, He set apart two tenths of a tenth of all of the milk that had been created.
And He spake with a great voice, saying, "Lo, this milk shall henceforth be cursed, and its flavor made wretched unto the tastebuds of man, for it has been found wicked in My sight." And the Lord saw that it was extremely nasty.
And from that day, the cursed two percent of the Lord's milk was called 2% milk, for the Lord did set it apart from the other 98 percent and cause it to be cursed.
And the men of the earth despised this milk, and drank it not, for it was bitter unto them.

Friends, it is time we rose up against this evil milk and smote it from our presence. Seriously. I don't see how people can drink that stuff.

Good evening. I am the Socioeconomic Bandit.

"Morning, Todd."
"Morning, Jim. How's the slow, inexorable march toward death?"
"Not bad. How's the bowling league?"
"Good, good."
"Bye, Todd."
"Bye, Jim."

Michael Anne Jell-O®

Good evening, and welcome to some stuff. (Allergy information: Some of the stuff contains nuts. Most of the stuff is nuts. All of the stuff will cause you to go nuts.) I found this stuff on the sidewalk earlier this millenium, and i wasn't sure what it was, so i brought it in to my local library. Since the librarian would not let me check out a book with the stuff, i deduced that it was not a library card. That narrowed it down a lot. I then busted out my very own actual library card, and i checked out three books: Stuffonomy: Collecting and Identifying Stuffs and Stuff-related Items, Five Million and One Easy Cheesy Recipeesies, and The Butcher's Guide to Multi-Variable Calculus. These three books took me the better part of a lunch hour to skim through and decide that i didn't want anymore, and by that time the stuff was getting pretty temperamental and smelly. I didn't want to take this stuff on any more field trips to libraries and art museums than i had to, so i decided to end the excursion and ask the one man i knew could tell me the true identity of the stuff: my longtime friend and feudal lord, the Duke of Stuff. His castle in Thingsburg was a mere 87-hour plane flight from downtown Youarehere, MN, so i was there in no time.

"Most loyal Bensaki," quoth the Duke of Stuff, "have you brought me fresh walnuts and pheasant from yon field as a tribute to my luminescent majesty and striking jowl tattoos?"
"Your gracious dukeness, i have not. I purchased you two of the finest, freshest pheasants my fief could afford the day before last; one from Denmark, one from the Czech Republic. The Danish pheasant is at my summer home in northern Greenland; the Czech is in the mail."
"Very well then, Bensaki. What then is this stuff you bring before me?"
"O radiant dukosity, shining with the light of a thousand earls and a couple hair dryers, i have brought before your elegant dukeliness this stuff in hopes that you might bestow upon me the knowledge of its nature and origin."
"Grant me but a look at yon stuff, and I shall divine its true nature from my measureless stores of wisdom."
"A million thanks, o gracious duke. Duke, beyond rebuke. Duke, too brave to spook. Duke, who has to puke."
"Now listen well, gentle subject, and knowledge shall be yours. Behold the very stuff that you have carried from afar, and know that it is none other than seven-month-old taco dip, infested with fierce legions of the microscopic plague, and radiating a faint glow. Be wise, my son, and touch not the stuff of whose origin thou dost be unsure."

Remembering the measures i had taken back on the plane when my in-flight meal just wasn't enough, i fainted dead on the spot.

This story speaks for itself.

While My Kazoo Gently Weeps

You only get one chance to ride the tidal wave of bananas. It comes around once and then it's parsley. You can always use an extra hand when your head is afoot.

I am a tomato.

"Gather your moles in groups of two and three, my child." "But why, Mother?" "Hush, child! Your father will be home soon, and if he heard such talk, he'd whack you on the head."

Always eat sandwiches, no matter what else you're doing at the time. It's better that way.

Well, you've made it this far. Those first four paragraphs were just there to weed out the people who aren't really interested in what i have to say. I call them "Garden Implement Paragraphs" for that exact reason. Now for the real topic. A scissors. I've got it right here in my hand. With every keystroke, it stabs me in the palm, because i'm holding it in a very awkward way. My blood is weird. I mean, it looks like blood, but it tastes like electric shock. It might be the keyboard. My hands are all sticky all of a sudden, and the keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeys are sttttttttttttttttarting to sticccccccck down. Let me go washhhhhhhh my hands................................................................................................................
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................................ Oh, crap. That key stuck down the whole time i was gone, didn't it? Well, this post is ruined. Add it to the list, which now includes the computer, the scissors, my fine motor skills, my pants, my fictional empire's economy, certain portions of my epidermis, and my clean white "I Am Not A Communist" shirt. Scissors is evil. Eggplant would make a much better friend.

In closing, you generally have to mop the floor, turn off the lights, lock the door, and remove any unconventional items from the bottom of the deep fryer. Thank goodness that is not my job anymore.

(Today's title sounds wicked live, by the way.)

Things I Wouldn't Do With Five Thousand Dollars

1. Stuff it up my nose.

2. Name it Sally and talk to it all day.

3. Papier-mâché.

4. Bribe the army to bomb my house.

5. Upgrade all the horseflies, dragonflies, and fruit flies to horses, dragons, and fruit.

6. Make a mashed potato volcano that erupted gravy. (no, wait... i totally would do that... that would be awesome.)

7. Give it to a guy who said "Give me five thousand dollars or I won't shoot you."

8. Give myself an all-expenses-paid trip to the record store to buy like three cds, then go home broke.

9. Get it all changed into quarters, then buy every gumball in the machine until i finally won... a free gumball.

10. Donate it to our nation's carp.

11. Transfer it from bank account to bank account around the world, like a boring game of unnecessary international financial ping-pong.

12. Choke on a chocolate chicken.

13. Finance the career of an up-and-coming canine actor.

14. Devote 15 minutes of my life to writing a list about it.

It's alright... 'cause i'm Saved By The Bell!
(title brought to you by the theme song of some tv show i forget the name of...)

Sorry, guys. No daily freakups today... i got halfway through writing my post and i realized it was horrible. If you only knew, you'd thank me for not posting it. But you'll just have to take my word for it, i guess. My sincerest apologies. Tomorrow will be so freaked up you won't know what headbutted you, wearing a spiked helmet and smelling of mints and gravy.

When I told you I was king of the galaxy and could shoot sparks from my nose, I was just making up stories to impress you. I hope we can still be friends.

The only reason we haven't started extracting the "f" from the nation's foil supply to make our own oil is that there's no safe place to dispose of all the "f"s.

See no evil, hear no evil, freak no evil.

In honor of the Vikings, who were awesome (not the football team, just the medieval pillaging maniacs), i hereby instate this very first edition of a little segment i like to call "It Would Rule If..." wherein i list off a bunch of fictional events which, brought magically into the realm of reality, would rule. I'm not even gonna bother talking about it any more, because i'm just so excited for this thing to start. You understand. Wait, i'm not sure if you do understand. Let me give you an example, before we get started. Close your eyes and imagine a world far away, where the trees are made of sausages and all the people... psssh, forget it. Let's just start the list.

It would rule if...

-i were a Viking.

-my hair were floor-length and made of braided cowhide, so i could headbang and whip people.

-Inspector Gadget were actually Inspector A Huge Sumo Wrestler, so he could say "Go go Gadget Crush-The-Entire-Population-Of-Luxembourg-In-One-Swift-Belly-Flop." Actually, that would be a bit loquacioius.

-sheep were made of tater tots. Enough said.

-Napoleon were alive today, so i could make fun of him.

-sexiness came in a can, and i had a can opener.

-all my Tuna Applesauce Chardonnay Gravy Crumbcake Biscuit Falafel Mayonnaise Tomato Cheesecake recipes didn't end up tasting so fishy.

-Richard Simmons were alive today, so i could make fun of him.

-coffee filters could double as surgical masks, parachutes, or silly hats in an emergency.

-i were the proud owner of a Super-Deluxe Punching Bag, instead of the ashamed owner of a Super-Ordinary Grocery Bag.

-they could capture the sweet, sweet aroma of victory on video cassette.

-i had a sponge cake.

There's the list. It would rule if you would come back tomorrow and read whatever foolishness i make up next. Better yet, if you were a Genie of the Lamp and would just make that whole list come true already. That counts as one wish.

Will the orange juice be unfrozen, by and by, Lord, by and by?

I apologize for the freak famine these past couple of days. The past week has been a fairly crappy part of history to be living in, so when the weekend came, my friends and i all had to take it easy and have some fun, because we literally couldn't think of anything fun that had happened all week. So i haven't been around my computer much, nor have i had much ambition to write. But that is all about to change, you see, because.... i'm going to write a post now.

First of all, whoever invented watertowers was a genius. Because i tried to build one the other day, and all i could get the water to do was lie there on the ground and short out all my electric appliances. That took care of my backup plan, which was to build a yogurt smoothie tower. I couldn't do that anymore because my blender was shorted out. I would need a lender to buy a new blender. And that was the least of my problems. The water had also shorted out the conveyor belt that comprised my entire floor. How would i, or my potted plants, ever cross the room again? My plan for a mobile landscaping business was rapidly falling apart. And even all this wouldn't have been so bad if my ceiling hadn't been at the cleaners that day. It started to rain, and my room filled up quickly. In a stroke of irony, the rain made a water tower out of my experimental electronic laboratory, proving once and for all that the best man-made structures are the ones found in nature.

It made sense then, at least.

I will NOT give in and start calling it Din-Din. I will NOT give in and start calling it Din-Din. I will NOT give in and start calling it Din-Din.

We here at Bensaki International are always striving to bring you the freakiest of days, regardless of rain, sleet, snow, terriers, the Mafia, pop-punk bands, pedestrians, Mikhail Gorbachev, tainted pork, or the number 56. Like the United States Postal Service, we deliver. Not only do we deliver, but on occasions when our surgical department deems it necessary, we de-liver as well. In order to serve you better and achieve maximum freakocity, i just now made up this little survey. ("freakocity": n. 1. the degree to which a day is freaked up. 2. a city inhabited by freakos.) Here, without many extraneous adverbs, needless tangents, or ado, is my sparkling survey.

Question 1: How freaked up would you say your current day is?
a) Pretty freaked up, but not to the level where i'm inventing new ways to put meat on a stick or anything.
b) Hardly freaked up at all. I'm eating unbuttered toast and listening to talk radio here.
c) So freaked up that i just made a statue of a crocodile out of alligators! Wow!

Question (actually, more of a request, really) 2: Describe a typical prank that you pull on a classmate/coworker/creepy zookeeper.
a) Dish detergent in the hair. For weeks ensuing, taunts of "Lemony-Fresh Head" echo through the hallways. It's great.
b) I pull the old "tell them that the garbage can is on the right-hand side of the desk when in actuality it is on the left-hand side of the desk" trick. Gets 'em every time.
c) I wait until their back is turned, then i smite 'em with the enchanted Rod of Eternal Pork Juice Cravings! BAM!

Question 3: If you had a mere one complaint about this blog, what would it be?
a) There's no free stuff. Free toilet paper would be pretty cool. I can't believe they put another embargo on that stuff. What's next, a blowing-your-nose tax?
b) Um... it sucks. Really.... really really bad.
c) My only complaint is that i can't get this blog wired directly into my head like some sort of bionic robot man. And that i don't have some Kung Pao chicken.

Question 4: You're not Matt Zimmerman, are you? Because he's not allowed to take this survey.
a) No! Who is Matt Zimmerman?
b) That's Matt Zimmerbloke, and... oh, i guess i just blew it. Typical Matt Zimmerman style.
c) Bloke. That guy cracks me up. (... because he's a nerd.)

Question 5: How could i possibly improve the freakocity of your personal day?
a) If only i had some hot home decor tips...
b) You could refer me to a freaking professional, so my day could be freaked by someone who KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING.
c) The only possible way to make my day freakier would be to rub down a live raccoon with lard and set him loose in my oversized ruffly pirate shirt! I'm freaked beyond all control!

And thus ends my surveyest of surveys. If you answered mostly "a" responses, i will address your concerns in the near future. If you answered mostly "c" responses, you are the awesomest. If you answered mostly "b" responses or are, in fact, Matt Zimmerman, go and buy an exploding toothbrush and follow all directions carefully.

If you freak me up, if you freak me up I never stop...

The problem with animals is that they don't know what they're doing.

I'll tell you what i mean. Take, for example, the gross incompetence of the Rottweiler i hired to write my post last June 28th (episode 27: EDV7YYYYX;OLJBN,.JVB). He didn't have a clue how to use a computer. All the koalas i've met have the same problem. Koalas: I could punch them. Also, try having a conversation about the Roman Empire sometime with an acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a fruit bat. Guy doesn't know what he's talking about, i swear. If those uninformed supersonic shrieks and mindless flutterings are what he calls "solid arguments," then i'm sorry, but i must have subscribed to the wrong school of thought - the one where conversations are made up of WORDS. Jeez.

And it's not just that: some of them act like they're such big stuff, too. Take this ant i saw the other day. He kept walking on my foot, as if my foot was his own personal scenic walkway. "Oh! You want to walk on my foot? Well, excuse me while i interrupt my life so you can mosey around on my appendage! What happens if i want to MOVE my foot? Like, i don't know, to WALK or something? Can't do that now, can i? No, i'll just wait here while you change your mind 26 times about which direction you want to go so i can finally walk away and fulfill my obligations to the rest of society. Take your time!"

If i had a dollar for every time a bird didn't say "hi" back to me, i'd have enough money to BUY all the fine feathered "friends" i wanted. And then i'd ignore THEM, just so they'd know how it felt.

And don't even get me started on dogs. They sit in people's yards like they're the Sacred Guardians of Somebody's Lawn, and it's like all of a sudden i'm the Antichrist because i set foot on the section of sidewalk that happens to border their Most Exalted Pooping Region. They start yelling and screaming as if anybody had the first clue as to what they were saying, and... like i said, don't get me started.

Some days i think electroshock therapy is the only solution.

To supplement your developping kleptomania, i say

When life gives you lemons, take lemonade.
A bird in the pocket is worth two on the display rack.
The grass is always greener when you steal it.
;)

(my apologies, i don't have time for a real post today. tomorrow will be extra freaked up. or not.)

Requiem for a Lawn Mower
(credits to Carlene for today's title... go and read her post)

Silence. Solitude. The hushed patter of feet on freshly fallen snow. Some squirrels. I awoke to find the grass submerged to the very depths of an avalanche. Over a hot bowl of macaroni and cheese, i gazed out the window and wept, the salt of my tears intensifying the savory goodness of the delectable mac. And i wept for my friend, the lawn mower.

Long nights to be spent in the frozen outpost of the garage. Sunny days of blinding white to be spent lonely and unproductive, longing for escape. Nothing but memories and the occasional magazine subscription to keep it company. Five months of psychological torture.

Suddenly i sprang to my feet. How could i have been so short-sighted? With a shudder i realized what i had done, and at that same moment i knew it was too late. Windblown snow was drifting up inside its mechanical entrails, melting and rusting its surgically precise blades to a dull butter-knife edge. Ice had taken hold of its joints, locking them in place unsalvageably. I had left the lawn mower out overnight.

The service was small; only a few who had truly known the lawn mower in this life were present. Few words were said; what words could possibly ease the pain? We talked about the good times, and then we all got into a snowball fight and lost all track of time, until finally, spring had arrived. In a phenomenon of reincarnation that calls to mind a phoenix or Frosty the Snowman, our lawn mower returned to us, wearing a rich cape of red velvet and riding on a pontoon boat. What joy we felt! A chorus of birds sang all around, until we started up the lawn mower and scared them all away. We mowed all the lawns from sea to shining sea. It was the most glorious event in history for about ten minutes, and then i went back inside to eat some ravioli.

Pumpkins and iguanas eating toupées...
(i do believe the Wuz-Mutha knows what i'm talking about)

Today's post is top secret. You'd better not tell anyone you're reading it. In fact, what are you doing reading it? Stop. I have a lot to say to everyone that nobody must hear, and the only way to ensure that nobody finds out is to ensure that nobody reads this. Pass the word along to everyone you hear that nobody should read this post, and write down the address so that everyone can find it and not read it. Print out several copies and shred them. Dispose of the evidence somewhere nobody will suspect, like your front lawn. Memorize this post and then tape your mouth shut. Write down everything i'm telling you in invisible ink so you won't be able to read it later. Go and have a taco while you're at it. I don't want to tell you what to do or anything, but you absolutely must do everything i tell you. Don't tell a soul.

Now we have come to the secret part. If you have kept reading to this point, stop. Better yet, stop now. Better yet, have a brain surgeon remove the part of your brain that houses memory. Better yet, have a brain surgeon remove your entire brain and replace it with someone else's brain. Better yet, have him replace it with a duck's brain. Then, on your way out of the hospital, you will be yelling "Quack" every three seconds or so, to the great amusement/outrage of all the doctors. Have you done all of that? Good! Hold on, i mean bad! If you had really done all that you wouldn't still be reading. There's no hope, is there? Well, what can be done? People are just too curious to stop reading when they've been told there is some big secret up ahead. Okay, then. No secret. No jokes. No comedy. Just a lame end to a lame post. There. Hope you're happy. You could have done us all a big favor by giving yourself a duck brain, but no. You had to be selfish.