Tag Archives: the rapture

Strung out in heaven’s high

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I was gnawing on a skewer of chicken satay, and then I wasn’t. I found myself face down on laminate flooring. I fumbled around, and my satay was gone! I was still hungry. This would not do. I picked myself up and sat on an uncomfortable yet unobtrusive bench. What a strange room. Why is Karen Carpenter sitting across the room reading an Allure magazine from 1998? Did she take my satay? This cannot be. Where are my keys? Where is my phone? I thought this kind of predicament only happened to Lady Gaga.

I poked my head out in the hallway, and I spotted a desk staffed by unflappable women in tidy smocks. I inquired, and they pointed out that, derp, I had been raptured. Oh. That explains my robe and fuzzy socks with rubber grips on the bottom. They said my personal effects were being stored for safe keeping in a little locker. The first day would be free, but there would be a nominal charge after that. My first thought, after my family, yadda, was “Where is Lambchop?” And I thought this would be jazzier somehow.

I was still hungry, so I followed some brutally direct signs. I finally found Lambchop in line at the cafeteria! We have a natural affinity for steam table food, and her last supper was similarly interrupted. We were surprised at how desolate the place seemed, and eventually it came to light from chatting up a man with a ladle that we were the only two citizens of Earth to make the cut on May 21st.

WHAT? That’s not at all what we were expecting. Why would He take us, deprive us of our family and friends, and leave Morrissey? Why was the only thing on the menu Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam? How can a coffee table cost only $14.99? We held each other, weeping. We put back our own trays like the brutal signs instructed. Why the fuck was everything printed in Verdana? I expected at least Helvetica from heaven.

The man with the ladle shrugged and said they were projecting more guests as well, but that’s just how the PEPPARKAKOR crumbles. Three consulting firms had their sticky paws on the algorithm that controls all the technical stuff pertaining to rapturing. The whole project was just a nightmare.

The man normally works upstairs, but he had kindly offered to staff the serving line in case of a rush. Something seemed familiar about his honeyed tones and suave British accent. He was quite striking, really, with one blue eye and one green eye. He smiled a rather rakish smile and told us to go enjoy the rest of our night. Enjoy? In heaven? Who was this guy kidding?

To be continued….

 

I’ll Love You ‘Till the End of World

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Signs and portents indeed abound. Why, it rained all week!  Then I saw 2 sixteen foot high inflatable rats on 21st St.  Why would a sixteen foot high inflatable rat even need to exist?  I don’t know, but let’s get two of ’em! And as I ascended into the fog atop the Williamsburg bridge on my morning bike commute, through my headphones crooned “leave your life behind you now and float away with me.”  How does ipod always know? 

Most ominous of all, yesterday’s fortune cookie had no fortune in it. 

If you are like me, I am sure you spent this past week in a form of reflection on your life and your insignificant place in the grand scheme of things with an attention bordering on obssession every time you heard Bittersweet Symphony come on the radio.  So we have all figured out that life is a highway and love hurts and we are ready for our sweet, sticky dose of redemption.

Licketysplit and I figured there had to be a softer side to the inevitable.  We bring you:

Vol. 2: Pearly Gates

New Dawn Fades- Joy Division
You Have Killed Me -Morrissey (can’t help ourselves!)
Starman- David Bowie
Just Like Heaven- the Cure
Leave Your Life Behind- the Texas Governor
Monkey Gone to Heaven- the Pixies
Personal Jesus- Depeche Mode
Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell- Flaming Lips
I Have Forgiven Jesus- Morrissey

and finally…

Number One in Heaven- Sparks

Oh Life on Earth, you were really…something!

Clockwatchers

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Fellow heathens, we are so close I can smell the singed eyebrows we’ll all be sporting come some time, possibly tomorrow. Picture yourself crisped like so much cheese on a toaster oven coil!

With all this foofaraw about the end of the world, everything seems to be an omen. On my journey through the morning vehicular massacre today, I spotted a disheveled crone standing in a yard wearing a backwards rain coat. Not two houses down, there was an empty teddy bear print high chair standing forlornly at the end of the driveway. Then I was passed by three UPS trucks in a row!

I turned the corner, and at an intersection, I was blindsided to see FIVE UPS trucks in a row gliding down the cross street. The effect was akin to watching circus elephants grandly enter a town. What will brown do to me? I quake in anticipation.

It really is the little moments in life, I suppose. Just last week, I slalomed through heavy traffic to approach a Subaru with a missing back window, the hole covered in many layers of plastic sheeting and duct tape. The license plate read ADEPT. Every time I was ready to voice over WACKITY SCHMACKITY DOO into my phone’s video camera, the damned thing would change lanes. I was chasing the ghost of incongruity. A metaphor for the futility of our officing away in offices, fulfilling ever-changing and inconsistent requests for maniacs.

Speaking of maniacs, Lambchop and I slaved over an End of the World mix tape. We found so many worthy candidates (at least 80% of the Morrissey and Judas Priest catalog) that we decided to make 2 volumes. I’ll be bringing you THE PAIN:

Vol. 1: Apocalypso

The Sky’s Gone Out – Bauhaus
It’ll End in Tears – This Mortal Coil
Some Heads Are Gonna Roll – Judas Priest
Wave of Mutilation – The Pixies
Sorry Doesn’t Help – Morrissey
The Weeping Song – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Cities in Dust – Siouxsie and the Banshees
There is a Place in Hell Reserved For Me and My Friends – Morrissey (see??)
Dead Souls – Joy Division
Now I’m Feeling Zombified – Alien Sex Fiend


But the Difference it Made Was Grave

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Rest ye wee little worries, for the Rapture will happen.  How could that crazy guy in the Port Authority Bus Terminal be wrong?  Just because his trousers double as a toilet, he may still have god’s ear.  But what if doomsday comes and goes, and no one notices?  I mean, what if it does not change anything?  So the good people of the Earth all get whisked away in a flash of light or a slight drizzle.  Do you know many such worthy fellows?  The only truly perfect person I can think of is my dealer.  Any time, day or night, you can call that guy.   My mother is not on my speed dial, but Jayjay really comes through.  You people are not likely to miss him, but I am picturing a dark future indeed. 

So I have to keep my votives lit for all-out annhilation.   Now is not the time to relax our expectations.  The world is my oatmeal cookie, and I am going to eat it!  In deference to  you, Mary, the raisins are well advertised.

I have a friend who, though he claims to appreciate science fiction, is raining on my Rapture parade.  Tired of the whole business, it would seem.  Tough tomatoes, cretin, I am going to continue to cheer for the demise of this preposterous civilization, and the checks will keep rollin on in.  Licketysplit has her own bunny mansion and a jet for each tender little foot.  I am designing a line of feminine hygiene products.  Tampon$, made entirely of money.  All the Real Housewives are clamoring for them.  Stuff with cash, ladies, time’s running out!

Should the world fail to fall apart

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Drop that donut! I have had a vision, and it is far worse than the end of the world. What if the world doesn’t end? Vegas odds are unclear. What if we find ourselves stumbling around, bleary and hungover, on Sunday the 22nd? What if we still have to get up, possibly shower, and drag our feet off to the box factory or the filing emporium on Monday? Still hungover. Oh, it will be terrible. We won’t have any clean knickers, because who does laundry before a rapture? There will be nothing in the fridge but Pellegrino and vodka and cigarettes. But I guess that’s always the situation in that department. Oh, camembert, we’ll be out of that.

At least rapture insurance is non-refundable. I’ll still have my jets. And I guess we can always go all in on the Mayan calendar.

If anything, this whole rapture thing has reminded me that I am not living as my own authentic self. Forget bucket lists. To properly dissolve a body in lye, you need at least a 10-gallon drum. I have decided that I am going to stop pretending to be an adult who always wears a shirt and knows how to proceed at a 4-way stop and add a page to an Excel spreadsheet.

Instead, I am going to swan around in my vintage Le Smoking, cultivating just the right amount of fear and adulation in my fellow humans. I think I will quit my job, as I simply prefer not to be a slave to the whims of the criminally insane. I am only a slave to my own criminally insane whims!

WATCH THIS SPACE.

Where were you when the stars went out?

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Selling rapture insurance was really quite a stroke of luck for us here at the Vomitola bunker. Lambchop is building houses and making a bikini library out of all the money that’s rolling in, just in case we don’t get to use it. Not that we’d get raptured, but it might catch on fire because it is paper. I bought an F-16 and a Boeing 747-8 because Gulfstreams aren’t expensive enough anymore. I also bought John Travolta to fly the planes for me. He’s not going anywhere, let’s be honest. He’s the last to know. Or maybe that’s his wife.

So now we wait. Wait until when, exactly, I’m not sure. I’ve heard 6 p.m. on May 21, but does that account for time zones? Surely the world doesn’t revolve around Eastern Standard Time. I need to know if I will have time to fit in the rest of my pre-rapture plans. Like should I bother making brunch reservations?

I also think it is our mission to leave a message for posterity for all alien civilizations that might encounter our ravaged planet in the future. They will need to know all the most important things about the cream of our society, namely us. Well, Lambchop has the most adorable feet, and I really hate surprise raisins in food. Not that I inherently dislike raisins, but I do like to know if they are in the cards before I take a bite. Lambchop is also a painter of some renown. Lord knows how many times I have awakened to find her handiwork on my face!

There is so much more to say than even those most important facts. We’ll be broadcasting the entire contents of Vomitola.com into space for the next 10,000 years, assuming of course that Sir Ian McKellen can finish the audio in time. I can’t wait to hear how he interprets the animated GIFs of a nonplussed Bea Arthur.

We’ll also be providing clear explanations as to why God saw fit to smite our world, in simple terms all creatures can understand:

Please, alien bringers of hope, let such mistakes not be repeated. Xenu, forgive us our foolishness.

Not Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

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Only four more days until the Rapture and we are pretty stymied about what to do with the rest of the time.  To be sure, our “To Do” lists are as crammed and full of squiggles as ever.  But do I really need to rotate my wardrobe when there are only 4 days left of spring? Surely, closet space will be plentiful with so many of you vacating to the clouds or being eaten by radioactive mutants. 

Like most things in life, I find myself getting excited but then ultimately bored and depressed by the prospect of the world coming to an end.  It is a joy to think of not having to show up to work on Monday, perhaps to spend the day armoring a stolen car or working on a painting.  No longer will I have to listen to your children whine at breakfast at the cafe, while you indulge their wretchedness to a faulty degree.  But I know that something will come along and ruin it for me.  Like Burgess Meredith in the Twilight Zone, I will trip and shred the last remaining pair of David Bowie’s pants, left on this rock beneath the unbearable sun without Pants*, forever!  The giddy excesses of the post-Rapture world, the murderous looting will subside and I will still be required to do paperwork.  Ho Hum.

And yet I do not envy those who will be Rapturing on up to Heaven.  The idea does not appeal at all,  for infinite reasons.  But need I say more than:  Christian Rock Music.  Seventh Day Slumber anyone?  No, thanks. 

But I have to hand it to my better half, the Rapture Insurance business is booming.  We are going to make a vacation yurt thatched entirely out of money.  Obscene displays of wealth will have to be managed quickly.  What if they are simply not meaningful in our end time aftermath?  Who could have foreseen that our already vague and listless existences might yet become *more* meaningless?  Oh now you see why it is all so dull to contemplate.  I had better get back to my finest mixtape yet, “Goodbye to the Human Race”. 

*Not just any pants, but very sexy pants. 

All Dogs Don’t Go to Heaven

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The upcoming rapture was brought to our attention recently, and we at House of Vomitola took a break from sniffing nail polish and going through our couture archives long enough to say “Mmm, hey!” We held a conference call and shared some Power Point slides over Live Meeting, and we synthesized the conclusion that we really are fine with the world ending, as long as this development also halts the ceaseless wave of banality that comes part and parcel with life. Going to a lake of fire to fry sounds like a relaxing stint at the sauna compared to what we encounter most week days.

After we spent a good twenty minutes planning our outfits and what to have for our final lunch (curried butternut squash soup with crème fraiche is good, but is it rapture good?), we realized that we probably aren’t in the rapture demographic. I didn’t get so much as an email or a text or Facebook invite about the rapture. I had to learn about it off a billboard. How impersonal!

Yet we saw opportunity, as we do. If we are going to be left behind, at least it will be with all the fun people! And the raptured, being the diligent sorts, will naturally have concerns about their interrupted earthly to-do lists. They probably won’t get properly onboarded for the first week post-rapture due to the sheer volume of the new work force, and they’ll be milling around Heaven, trying to set up their email accounts, while worrying about leaving the kettle on or feeding the fish. That’s where we come in.

For the paltry sum of $10,000, we will ensure care of your past life, such as it was. We can’t put lipstick on a pig, but we’ll shoot for status quo. We’ll putter around in the cinders, making sure your dog is walked and regularly de-wormed (dogs and worms don’t have souls, and thus they are immune to rapture). We’ll take the newspapers off the stoop, stop your mail and cancel cable, and board up windows in case of zombie attacks. We’ll tap our extensive network of alcoholics and vagrants and musicians to edge the lawn and detail the burned husk of your car once a week. We’ll send rapture announcements to all your no-account friends and family left behind, and we’ll keep up with your birthday and Christmas cards list. We’ll even tweet about possible meals you would have consumed, if you still roamed the Godless shell of a planet.

So get those cashier’s checks ready before close of banking hours on Friday. Unless you use Bank of America, and then I am sure they will still be open Saturday. Please note, in the event that the rapture is postponed due to a conflict with common sense, no refunds will be available. For an extra $5,000, we’ll escrow your insurance payment, paying all interest to ourselves, until the date of the actual rapture.

 

Now is not the time to experiment with teh dumb

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Whoa, is that stabbing pain behind my collar bone, sort of in my chestal-throatal region a harbinger of a blood clot from my birth control pill, or is it just the first tickle of the rapture? Could it be due to my all-cake diet of the past week? Little bit stressful ’round these parts, let’s leave it at that.

I actually got a robocall from the McBain campaign last night. Me, little ol’ me! Did they not realize that I live in useless, useless Massachusetts and have a fine public record of only contributing to the slimiest liberals I can find? I do agree that the Democrats could have come up with a better slogan than “Country, ehhhh, maybe.” But I draw the line at air quotes anywhere near the topic of women’s health, dontcha know, gosh golly whangdoodle.

At any rate, I am happy to let the RNC waste money on me. I am not sure who signed me up, but now I get all the GOP mailings. Confidential to the person I signed up for NAMBLA: if it was you who signed me up as revenge, ha, I’m still glad I did it!

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to my link so far! I keep forgetting to shill this up, so this is a miracle.

I think Obama should use the rest of his money to buy up the rest of “Scrubs” airtime for the rest of the forseeable future. I don’t really care what he puts on in its place. Anything Ron Popeil-related would be fine.

Confidential to Joe the Plumber: we already *have* tax brackets, no? So yes, you were already going to pay more than someone who makes half of what you make. Life is difficult. Sure, I don’t like paying 35% myself, but I do like all the other awesome stuff that comes with making tons and tons of money*. IDK, IDGAF.

*I’m just role-playing. I don’t actually pay taxes thanks to a sinister network of clever nooks and crannies. Gold in my yard.

I saw the sign

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Recently, cure I was behind a small SUV on the interstate that appeared to be driverless. I was startled for a minute, recipe then nonplussed that I got left out of the rapture. As I passed, the driver popped up triumphant, holding a cellphone rescued from some nook or cranny.

Later in the drive, I passed a digital highway sign that read “TEST 1234,” then flashed to “BLAH BLAH BLAH.”

Then I stopped at the New Hampshire state liquor barn and bought my kid her first scratch ticket.