Dirk Destroyer Part 9 Chapters Four and 4

I think this is the ninth installment of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. When we last left our intrepid crew (I’ve always want to write that,) Ono, has just encountered Lustavious Brachenhun, the libidinous, importunate (two more words I’ve always want to use,) Lightbringer, who has pegged her for one of his longer-termed relationships – perhaps an entire hour.

Chapter Four

Stuff You Learn

There are several tricks you learn if you live long enough. I have lived long enough to learn a few of them, and to identify several more that I have yet to learn. Some tricks come to you naturally, though the only way to learn others is to go to the right school.

Characters learn to fly in books from the childhood tales of Ffefferfoph the Bblupbblsuph (who hasn’t read that one?) to Jonathan Edwards Seagull Looks for Chicks. What does this mean? There is a trick to flying, and humans can learn that trick if they live long enough – or find where it’s taught.

The same is true for trans-dimensional transport, a common skill in many stories – so common that anyone who’s lived long enough would surely learn how to do it. It is a skill that Ono, at this point in the story would find very useful.

And also a skill I never learned.

Chapter 4

Lustavious Brachenhun

“You,” sang Lustavious Brachenhun with a catchy pop tune with a syncopated beat, “you may be the next one! You maybe the one-and-only of this hour! (or maybe one of two.)”

I disliked Lustavious Brachenhun on sight, but I admired his ability to make up a song extemporaneously like that. Dirk could do that – even when we weren’t unusually old. As a matter of fact, Dirk was doing that when we were children.

“You’re the Babe for my bed,” sang Lustavious, “and it better be soon or I will SWOOOON to the moon!”

All right, that section wasn’t so good.

Lustavious was tall. He was the tallest Light Bringer I’d ever met, and his hair was pretty amazing. His blonde coif was the equal of Luxcurious Bidden, and it wasn’t even stapled to his head.

As he got closer I stood up. Why do men always stand up when they are approached by tall men? Maybe it is to see if the other man is taller.

Lustavious was taller. I still stood. So did Ono with Swampy firmly rooted to her shoulder. She nudged me out a step and slipped behind me so I blocked Lustavious from her.

“Oh, hi,” said Lustavious. “You must be the brother of that conniving bastard we are going to blast into oblivion for all time!” He thrust out his hand. “I hope there’re no hard feelings.”

I found myself taking his hand, and even more incredibly, saying the words, “of course not; think nothing of it.”

“Jerrrrrrk!” said Swampy, sounding more bird-like than I’ve ever heard him before.

“We are all happy,” said Akwar in a disturbingly seductive tone, “to do anything you want, Lustavious. ANYTHING.”

I didn’t remember Akwar being in the room. She did what may have been intended as a bump and grind routine with a chair, which had it any free will, might have ended it’s chair existence right there and opted for cremation.

I put selective amnesia on my list of skills I needed to acquire.

“Noted,” said Lustavious, who had been fortunate to miss the more disgusting thrusts of Akwar’s routine because he was focusing on getting past me and into close proximity with Ono. He reached across my body and fastened his manicured fingers onto Ono’s arm.

Ono said something that might have been yelp, or help. I couldn’t be sure. Mage-e-not’s head was missing, though there wasn’t any food floating above his collar. I remembered my boast about just drawing the line and felt shame.

“Just a moment,” I said, and felt conflicted saying even that much.

“Yes?” said Lustavious, staring down his perfectly straight nose and over his strong chin to meet my gaze.

I trembled. I really trembled. Not even Lenny Bruise had made me tremble and that guy was pretty powerful when he wanted you to feel small.

“I don’t…”

“You don’t what?” asked Lustavious.

“I don’t know…”

“What don’t you know?” he sang in a suspended minor chord that sent shivers up my spine.

What didn’t I know? I didn’t know! I couldn’t think. My mind was blank, my knees were shaking. Something was important, but I had no idea what!

“I know,” said Swampy, and sunk his rat-muzzle beak right into Lustavious’ arm.

Lustavious bellowed, and within moments, seven Showr Rinn monks skipped lightly across tables, chairs, and people’s heads, surrounding Lustavious, Ono, Swampy, and me.

“A problem?” asked a slightly damp but glistening Lip Ton Tease.

For a moment we all stood there frozen. It reminded me of the day Grandpa McFarland caught Dirk and me smoking one of his cigars behind the potting shed. It turned out that Grandpa had no trouble with his ten and eight-year-old grandsons smoking, but he gave us each a whipping for not buying our own.

Grandpa loved his cigars more than his children or grandchildren, an attitude I’ve come to understand over the years.

Tease stood there watching us with patient intensity. Monks live for the moments when they can display patient intensity. Everybody else on the planet experiences either patient boredom, or anxious intensity. Monks hum for years to acquire this skill, then display it whenever they can.

Yes, monks love to show off.

Ono was the first to come to her wits. She ignored Lustavious’ bleeding forearm, and the bits of gore hanging from Swampy’s beak.

“You glitter and bubble, Lip Ton Tease,” she said. “Did you splish and swoosh?”

Tease turned his head in the pose that monks make when they don’t know what to say, but want to look wise. “Loofa brings wholeness to a shower,” he said.

“Ding dong,” said Ono. “You monks vroom.”

Tease straightened in a non-monk-like, but very guy-like way. For all his training, Tease was a guy, and Ono was a pretty female. Guys, be they 2-years-old, or about to fall in the grave, always like to impress pretty girls.

“Poop and boo-hoo,” Ono continued, “we can’t peep as you roar and rumble – to see you whoosh and jangle.”

A female novice, who though a female, may have been among that percentage of females who, like males, live for impressing pretty girls, said, “but you can watch us! I mean, it is permissible if you wish to observe and so find peace.”

“Ker-ching?” asked Ono. Her eyes, which I noted were a rather pleasant shade of green, fastened on Tease, like he was the great hero, and the bleeding Light Bringer was nothing more than a face – a face turning rapidly red – in the crowd.

“Yes,” said Tease, “Lap Er Gud, speaks truthfully – though training exercises here might disturb the peace of brunch. We would not harm anyone, but those who have not attained cleansed emotions might fear the fear that disturbs digestion.”

“Wham zing!” said Ono, accepting an invitation that was not strictly given. “May Swampy swoop and peep as well?” She gently slipped her free hand under Tease’s arm. Lustavious still held her other arm in his large hand connected to his large, albeit savaged arm.

Tease looked on Lustavious’ wound and produced a loofa from his robe. “You should clean that before you have it bandaged,” he said.

Lustavious let go of Ono’s arm who strolled out of the cafeteria between Lip Ton Tease and Lap Er Gud.

Maybe Akwar was right; she was a wizard.

A perfect drop of blood released its hold on Lustavious’ arm and hurtled out into space. Its shape elongated as it fell, whether stretching for the floor, or reaching back for its erstwhile home. Though it accelerated as it dropped, time slowed and tiny fragments of the drop refracted in the cafeteria’s sterile and unappetizing light. As the drop found oneness with the puddle below, twin crowns formed at the top of the drop, and at the point of joining. The first crown dissolved into harmony with the puddle while the second rapidly expanded its corona before rippling through the many droplets that had lost themselves in a completeness which was…

Yech. That’s what it was, a puddle of blood. I never much liked blood. I looked up at Lustavious whom I still detested.

“You need some help with that arm?”

Lustavious looked around sheepishly. Sheepish was not an expression his face knew well, and it didn’t suit him.

“I suppose,” he said, putting down the loofa as if it were a dangerous snake.

Mage-e-not’s head did not reappear until after we left.

Come back next week to see the doings in the broom closet! That came out wrong. I mean there is a broom closet involved, and stuff happens, but I don’t write “doings” very well. So come back next week to read the non-salacious events that occur in the broom closet.

(Way to go, Headley. Now nobody’s coming back next week.)

And now this message from one of my favorite sick song writers, Tom Lehrer

Mock the Feast

I wonder if man-eating sharks, or killer crocodiles tell human jokes. If an advanced species on a paleo diet landed on Earth and started eating humans (hopefully the lawyers first,) would they draw cartoons about our struggles, our angst, our enhanced edibility when cooked with Bell seasonings?

Sound cruel? Well, we do it.

I did a search for Turkey toons and got pages of them - especially by the toonist, Mark Anderson. Then there was the memes above that were posted by FB friends. We probably should be ashamed of ourselves as a species.

I’ll feel the shame later. For some reason I feel too sleepy just now.

Should we mock turkeys when they are trying to avoid their fate?

By Trickery

Or By Appeal

Should we mock them as they are coming to terms with their doom?

It's not as though they didn't have troubles beyond our murderous holiday.

They mourn, but they don't react in anger.

Sometimes they even cooperate.

Though they have no objection to a bit of karma payback.

And maybe they dream of turkey revolution.

So that they can live out their lives in peace.

And the video.

Dirk Destroyer Part 8 Chapter 3 Part 2

This is the eighth Friday installment of Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother, a novel that is already giving Fridays a bad name. We’ve been introduced to Tip Ton Tease of the Showr Rinn order. Elmer, our largely non-heroic hero has just impressed the socks off of Lip Ton Tease (or would have if the Showr Rinn wore socks,) by reciting a memorized sequence of numbers.

Not exactly action-packed, is it?

And now the balance of Chapter 3.

A master monk, wearing his braid in nine cords approached, riding a mote of dust. “Brother,” said the master, “is all at peace?”

The initiate bowed low, “Master, I am granting admission to Elmer Destroyer and his bird.”

“That is well,” said the master with a face of serenity, and impeccable cleanliness. He produced a loofa from robes and handed it to the initiate. “You might wish to freshen up.”

Lip Ton Tease took the loofa and whispered to his master, “A most formidable man.” The master inclined his head, and Tease stumbled on his way to the showers.

The master gestured for us to follow. His gesture brought the crushed spring flower back to wholeness as we passed.

Then a lamb ate it.

You’d think that somewhere among the Showr Rinn archives would be a record saying that I had memorized the first several digits of Pi. Come to think of it, I’d never seen any Showr Rinn archives, nor had I seen a Showr Rinn use paper. I guess that’s not too surprising. Paper doesn’t mix well with water.

“This way,” said Akwar needlessly as she followed the Showr Rinn master.

The ministry was much like any other lavish government building filled with overpaid, self-important, and unproductive civil servants. Except this one had horns on it.

“They were supposed to be ram’s horns,” Akwar explained, though I have no idea who she was explaining it to. The master, Ono, and Mage-e-not all worked in the building, and I had first seen it a century before any of them were born.

“The building was built just after the last Light Bringer Lauralady Bushinsider retired and transformed herself into a coffee table.”

Even though she was among the most timid Light Bringers, I had a little trouble bringing Lauralady to mind. She spoke so softly and looked around like she expected someone else to take over at any moment. I think Dirk almost felt bad for that particular Light Bringer, but she, like all the Light Bringers before her, somehow managed to send Dirk back into oblivion.

Excessive politeness must have had some mystical powers. She made a fine coffee table of herself, and never complained when people failed to use a coaster.

The door to the ministry was one of those that revolved, and each chamber of the door was too small for a grown ewe or ram to fit. A sizable flock stood outside the door bleating piteously as the door panels smacked the nose of those who tried to enter the building.

If there was one place on the planet where sheep were being bugged, it was here. I’d given up pointing out hypocrisy when it came to the ministry. Like many in government and law enforcement, they believed that rules were things for someone else to do. They had too high a calling to follow their own ideals.

But they had a really nice buffet.

Breakfast was over, but brunch had begun when we arrived. For the fleshtarians, there were various cuts of beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, and non-union bureaucrat. For the plantarians, those whose conscience forbade them meat, there was a lovely salad bar, complete with imitation cheese, sour cream, and bacon bits. For the inanimatarians, those whose conscience forbade them from eating anything living, they had a lovely arrangement of chemically sweetened sand.

The nothingtarians, those whose conscience forbade them everything sat near the wall, and tried not to erode anything.

I thought of the Ceasarans starving to death and sat next to one of the nothingtarians. She was a painfully thin woman who wore clothing made out of photons, and an illumined barrier mask to make certain she didn’t consume beings or objects that live in the air.

“I draw all my nutrients out of the ground,” I said.

“Barbarian,” she muttered weakly. “I suppose all those molecules just volunteered to be assimilated into your bloated existence?”

“I didn’t ask,” I said, and pulled a cigar from the bag (there were too many to fit them all in my fanny pack,) and struck one of my few matches to light it up.

“The holocaust!” whimpered the nothingtarian woman.

“Hey,” said a grossly obese man across the table eating fillet of non-union bureaucrat, “smoking is evil.”

“Splish splosh,” said Ono, who plopped down on my other side sending a wave of airborne beings across me and into the photonic mask of the nothingtarian.

Ono took the cigar out of my hand, and put it in her mouth. She levitated the lit match to light the end of the cigar, allowing the match to float away aimlessly after she was done. She drew in the smoke and held it.

“Puff and flutter,” she gasped.

“You get used to it,” I told her.

A weak cry of protest sounded from the nothingtarian’s side. The errant match must have shorted out the photon clothing generator, exposing her featureless body. She shambled out of the room with as much urgency as her captive emaciated physical matter could manage.

“Serves you right, energy enslaver!” said a naked man by the door.

Mage-e-not took her chair. “You’re not eating?” He had a thick pork chop on his plate which he put down on the table.

“I had a big breakfast,” I explained.

Mage-e-not nodded as he cut his pork chop, then his head disappeared as he took his first bite.

“Why are you invisible?” I asked.

“Wait,” said Mage-e-not, “can’t talk with my mouth full,” though he was clearly doing just that. I watched in horrid fascination, for though I could see nothing of Mage-e-not’s head, the bite of pork chop being slowly masticated into pulpy solids and greasy liquids was in plain view.

Mercifully, the man swallowed, and his head reappeared. “Us meat-eaters sometimes get a hard time from the others,” he explained, “especially when we eat pork chops, ‘cause they look like…”

“Lamb chops?”

“Not so loud!” Mage-e-not hissed. “Anyway, if they can’t see me, they can’t give me a hard time.”

“Clever,” I said, and that seemed to please him. I looked away when he took his second bite, and that’s when I first saw, Lustavious Brachenhun.

“Whimper yikes,” Ono whispered beside me. Swampy, who must have been helping himself to the fleshtarian buffet, chose that moment to land – once again without defecation – on Ono’s shoulder. The young woman smiled and caressed Swampy’s hideous head. The bird looked over at me as if to say, ‘why don’t you do this?’ The mixed scent of sardine and bureaucrat wafted from his mouth.

Lustavious Brachenhun pointed his finger straight at Ono, playfully turning on and off its two inch flame. “I think it may be your turn, Babe!” he warbled.

“Groan yelp!” Ono whispered.

Next Friday you can read ALL of chapter Four. But if you do, it’s your own fault. I may write hideous stuff, but I don’t make people read it.

And now, the video

Hall's Sayings for the Seasonally Unmotivated

 The cold weather’s coming back. I’m looking around for a recliner, a dark corner, a bear cave, or someplace where I can hibernate till March (maybe April.) Until I got politically shamed for it, I used to cheer for global warming.

Gray skies, freezing rain, flu viruses that always manage to mutate enough to make the current flu shot worthless…

Never been a cold weather guy.

Last winter, a co-worker with a scratchy throat brought in a bag of Halls cough drops.

“What’s the difference between your expensive cough drops and my cheap ones?” I asked.

“You mean other than the fact that yours are made from chemical waste in Bhopal India?”

“Yeah,” I said, not understanding the Bhopal reference, “other than that.”

“Mine have corny sayings on each wrapper.”

“Really?”

“Really, really!”

Knowing my constant need for material for this blog, I asked her for her used wrappers. I kept them hermetically sealed in an empty bottle of NyQuil knowing that some day I would get desperate enough to post a list of them.

This is that desperate day!

Halls Cough Drops Sayings

Don’t wait to get started

Dust off and get up

Fire up those engines

A pep talk in every drop TM (I love that little trademark emblem)

You can do it and you know it.

Go get it!

Elicit a few “wows” today.

Flex your “can do” muscle.

Get through it.

Seize the day. (I’m pretty sure some Italian said that first. In Italian it came out “carpet dealin’, or something like that. Italians must really be jazzed about floor coverings.)

Take charge and mean it.

Power through!

The show must go on. Or work. (Huh?)

Let’s hear your battle cry. (Once I stop coughing.)

Keep your chin up. (A good way to end up swallowing your phlegm… sorry.)

Be unstoppable.

Turn “can do” into “can did!”

It’s yours for the taking.

March forward! (Yes, March is forward. If March had already happened, I wouldn’t need these stupid cough drops.)

Get back in there champ!

I don’t know about you – but I can’t even get those shrink-wrapped energy shots open during the cold months when I’m healthy; I’m supposed rise and respond to this stuff when I have sore throat?

Anybody see a place I can take a nap?

Now some "Winter" blues aren't so bad at all.

Dirk Destroyer Part 7 Chapter Three and Chapter 3 Part 1

This is the seventh installment in a serialization of my novel, Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. If you don’t understand what’s going on, you could go back to the first posts and read them. I’m not saying that would help so much, though. I wrote the stupid thing and I only understand a sentence here and there.

Chapter Three

The Planet Two

This might be a good time to tell you about the planet Two.

No?

All right, whatever you say.

Chapter 3

Showr Rinn Pi

The Ministry Of Innocent Sheep Toleration headquarters was located just five minute’s walk from where Dirk and I grew up. I always thought that was suspicious, but it never fazed Dirk.

“Paranoia’s no help when they’re out to get you,” he told me.

Well, it keeps my story moving anyway, though I could have used more time to get to know Ono and Mage-e-not before we arrived.

“So,” I said to Ono, “I find telekinesis challenging. It really takes some effort. How is it for you?”

“Oh no,” said Ono, “I don’t swoosh thump telekinesis. I do sparkle whizz magic.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well telekinesis is snarl growl whack. Magic is zip zing kerplunk.”

“I see.”

“I don’t do telekinesis either,” said Mage-e-not.

“I see. So what can you tell me about this Light Bringer?”

Neither wizard said a word at first, then Ono said, “He’s swoosh thwack ugh.”

“He’s pushy,” explained Mage-e-not.

“He’s a man who knows what he wants, and gets it,” said Akwar, who I could have sworn was two paces in front of me, but now was at my shoulder.

“I’ve met some pushy Light Bringers before,” I said.

“Not like Brachenhun,” said Akwar over her shoulder from two paces ahead.

“It’s not that bad,” I said, “you just have to draw the line.”

“I tried drawing the line,” said Mage-e-not, “Brachenhun just blitzed right over it.

Ono blushed. “I usually slither whoosh.”

“That’s probably the best policy,” said Akwar from behind me.

“Be careful now,” said Mage-e-not. “We’re approaching a Showr Rinn monastery.

I’d run across the Showr Rinn many times in the past. When I was much younger, somewhere around three thousand, and Dirk had just been banished to oblivion forever for the first time – before I learned that forever in oblivion was only a couple of centuries, I made the mistake of angering a Showr Rinn initiate. The initiate might have killed me (assuming I’m not immortal,) but instead, I ended up spending six weeks contemplating my navel before I could untie the knots he’d made of my arms and legs.

That was an initiate. I have no idea the mayhem that a master could dish out, and I don’t want to know. I’ve known every Light Bringer there’s ever been on Two, and not a single one of them impressed me as being formidable. I shouldn’t say that; Lenny Bruise could throw an insult like nobodies business, but not even Lenny could stand up to the smallest, spindliest Showr Rinn novice that ever lived.

Not surprisingly, Showr Rinn come from Phasia, and so they are polite, diligent, and very good at math. The can also meditate and fight like a house on fire – assuming a burning house decided to meditate its future and kick ass.

“There’s one!” said Mage-e-not.

“Showr Rinn loves showerin’” said Swampy, and he was right. Whether it had always been so, or that a name has an effect on people, the Showr Rinn were excessively clean, even among the cleaner than normal classification of fighting monks in general.

I could tell this monk was an initiate, not just by his youth, but by the way his braid was woven from three cords. He was sitting on the side of his hand, and his third finger was extended down to rest on the pedal of a spring flower. He wasn’t a small monk, and the petal wasn’t even bent. He opened his eyes and bowed his head, causing a tiny ripple to run through the delicate spring flower.

The four of us bent our heads in return.

“I am called, Lip Ton Tease, said the monk. I know three of you, and I know of the destroyer’s brother, and his swamp-rat bird.”

“Pretty bird,” said Swampy, as if he was a common house mimic.

I bowed my head. “I am called Elmer.”

Lip Ton Tease pressed his thumb and forefingers to the lobes of his ears. I’d always wondered why Showr Rinn made this gesture. Maybe it was to get water to leave the ear canal after so many showers. I never dared ask.

“The Showr Rinn,” said Lip Ton Tease, “are responsible for the security of MOIST. I must ask you some questions, Elmer.”

“I understand.”

“Do you plan violence against the ministry?”

“I do not.”

“Do you recognize the futility of violence?”

I always hated that question. Of course I didn’t recognize the futility of violence. Sometimes you meet some bone-head who just needs a thumping, and nothing else will do, but I knew the answer I had to provide to enter, so I changed his question in my mind to – do you recognize the futility of violence against the Showr Rinn?

“I do,” I said with perfect conviction.

“Will you insult the ministry, or the Showr Rinn?”

“I will not.”

“Will you challenge the ministry, or the Showr Rinn?”

This was a trick question, and it got me the first time as it got most people. The Showr Rinn, in addition to appreciating meditation, non-violent thumping, cleanliness, and balancing on flower pedals, really loved a challenge.

“I will challenge,” I said.

Lip Ton Tease jumped off his flower and rubbed his hands together. “Who will you challenge, the ministry, or the Showr Rinn?”

“I will challenge the Showr Rinn.”

If Lip Ton Tease’s permanently placid monk face could smile, it would be doing so from ear to ear. “In what category will you challenge the Showr Rinn?”

“In meditative mathematics,” I said.

A guttural grunt, not unlike a chortle escaped the monk. “Tell me, are you aware of the number required for finding the area of a circle?”

“I have heard of such a number,” I said.

“The great Jus Fo Fun was once able to meditate on the number and through the power of his meditation, find its value to fifteen places.”

“Truly a challenge,” I said, and I sat on the ground, closed my eyes and folded my hands.

For all the fine skills of the Showr Rinn, originality was not one of them. They had asked me the same question for the last five millennia, and though I know barely enough about mathematics to count the cigars in my fanny pack, I have no problem with memorizing a string of numbers. I hummed lightly for effect and began my recitation.

“Three point one, four, one, five, nine, two, six, five, three, five, eight, nine, seven, nine, three,” I said in a droning voice. I sat up and met the monk’s wide eyes. He stepped back and crushed the spring flower. Beads of sweat broke out on his brow, and he bowed very low to me.

I returned a shallow bow. In a life as long as mine, very few things never get old. Among them is the smell of a fine cigar, and seeing a Showr Rinn monk sweat. At one point I tried to teach Swampy to recite the circle number. Either his tiny rat-bird brain wasn’t capable, or he just wasn’t interested.

We aren’t through with Lip Ton Tease and his Showr Rinn, but I must pause here for reasons that have something to do with lotus blossoms and short attention spans. In the meantime have a nice shower, recreationally calculate PI, and return refreshed next Friday.

I couldn’t find a video of one hand clapping, so…

Mythical Creatures

So recently the drive-time radio talk show host was talking about Big Foot. He asked, (rhetorically, I think because nobody ever calls in,) what mythical creatures do you believe in?

I believe in a mythical creature, but I didn’t call in, not wanting to spoil the tone of desperation that makes local talk radio the medium of choice for sadistic commuters.

“C’mon, give me a call! Do you believe in werewolves, vampires, Loch Ness monster, Sasquatch? Call me because I have seven more minutes to fill before traffic and weather!”

I don’t know about Sasquatch or Big Foot, or even how to tell the difference between them, but there is one creature I heard about once at scout camp, on a particularly dark night when the camp fire was going out.

The honest politician…

Gives you the willies just hearing those words.

The older scout told us of a time when honest politicians roamed in large herds across the east coast, from Maine to Georgia, with two particularly large herds by the Potomac River where Maryland borders Virginia. In order to ward them off, our nation’s leaders built a large dome in our capital. Honest politicians don’t like domes or anything, be it ceiling or argument, without clearly defined pillars of support.

A few years after the Civil War, U.S. Grant, John D. Rockefeller, and P.T. Barnam attempted to eradicate the species entirely, but a few got past General Sherman as he pushed the herd into the sea. The survivors hid among the buffalo, but the railroads hired Pinkertons to hunt them to extinction.

I don’t believe they were all killed, but they haven’t been seen within a gerrymander of D.C. in a hundred and forty years.

If you want to find them, here are a few hints.

1) Look in dark corners. They are sometimes found near town halls during local debates. You can usually tell the honest from the standard politician by his or her bloody nose, black eye, and shredded pocket copy of the Constitution.

2) Listen carefully. Honest politicians don’t have a distinctive call like Big Foot, but often they can be heard humming the tune to I’m Just a Bill on Capitol Hill, and other School House Rock favorites.

3) Sniff the air. Honest politicians might smell like bologna (as lobbyists don’t feast them on steak and lobster,) but the bologna is always fresh as opposed to rotten, or digestively processed – the typical stench of standard politicians.

Doubters of Big Foot point out that nobody ever finds the remains of a dead Big Foot in the woods. Supporters counter that Big Feet eat their own. In a similar fashion, honest politicians are eaten (sometimes after death,) by standard politicians that seek credibility.

“I’m a Joe Schmoe brand candidate! Vote for me if you want another senator like Joe Schmoe!”

Such claims are as close as standard politicians come to campaign honesty. If you are what you eat, and the candidate ate Joe Schmoe…

That, if nothing else, is what keeps me believing in the mythical honest politician. I’ll understand if you don’t agree.

As with all things political, it’s a lot to swallow.

Great vid - not just for mythical creatures