| Garbage disposals are eeeeevillll |
| Dear Friends, last week my friend Miss Diva, her friend Sean, and I were all sitting at Ye Olde Watering Hole chatting when Miss Diva revealed that she is afraid to go down into her spooky basement or up into her scary attic. JOHNNYLEEN truly sympathizes. When JOHNNYLEEN was a mere lad, his grandmother had a very dark basement in what was once a garage. In the 50's my grandfather had walled up the garage for some reason (including placing an unopened bottle of whiskey behind the pine paneling, which I assume is still there to this day). Anyway the light for the basement was over the stairs so that an adult who wanted to turn on the light had to walk halfway down the stairs till he was just under the wall and then reach up and flip the switch. Needless to say, turning on the light was precarious for children who risked falling down the steps trying to reach the switch since it was up so high. Therefore we always walked halfway down the steps with a broom and then used the broom handle to flip the switch. That in itself was a major feat, particularly when we were quite small, trying to retain our balance on the narrow steps while levering a broom over our heads aimed at this teeny, tiny switch overhead. Anyway, in the 50's my uncle had used this basement as a club for his peeps so there were all these signs around that said "KEEP OUT" and "NO GIRLS ALLOWED". There were also great movie magazines with neat layouts of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss (go look them up). And, of course, there were the musty books and clothes, and I even once found a children's record player with all those little yellow children's records. But the most frightening thing I ever saw down there was the cast my uncle had worn when he broke his arm as a teenager. It had all of his friends' signatures on it, which I guess was pretty cool in retrospect. Well, JOHNNYLEEN, having just seen a "Jonny Quest" cartoon where a mummy came to life to get back a treasure stolen from its tomb, became convinced that this cast was actually part of a mummy that would reach out and strangle him as he went by. And, if for some reason I was forced to go into the basement, when I walked past it I was sure it had changed position from the last time I had seen it. Not only was I terrified of it, I convinced my cousins of its evil intentions as well and, as a result, we were all scared to go down into the basement. Now at some point, my grandmother set up a ping pong table there in the walled-in garage for us to play with. You can imagine our horror every time a ping pong ball got knocked down the stairs into the basement! When we eventually ran out of ping pong balls, my cousin Sherman screwed up enough courage to fetch as many of them as he could find. After that, Sherman was the delegated ball fetcher in the basement. So, anyway, after telling us of her basement phobia, Miss Diva also admitted that she's afraid of garbage disposals. Can we be any more alike? For I, too, harbor a secret fear of garbage disposals. I once saw part of a movie where these Nefarious Criminals stuck a man's hand down into a garbage disposal to force him to tell where he had hidden some money. Now I shudder every time I accidentally drop something down the disposal. I just know the hateful thing is self-aware and will turn itself on the moment I reach into it. I mean, after all, if it thrives on carrot peels and cat food remnants, then human fingers are surely a delicacy. And I bet it would love a whole human arm if I were that foolhardy! I have a theory that the Bermuda Triangle is nothing but a gigantic garbage disposal placed by aliens at the bottom of the sea. Pilots of planes think they see a giant spoon or diamond ring stuck in it and fly too close. Ships that venture too near are sucked in by the vortex created by its whirling, chopping blades. Then it signals its alien overlords to come pick up the goo and use it for compost on their dying planet. Well, now that I've proved to you all that I'm a crackpot, I'll write a book about the alien garbage disposal and make millions of $'s off of gullible Americans! Woo hoo! Go back to important matters Go back home |