A few days ago, I wandered through the CSUF campus between classes. I walked through the Quad, and past the Evil Flier Lane (which I will write about later) and down past the library, and onto the walkway that runs past the Titan Bookstore and the delicious Yogurt Place (but I still think YOGURT IS FOR SISSIES, and ICE CREAM WINS EVERY SINGLE TIME), and...
Then I was overcome by a paroxysm of happiness when I saw:
THE LITTLE SHOP THAT SELLS LITTLE SNACKS NEXT TO THE BOOKSTORE!
I went into the Little Shop that sells Little Snacks, and I perused the shelves for delicious things like preserved fried zucchini, and dried banana slices, and peanut-butter-filled-M&M's, and fruit roll-ups, but I only found the peanut-butter-filled-M&M's, so I bought them.
Then I found a bag of chewy chocolate cookies.
Then I found a water bottle, and I found a little container of chocolate raisins, and I found a large bag of tortilla chips (because the potato chip ones are boring), and I found a Hershey's bar of white chocolate (largest size ever), and two miniature cartons of ice cream (M&M and pretzel-flavored), and another carton of ice cream (because the first two looked lonely. This one was pistachio), and a little purple thing of breath mints, and another bottle of water, and a second bag of chips (Doritos - Nacho flavored are happiest) and a bag of those twisty red licorice things, except that they don't taste like licorice, they taste like stringy gummy bears or something equally appetizing.
I put my seven baskets on the counter, and then the cashier looked oddly at me and went through each basket to make sure she rang everything up, and then I paid, and then I bought a pack of gum to give to Hypnos. Then I left.
I stepped out into the beautiful morning air with the sound of birdsong in my ears, and the fresh breeze whooshed pleasantly past me and around my purchases, and a bicyclist ran me over.
Needless to say, I was quite startled. I had just opened the door, and walked one inch, and breathed a half a breath, and had begun to heft my packages a little higher....
WHEN THE BICYCLIST MASHED ME FLAT ON THE CEMENT.
AND I WAS DEAD.
AND MY BAGS WERE FLAT PANCAKES OF WHITE AND MUSHED THINGS THAT OOZED EVERYWHERE.
So I lay flat on the cement in case the bicyclist decided to come back and run me over again (I thought walking might be hazardous to my health) and tried to breathe a little. My lovely bought things were crumpled and dripping on the sidewalk and on me and on my backpack and my purple-striped socks.
After a little moment of peace and quiet (and breathing) I unstuck myself and my belongings from the sidewalk and walked to the library. My shoes were sort of sticky from the three broken cartons of ice cream (sniff), and my face was mildly flattened from the cement, and my backpack was now sixty different colors of food, but I was ALIVE.
And let me tell you, reader, that was quite an accomplishment.
After I went into the bathroom and cleaned up and found a computer and began to eat my non-mashed items-
Non-Mashed Items:
1. Some Peanut Butter Filled M&M's
2. A few of those sort-of-licorice stringy things that taste like gummy bears and sugar and stuff
3. One half a bag of tortilla chips
4. A third of the white chocolate Hershey's bar
5. Three breath mints
6. One unbroken Dorito chip.
-I typed a list.
My List:
Bad Bikers
1. They run over people and mash them flat.
2. They run over people.
3. And mash them flat.
4. The injured people are then ignored.
5. The biker gets away without a scratch.
6. Horrified bystanders are equally ignored.
7. The policemen cannot catch up to them because they are going speedy fast.
8. They go over the normal bike speed limit, which I do not know, so do not ask me, but they (the bikers) are wrong!
9. They are not nice.
10. They are not helpful.
11. They are not pretty.
12. They are not happy. They better not be!
13. They are not noticeable, because I did not notice them.
14. They crush you when you walk outside.
15. They mash your purchases.
16. They smell bad, probably.
17. They are blurs because you cannot see them because they go too fast because they are bad.
18. They make me momentarily dead until I remember how to breathe again.
19. They run over people.
20. And mash them flat and make me sad and they smell bad and they are cads and I am mad.
New Topic:
I went down the Evil Flier Lane two days ago.
This was purely by accident, dear reader. Do not copy me. It will be hazardous to your fragile and precious health.
So, dumbly (is that truly a word?), I went down the flier lane of despair and rotting happiness, and someone shoved a flier in my face.
Then someone else shoved two fliers in my face.
Then someone took my hand and put a pen in it and made me fill out a survey. (She was clutching my backpack, so I could not leave.)
Then someone else accosted me and forced me to eat a cupcake and then fill out a questionnaire about the state of my toothbrush and whether or not I flossed every day or every week or at least every year, and then he put a toothbrush and some toothpaste and a cup of water in my backpack.
Then someone else handed me six fliers and someone else tried to trip me so that I would sign his voting registration form, and someone gave me a hat and someone else gave me a pillow and then I was surrounded by Flier People and my life was certainly drawing to an abrupt close.
And I drew one last breath and thought of you, dear reader, and how you would miss me...
And I said goodbye to the world and I closed my eyes and I waited for the end...
And when I opened them again the Flier People had swarmed onto other hapless passerby and I ran like the wind!!!!!!!
I threw my Flier Items into the air and pelted like a cheetah!!!!!
I did not stop until I reached the relative safety of the TSU!!!
And behind me I heard a wild cheering (and frantic pleas from those passerby who had wandered into the Flier People Trap) and I flew through the opening doors of the TSU and sat down at a table and cried.
I was so happy to be alive, dear reader, and without all those needless Flier Items, that my emotions were unleashed like a great flood.
Then I took out my roll of paper towels and wiped my eyes and then I took a little nap.
So how was your week, dear reader?
Mine was great.
Once upon a time, it was hot and muggy and burning at Cal State Fullerton, and the sun had turned into a giant yellow pancake of swelteringness. The trees were melting their leaves onto the runny cement, and the glass in the windows of Mihaylo Hall were warping into strange curves, and Toby the janitor was lying in a heap at the base of one of the trees in the quickly dissolving shade, taking a nap, and a little animal decided to come out of McCarthy Hall and into the Quad.
It was a gloriously hot day, and the Rat was very happy, because he loved the sun and the heat and because it made his fur shine. He sat down in the middle of the drippy cement Quad and turned his ratty face up towards the light and beamed joyfully.
Toby the janitor opened one eye at the sound of scritchy scratchy rat walking and looked around for the noise. He was, as he liked to call himself, the Quite Amazing Rat Vanquisher, also known as QARV.
He reached unobtrusively for the handle of his broom. He had seen the Rat.
The Rat had not seen the QARV, however, and so he continued to laze in the sun, licking his whiskers to rid them of old cheese smell and digging his little paws deeper into the melting cement, as the QARV crept up behind him and took aim.
WHAM!!
The Rat vanished in a puff of broom fibers! The QARV shouted in triumph and stomped his feet! The sun beamed down ever hotter! And the QARV lifted, slowly, the broom.
THE RAT WAS NOT THERE.
Toby frowned and took a firmer grip on his trusty broom and stared around maliciously.
In the depths of the leaf pile over underneath some trees, the Rat quivered. He had narrowly missed being squashed by a broom head and dropped into a garbage can. He put his paws on top of his head and lay very still.
Toby threw his broom on the ground and went away.
When he returned a little while later, he was dragging a hose behind him.
He turned it on full blast and began to flood the Quad.
This took almost an hour, as the Quad was rather large, and the water kept seeping back towards McCarthy Hall.
But eventually Toby succeeded, and the Rat leapt into the air as the water reached his hiding place, and Toby shouted and ran after him.
The Rat was very afraid of the evil QARV, who was waving his arms and his broom, and shouting, and leaping, and running very fast, and almost catching up, and who was dripping with water, and so the Rat's little feet were motivated to run as fast as possible. So he did.
As he rounded the corner to the library, he saw in the distance that the library door was ajar, and he ran even faster, as the QARV seemed to be catching up. He zoomed quickly through the gap between the door and the wall, and he ran down the South End Library corridor, heading past the elevators, and one of them opened.
Toby rounded the corner of the South End and was horrified to see the end of the Rat's tail disappearing into the elevator and that the doors were closing and that he could not make it in time!!!!
When he got to the elevator he pressed the up button over and over, hoping to make the elevator come back down, but instead all the other elevators opened their doors several times.
The Rat's elevator went up to the 6th floor, and came back down, and when the doors finally opened, there was only a double line of wet rat footprints and no Rat.
Toby hurried quickly out of the library after speedily mopping up the footprints and kicking the elevator, because he had no desire to tell the librarians that there was now a Rat somewhere in the halls of the South End of the Pollak Library, and also because he had a sneaky feeling that the Quad was overflowing with water, as he had left the hose on.
Luckily for him, the water was already evaporated, and the hose had been switched off (he must have turned it off while en route after the Rat), and the cement was as dry as an empty frying pan over the stove.
Unfortunately, thunder boomed out in the distance. Toby sat down on a hot bench and took out his sack lunch. He wondered if the Anonymous Titan planned to drop by later. The sundial was still empty. Perhaps AT supporters were afraid their gifts might melt.
Tips of the Day:
Tip #86: Go to Alaska and go to the beach and look at the waves and study that math homework and take a breath and eat a piece of chocolate or diet food fare.
Tip #87: Do not chase rats because they are unsanitary. So are earthworms and armadillos and porcupines and dead leaves.
Tip #89: Apportez-moi des chaussettes rayées de violet. Go buy a French Dictionary.
Tip #90: Traga-me roxa com listras meias. Now go translate this Portuguese. Hint: I like purple-striped socks, and currently I only have nineteen pairs, and that is not good. Nineteen?? Good??? No. Not good.
But that is okay. I will just have to remember that not everyone understands this passion.
Oh, yes. Don't feed your kitties gum, like I do for Hypnos. His jaws are abnormally strong, and his digestive tract is like iron. He can eat anything. He is like a super goat. But I must admit, sometimes he creates rather horrible hairballs when he chews gum. So put newspaper on your floor, like I do, and try not to walk anywhere.
Farewell, dear reader.
Remember to brush your teethies!
The Rat was very afraid of the evil QARV, who was waving his arms and his broom, and shouting, and leaping, and running very fast, and almost catching up, and who was dripping with water, and so the Rat's little feet were motivated to run as fast as possible. So he did.
As he rounded the corner to the library, he saw in the distance that the library door was ajar, and he ran even faster, as the QARV seemed to be catching up. He zoomed quickly through the gap between the door and the wall, and he ran down the South End Library corridor, heading past the elevators, and one of them opened.
Toby rounded the corner of the South End and was horrified to see the end of the Rat's tail disappearing into the elevator and that the doors were closing and that he could not make it in time!!!!
When he got to the elevator he pressed the up button over and over, hoping to make the elevator come back down, but instead all the other elevators opened their doors several times.
The Rat's elevator went up to the 6th floor, and came back down, and when the doors finally opened, there was only a double line of wet rat footprints and no Rat.
Toby hurried quickly out of the library after speedily mopping up the footprints and kicking the elevator, because he had no desire to tell the librarians that there was now a Rat somewhere in the halls of the South End of the Pollak Library, and also because he had a sneaky feeling that the Quad was overflowing with water, as he had left the hose on.
Luckily for him, the water was already evaporated, and the hose had been switched off (he must have turned it off while en route after the Rat), and the cement was as dry as an empty frying pan over the stove.
Unfortunately, thunder boomed out in the distance. Toby sat down on a hot bench and took out his sack lunch. He wondered if the Anonymous Titan planned to drop by later. The sundial was still empty. Perhaps AT supporters were afraid their gifts might melt.
Tips of the Day:
Tip #86: Go to Alaska and go to the beach and look at the waves and study that math homework and take a breath and eat a piece of chocolate or diet food fare.
Tip #87: Do not chase rats because they are unsanitary. So are earthworms and armadillos and porcupines and dead leaves.
Tip #89: Apportez-moi des chaussettes rayées de violet. Go buy a French Dictionary.
Tip #90: Traga-me roxa com listras meias. Now go translate this Portuguese. Hint: I like purple-striped socks, and currently I only have nineteen pairs, and that is not good. Nineteen?? Good??? No. Not good.
But that is okay. I will just have to remember that not everyone understands this passion.
Oh, yes. Don't feed your kitties gum, like I do for Hypnos. His jaws are abnormally strong, and his digestive tract is like iron. He can eat anything. He is like a super goat. But I must admit, sometimes he creates rather horrible hairballs when he chews gum. So put newspaper on your floor, like I do, and try not to walk anywhere.
Farewell, dear reader.
Remember to brush your teethies!
