Cone Conundrum

I remember a scandal in the late 60s about my state renting hundreds of traffic barrels for a dollar a day. What a waste of money, we thought!

That was before traffic cones took over the world.

Traffic cones, unlike their barrel predecessors are not on our highways simply to point out occasional hazards.  They are not just there in the hundreds, but in the millions.

And I beg to differ with anyone who contends that they serve to make traffic simpler.

Traffic cones have become America's number one cash crop.

And they aren't content to stay on our highways.  They have invaded our culture.

Our art.  Don't believe me...

How about this?

Or this?

They've invaded our children's programming.

And music.

And when I say they've taken over the stage, I'm speaking literally.

They have their own weight loss programs.

Even their own pets.

There are reports of traffic cone mind control.

They are taking on human characteristics

So they can blend in and take over our planet before we are even aware of the danger.

They're coming for you.  If you find yourself planted by the roadside marking traffic hazards five years from now.  You were warned!

Ask not for whom the cone wobbles.  It wobbles for you.

Mortimer, the Drop of Goo

Mortimer, the Drop of Goo

by Headley Hauser

He was born at 10:15AM the Saturday that Fred the dad, watched the kids. He didn’t know his origins. Was he grease? Was he jam? Was he syrup?

It didn’t matter now. From the moment he dropped from Fred’s plate and hit the floor, he was goo. He was Mortimer, the Drop of Goo.

Mortimer surveyed the great plain of ceramic tile. He was in a vast world, full of sights and smells. One smell was particularly pungent.

Mortimer didn’t know it, but his life nearly came to an end only moments after it began, for that pungent smell was none other than Barkie, the Labradoodle whose fell tongue had consumed myriad goo drops before him.

“Barkie, come here,” said Fred. “I can’t have you messing up the kitchen or Loraine will never let me hear the end of it.”

And so, Mortimer was spared. Mortimer felt lucky – maybe even a bit crafty to have escaped death. “Beware, cold tile world,” said he, “for I am Mortimer, the lucky, Mortimer the Drop off Goo.”

Nothing much happened in Mortimer’s existence until 11:03AM. Ethan, six-years-old, and barefoot, entered Mortimer’s domain. Ethan entered it so completely that the boy stepped on little Mortimer, creating a tiny sound and transferring half of Mortimer’s goo to the bottom of Ethan’s foot. Surprisingly, Mortimer didn’t feel at all reduced. There was something magical about the bottom of a little boy’s foot that made a small drop of goo multiply into dozens of equal, even greater drops of goo.

“Grow, My People,” shouted Mortimer, the Drop of Goo. “Multiply and subdue the great plain of ceramic tile!”

When Ethan left the kitchen, Mortimer observed his world from a new perspective. “Beware world of Greater Kitchen,” said he, “for I am Mortimer the fruitful, Mortimer the Drop of Goo.

And so things remained until 1:22PM when Isabel, fourteen months and crawling, entered the kitchen. Isabel crawled right through Mortimer the Drop of Goo, distributing much of his substance unto her hands and knees. Perhaps Isabel had the same magic as her brother, or maybe it was a function of toddler drool (and other fluids best not mentioned,)

 but Mortimer was not reduced, but multiplied many times. He spread upon the kitchen chairs and cabinet fronts, he formed perfect fingerprints on the edge of the table. He even coated the bowl belonging to Barkie the Labradoodle – the very beast that might have ended his existence. By the time Isabel crawled out of the kitchen, Mortimer was everywhere!

“A HA!” shouted Mortimer. “I have conquered the kitchen! It is all mine. Let the world beware, for if I have conquered this vast kitchen, I can conquer every kitchen. I can conquer the whole world” said he, “for I am Mortimer the Mighty, Mortimer the Drop of Goo!”

And so for three hours, Mortimer gloated, he plotted, he sang to himself little ditties of world domination. Mortimer was happy in the way every evil tyrant has been happy from the days of Nimrod the Hunter, to Vlad the Impaler, to George the Yankee Owner.

Mortimer kept his evil gleeful revelry until 4:45PM when Loraine entered the kitchen from the door that led to the garage.

“It is through that door that I will spread to the outside world,” thought Mortimer. “Go ahead, Loraine – touch me, spread me, increase my domain,” said he, “for I am Mortimer the Dominator, Mortimer the Drop of Goo!”

“Fred!” shouted Loraine.

RIP, Mortimer the Drop of Goo.

Speaking of world domination - a favorite story of mine...

Beware the Swiss

Don’t piss off the Swiss!

Last Olympics the Swiss hockey team didn't get a medal.  Although they were excellent skaters, they didn't fare well for the following reasons

1)    When the referee called icing, they thought he was talking about pastry

2)    They were penalized for attempting to build a large ice-capped barrier around their goal

3)    They spent far too much time in the “neutral” zone.

We think of Swiss and we see people in fairy tale clothing, blowing 12 foot horns in between bites of chocolate. 

 Amiable, comical, harmless people: hardly a people to fear. 

Those who have visited the Vatican (or those, like me, who've seen pictures of people visiting the Vatican and been spared the 18 hours in a tour bus next to retired couple from Toledo who ate something they shouldn't have) have seen the famous Swiss guards.  They look like they just came off the label on a bottle of scotch.  On the ferocity scale they appear to fall somewhere between Tony the Tiger and Winnie the Pooh.

And so they are – assuming Tony was a real Tiger and Pooh a real bear.

Those of us of German descent pretend to be tough.  We go around spitting threatening “ach” sounds at the end of our words and stare malignly at any collection of items or people not in a straight line.  We've been living next to the Swiss for centuries but you don’t see us ever bothering them.  Martin Luther was once impolite to Zwingli and the Reformation nearly met a tragic end right there.

In all the World War II movies, refugees are always escaping to Switzerland.  Do you think Clint Eastwood, Donald Southerland and Don Rickles were concerned that the Nazis would try to get their gold back?  Do you think Maria and all those sickeningly sweet children worried that Papa Von Trapp would be snatched back up and put on a U-boat?

Nah!

As they climbed the Alps and crossed the boarder they met one pudgy guy in leather shorts who greeted them.  “Welcome to Switzerland, have some chocolate, pet the Saint Bernard, bend over and moon Berlin.”

Rumor is the Heidi and her Grandfather alone, held off an entire SS company using nothing but a shepherd’s crook and hair ribbons.

  Once, the finish to a professional football playoff game was preempted to show a rerun of the movie “Heidi.”  If Roone Arlidge was scared of them, so am I.

It’s OK, you tell me.  The Swiss can be tough but we don’t have to worry about them.  Sure, every citizen over the age of three has an automatic weapon

 but the Swiss gather only short-range defensive ordinance.  They’re interested in stopping an enemy from climbing over the Alps.  After all, Hannibal surprised them with arrow-proof elephants and they want to make sure no one ever does that again!

Oh yeah, smart guy?  You’re so sure you won’t see the Swiss rolling across Europe, North America or even (for the hell of it) Australia, establishing marshal law, resetting clocks and disposing of inferior chocolate?

You’re forgetting one thing.  The most devastating tactical assault vehicle known to man.  The M-1 tank you ask?  The Bradley fighting vehicle?  No, I’m talking about the Pope-mobile.

Whenever you see the Pope traveling, he’s always safely ensconced in a Pope-mobile.  These vehicles are not built like some spit guard on a salad bar at your local Ponderosa; these babies are high tech!  You could launch a smart bomb, a nuke or even Oprah at one of these machines and you wouldn't even bother the man’s pointy hat.  All of this advanced armor is there just to protect an icon of peace?  C’mon, we know better.

Still, you argue (you just don’t give up do you?).  What do we have to fear from just one Pope-mobile?

You don’t see any crumbling “I break for baby ducks” stickers on the Pope’s bumper do you?  No!  The Pope has no interest in keeping a vehicle past its first oil change.  The man gets a new ride for every trip.  I bet he’s gone through hundreds, if not thousands of these suckers.

You never notice a Pope-mobile blowout at Billy-Bob-Joe-Ben McGinty’s Used Car Heaven?  I’ll tell you why.  The used papal assault vehicles are stored in a massive alpine bunker directly below a coo-coo clock manufacturing plant and several thousand of Donald Trump’s safety deposit boxes.

Do you want to wake up at five every morning to the sound of elongated brass performing cough drop jingles?  Are you willing to surrender the Swiss Miss cocoa company executives to a Geneva war-crimes tribunal?  Are you prepared to be conquered by an army that speaks five languages better than you speak English?

Write to our President.  Tell him to forget middle-east terrorism and stop Pope-mobile proliferation.  Only when every Pope-mobile is safely decaying in a New Jersey hazardous waste dump am I going to feel safe sleeping at night.

Then maybe we can do something about the Tony the Tiger and Winnie the Pooh threat.

Don't believe me?  Check this animated documentary from the mid 90s.  They're even more scary now.

Editor’s note:  The increasingly over-rated, Trouble in Taos will be free as an e-book on Amazon this weekend, Feb 7, 8, 2015.  “People seem to like it – can someone tell me why?” asks Headley Hauser, the author (and writer of this blog.)  No-one here at Go Figure Reads was able to answer his question.

Walter Bego