Camus for lunch.
Then a conflicted and nonsensical dinner.
I have accepted absurdity, although I think it may be wrong to involve children or animals. If you’ll excuse me, I have a closet system to install.
Tag Archives: makeshift chamber of horrors
So let’s loosen up with a playful tease
We briefly interrupt the dispatches from 2013 to ask a burning question: if you’re reading this, do you have a blog or creative site to which we should be linking? We are always open to finding great new things at which to goggle. When I migrated the old site out of Blogger, it predictably ate the old blogroll, since that was hand coded. Back in the day and all. I had to whittle each update in wood.
But just today, for example, I remembered that we used to link to Awful Plastic Surgery, and when I checked, they happened to have a Pete Burns post at the top of the heap! I know a sign when I see one (I saw the sign–check).
So if I strip for you, will you strip for me? Lay your content at the altar of Vomitola, and we may get to hang some spiffy new links around our Makeshift Chamber of Horrors! Surely they will be an improvement over all that…offal we’ve got going.
Welcome to my chamber of horrors
It’s no longer makeshift! That’s right, we went outlet shopping. Through some hideous twist of fate, we ended up in the Restoration Hardware outlet. I previously thought I had all the hardware I needed for my chamber of horrors: squeakless hinges, medical grade ganches, you name it. But wait til you see the glorious off-price contents of a Restoration Hardware outlet on a holiday weekend.
I got the most adorable wrought iron letters for spelling out the names of my captives. Then I was over near the lamps, and I saw a positively medieval cage, about the size of TWO breadboxes. It had a hasp and a chain! As I approached the table, some woman in suede driving mocs pursed her thin lips at me. I think my preternatural beauty offended her.
I turned back to Mr. H and called “HONEY! Look, this is just the perfect cage for my monkey skeleton!” He sighed and peered over my shoulder. “I think it’s a wine rack.”
“No, honey, I could totally use this for my monkey skeleton. It’s just what I need.”
The lady was just staring openly by this point, so we continued the banter about where to put the monkey skeleton until she wheeled around and skittered away.
Later, it was revealed that Mr. H didn’t know I was joking.
Mr. H and I went to a wedding, and this involved starting to drink margaritas at 10am. All weddings should be like that. I shot second camera, and that was reasonably fun. They had a tres leches cake! That’s THREE kinds of leche. Congratulations, men! Upon review, you were lacking a glitter cannon, but otherwise I give that a solid 5 thumbs up.
Then we went and test drove Audis. Sobered up and after a mint, of course. It’s fall, and we traditionally get the urge to roll our old car into a lake right around Columbus Day. The Saabaru is making a noise, and getting it fixed seems like it will be a trial. I snapped off the piece that seemed to be the problem months ago, but now it has a new noise. Since that one is Mr. H’s car, he is likely to drive it until it falls apart on the highway without noticing. The situation remains unresolved at this time, mainly because we can’t have nice things.
Then I decided to become a justice of the peace, and would you believe Massachusetts has RULES about this? I assumed it was a take a course, pay a fee deal, but no, each town is allotted a certain number of positions, and you have to apply, including a resume and the signatures of 5 prominent state residents. Uh?? Well, one of my neighbors is on the city council, and one is in the US House of Representatives, and a former state senator gives me a donut every year on Halloween, but I just don’t have anything else going for me. Oh. I once threw up near John Kerry’s house.
It’s easier to be a notary public. There’s no position limit (only your imagination), and you only need 4 signatures for that, although one must be from a practicing lawyer. All the attorneys I know pretend not to know me in public for some reason.
In conclusion,
in fourteen-hundred-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Despite all the horrors that did accrue, he still never imagined the likes of you.
We’re still here
Whoa. *Blinks* After we retired from professional blogging in 2005, we decided to find our true calling. We’d grown tired of the endless public scrutiny. How many E! specials does one need, anyway?
So we worked up a good head of steam and stumbled into the time machine, and after things stopped spinning and blinking, we chanted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8Â Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated! And off to work we went. Might as well see what it’s like to earn an honest living.
It turns out we are not cut out for honest living. So we set the time machine for Atlantic City in the early aughts.
This turned out to be a bad, bad idea. We got into a makeup application fight, which led to a slap fight, and Lambchop pointed out just how deformed my face is in photos. So we split up, which involved a team of doctors from the Mayo Clinic, and we tried alternate pursuits.
Lambchop sought employ as a lingerie Scrabble model.
I set out on a tramp steamer, as I have always been fond of sailors.
Lambchop’s modeling career was thwarted by the Communists at Hasbro. She retreated to her thinking grotto and fasted for minutes before seizing upon the perfect answer: service to the Lord!
Needless to say, this didn’t last. Then someone foolishly entrusted me with an au pair position. Turns out those little human critters bite! They can’t even talk!
But we couldn’t stay away from each other, considering that legally we are conjoined twins.
We agreed to meet for book club in our favorite makeshift chamber of horrors.
The dumpster has a false bottom, very sly. Lollies were shared, confetti and cookies were tossed.
So we’re tanned, rested, and ready, swanning around the makeshift chamber of horrors, and we await a redemptive David Letterman appearance. Call us, bb. I can’t believe you fell for our carefully choreographed absence! You didn’t believe we’d really WORK, did you?
We’re also blogging about the sordid lives of BEDBUGS over at www.nixbedbugs.com! And shockingly, that bit is true. It was either that or play Farmville professionally.
Home improved
Oh, I didn’t mean I was DONE. Just that two walls, some baseboards, and a door are impeccably painted. Like art restorer at the Met painted. I get strange urges while on my knees. The little brush. Oh yes. The tiny one. Give it here to me!
This has taken the better part of 3 weeks, interspersed with cleaning, throwing out, donating, screaming, huffing, stomping, threatening, and other things Bob Vila must do as a matter of course. To celebrate the limited success thus far, a ybab came over and dragged a screwdriver down one of the newly painted walls. We can’t have. You know.
Why did a ybab have a screwdriver? Why ever not? Children need to fucking learn to be useful.
When I was at a large home product chain retailer the other day, I noticed they sell tastefully faux weathered placards inscribed with “Everyday is a gift.” I stuck my head in a foot spa and muffled my screams with a stainless steel polishing cloth.
In other news, Mr. H got stung on the toe by a wasp of some sort.
Is this stuff a business expense too?
The murderer across the hall further surprised us by heavily dragging in an inflatable rubber boat. When we next went into the hallway, we found a crumpled piece of gauze on the floor outside his door. I wanted to poke it with a stick, but Mr. H reminded me that this could accidentally link me to scores of heinous crimes. Wouldn’t that be a pisser? At any rate, I hope he got the full value of his FSA for murderers contributions for 2007. It’s so important to keep good records. Did you know rubber gloves and electrical tape are allowed, but not kitty litter? Use it or lose it. I’d refer him to my accountant, but he’s already dead, unfortunately.
I recently celebrated a triumph by liberating an old retirement account that had been misappropriated by former employers, halfassedly refunded under supervision of the Department of Labor, and then frozen in time and avoidance for the next five years. I had to track down people who don’t enjoy remembering I exist any more than I enjoy the reverse, and it took several months of calls and emails and pleading and wheedling and third party involvement to finally resolve. I got my check in my pasty little paw right before Christmas, and I sent it in to my new evil empire, feeling a sense of great accomplishment and relief. At last, this unpleasant chapter and even more unpleasant paperwork was but a distant memory.
Then I got another check for $1.12. MAYHEM FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. I should put this in my IRA for zombies.
The murderer next door
I was out kicking cans around the parking lot the other day when I noticed the serial killer who lives across the hall had a new accessory for his brown serial killer car. I mean, come on, who drives a brown car? No one but a serial killer, right? Dead giveaway, pun intended. So on top of his brown Ford Focus hatchback he had balanced a small personal watercraft. A rowboat. This is a departure from the random pieces of lumber that he usually keeps on his roof rack. He is a perpetual putterer, always working on his makeshift chamber of horrors (MCOH) and no doubt assorted holding shanties in the woods.
Now, it’s December. And cold. Water tends to freeze in the cold. But I guess with great fortitude, one could hack a hole in the ice at the edge of a lake and shove off into deeper water. One is already used to hacking things up! The name of the boat is “Wait a Bit,” which is a perfect analogy for all that time-biding he must do in selecting his next victim. Or maybe it’s a clever nod to dropping weighted bits of a body into the inscrutable deep.
He just finished dragging the boat down the hall to his apartment, which I know because I made Mr. H watch through the peephole. I am afraid to get too close to the murderer, limiting my interactions to passing him in the hall. He’s always carrying power tools or bags of orange soda. He eyes my ybab, saying “Oh…what a cute…little girl…” in a hollow tone. I hear loud sawing noises coming from his apartment, and sometimes a tuneless attempt at the scales being played on a recorder, as if a child were just learning. I can only assume he is carefully immuring school children or prostitutes dressed as school children in a corner of his apartment and then dismembering them post-mortem.
From the outside of the building, I have carefully noted that his windows are blacked out with garbage bags, flouting the “white window coverings only” rule of the condo association. I guess they are too scared of him to enforce it! Why wouldn’t you decorate with garbage bags if you already have a bulk pack sitting around from wrapping bodies for storage in your chest freezer? It makes economical sense, and it adds a nice panache to your MCOH.
I would like to ask my other neighbors, the ones who dress as Klingons, what they think about all these shenanigans, but come to think of it, I haven’t seen them in two months. Not since their “Romulans Suck” dress-up World Series party. You don’t think….
The Humming of the Humdrum
I am temping this week. Which comprises of helping myself to the Smarties jar and keeping up-to-date on the Lohan situation. Do you have a rewarding job? Don’t answer, only a quiz can tell!1. Finish this sentence: “I make so much damn money, I can ____”
a. feed it to my dog.
b. buy more stupid shit than anyone I know.
c. heat my apartment next winter.
2. For your commute you:
a. curl up with a book
b. become homicidal
c. scratch your ass on the way from the bed to your laptop
3. Which best describes the people you work with:
a. enjoy owning pets
b. extremely ugly
c. wear orange jumpsuits
4. Which is your favorite serial killer:
a. Albert Fish, the “moon maniac”
b. Charles Starkweather
c. Ed Kemper “the Coed Killer”
5. You can’t look at this quiz while you are working because:
a. You go on as soon as they are done disinfecting the pole
b. Someone might see a big red ass on your screen
c. You are now too busy reading about albert fish, the “moon maniac”
There is no scoring for this quiz, only the following analysis: If you are scratching your ass and feeding money to your dog, you have definitely done something right. If you have to look at ugly people, I hope you are handsomely paid. And if you are a homicidal maniac, then you have the most rewarding work of all, hellish power over life and death.
There are no right answers, except to question #4, which is clearly c. Ed Kemper.
Putting the fun back in funeral
I called my parents yesterday since I hadn’t talked to crazy in a while, and my dad answered. He always sounds guilty when he picks up, as if he’s been rudely called away from dismembering a hooker. He said he was just finishing up manufacturing a batch of colloidal silver. Yes, at home, with lasers! Learned on internet! Can’t even talk about it!
I said “OK, that’s great, is Mom around?” He said she was sleeping, and we talked about the murderous dog, how fat the cat is, and all the rotten things the neighbors do. Somehow we got on the topic of bad news, and he said “Speaking of receiving bad news, how would you feel if your mother died, and I just had her cremated and told everyone later?” I said he should probably consult her prior to her death to see if she has any feelings on this topic. He said “Well, she would want a memorial, but I don’t want to see her relatives.” He’s right, of course, I don’t want to see them either. They are terrible. I said I would prefer to be notified in advance of the cremation, and he said “What, so you’d have to drop everything and fly down?”
I asked if he might want support from his children after losing his wife, and he felt sure that he would not. I said that if he’d sweeten the pot and have the dog cremated along with her, that would make it worth my time for a visit. So we left plans along the lines of handling the death of pharaoh, where the household goes too. He’s going to be so disappointed when I don’t agree to club him and burn the house down at the last minute. That house is paid in full; there’s no way I’d burn it down.
When I got off the phone, he said he’d have my mother call back later. She never did, and then I started to wonder if he’d been hinting around the whole time. I told Mr. H, and he thought about it, and we agreed we wouldn’t put it past him. But she emailed me this morning, apparently alive. I told her she might want to make a will and give me a copy if she wanted anything fancier than being put in a paper bag and set in the mirrored fireplace. Of course this is a useless argument if he’s just impersonating her, and she’s tucked in the guest room, A Rose for Emily-style.
People really live this way
The other day, Mr. H and I hit on a brilliant plan for cheap entertainment: attending real estate open houses. It’s fall, and these things are on every corner, not unlike dead squirrels. Sure, if we see a really spanky place, we might buy it. That is the endgame of this harebrained scheme. But it’s really about the thrill of the hunt. You can’t beat whiling away a Sunday afternoon by poking your nose in other people’s closets: we saw His n’ Hers Nascar apparel.
Apparently any ol’ body can go to these open house things, which we did not realize. You have to write your name down, but no one’s checking to see if it’s even your real name. You do not have to present a photo of yourself doing the backstroke through your money bin.
And then you roam around, making disparaging remarks about wallpaper borders. The homeowners aren’t there, so what they don’t hear won’t hurt them. It is my personal and frequently-voiced opinion that wallpaper borders should be made illegal, possibly via a rider tacked on to some federal act. We saw a perfect house, but there were two borders in each room. I mentally calculated the time it would take me to steam and scrape off these beautiful harvest scenes, these sailboats and grapevines and bears clutching balloon bouquets. Not worth it! We decided that if we can’t find a suitable makeshift chamber of horrors by the end of the year, we will just buy a crappy one and burn it down for fun.
In further “people really live this way” news, I went to Costco yesterday. It seems purchasing a house requires something called a “down payment,” and this requires “saving money.” So I guess we won’t be eating Komodo dragon carpaccio at every meal anymore. Costco left me with a raging headache, 3,500 Q-tips, and a deep sense of shame and my own mortality. Why, I saw a man up-end a two-gallon jug of barbecue sauce and chug it right in the checkout lane. So this is what we’ve become. Peeping Tom bulk shoppers. Filthy-filthy-can’t-get-clean.