Of Carbon and Bacteria
I had an actual post in mind when I opened this, but I leave you instead with an exerpt from an email I sent out to the chapter a mere five minutes ago... may it haunt your dreams as it will mine.
Imagine, if you will, a scenario so dark and foul that bile will surely rise up your throat and burn your very mind. This story starts as all good stories do: with a steaming pile of shit.
Imagine you've just gone to the lavatory to drop the kids off at the pool, but by some mishap, one of your beloved children has wondered astray and wound up on the tile next to the porcelain playground. The calendar on the wall says "Tuesday", thus, housing duties are no more than a mere couple of days away. "Everything," you think to yourself, "will work itself out on its own." And so, you blow a tender kiss to your misdirected defecation and go about your merry way.
Every few hours, another unfortunate soul wonders into the bathroom to discover this misplaced poop and is befuddled! "But..." they'd think, "could it really be?" And with doubt and wonder in their minds they'd stick a finger in the crusting heap of waste and taste of its evil. "It is shit!" they'd exclaim as they retreat from the area. Days pass before the slovenly serf returns to the lavatory to perform his charge. The turd is there... staring back at him... a turd so vile... Satan himself would have double-flushed.
But, imagine if this scenario took place not in the bathroom, but in the damn oven on the first floor of this very residence! That's right, assholes. It seems some poor bastard performed a culinary abortion within the walls of the very appliance you rely on to bake and make crispy your edible delights! I propose, with this serf as your leader, that it is our civic duty to rise as a people and slay this poor dog.
As it turns out, they did not live happily ever after. The serf who eventually cleaned, at great risk to his own health, the waste of the antichrist made a solemn vow: that from that day forth, he would match, gram for gram, the waste found in the oven with his own excrement. A shroud fell over the land, and all was plunged into darkness.
The end?
That's disgusting. But told in such a vibrant way!
Wow. That story almost made we miss my carefree days in college...not. Ugh. Why are college students, considered to be at the pinnacle of their educations, some of the stupidest, most vile people in the world?
I mean, honestly, who craps in an oven?
God dammit, no one ACTUALLY took a shit in the oven. It's a metaphor.
What the hell is it a metaphor for? I'm really confused.
Dammit. There was a mess in the oven. I was drawing comparisons to say that you wouldn't leave a turd on the floor of a bathroom, don't leave a pile of casserole in the bottom of an oven. See? See?
I was lost too. I'm sorry. I think someone actually WOULD crap in an oven at Drew, so...
People in your Frat make casserole?!?! My friends and I consider it a good day when we put frozen nuggets in the toaster oven, rather than having chicken fingers delivered from the diner.
Reading back, I guess I see the mataphor. But I'd have to say, the funniest part was reading the comments afterwards. I can hear everyone's voices saying what they wrote in their comments and it just cracks me up.
Dan, you're an excellent writer...but not so good with the metaphors. Oh yea, and props to you for the "dropping the kids off at the pool" remark. I heard Flavor Flav say that once and about lost it! :)
Really, I thought the phrase "culinary abortion" would have triggered the whole food link I was trying to make. It's a family guy reference. At the end, I threatened to take a shit on the oven if I found crap like that in there again. I'm embarassed about this whole thing, really.
So, wait...there is an oven in your bathroom? You Pike kids are crazy...
You make casseroles in the oven in your bathroom? You rule at life. ;)
So there was a special chocolate casserole that you were toasting in the bathroom, but which you then left...
Yeah. I've been there. Some days are just like that.
Metaphor. Oh.
Dan, I think the magic of your story-telling exists when you can hold up a prop and gesture about it. See, in this case, you could hold up the turd, and proclaim it to be the casserole. Now that would be more Dan fashion, and make more sense.