TheBanyanTree: Magic Formula DryUp

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

Why, Pam!

	Thank YOU!         (as few more exclamation points, gratis) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




> On Feb 16, 2021, at 6:38 AM, Pam James <pamjamesagain at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> THAT was entertaining!!  thank you!!
> 
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 1:03 AM <tobie at shpilchas.net> wrote:
> 
>> It’s Sunday and I heard that it’s Valentine’s Day, 14th February, 2021
>> 
>> 
>> Hello all you masked heroes,
>> 
>>        About Valentine’s Day:  All I can say is, "Well wooo hooo".  Never
>> been a fan. I do not hate love, nor lovers, nor sentiment, nor even maudlin
>> sentimentality when it’s called for (it sneaks up on you, doesn’t it!).
>> But designating one day a year to go all soft on the knee about getting
>> your sweetheart flowers and candy, and one day a year going all misled in
>> the head about expecting your sweetheart to give you flowers and candy
>> (okay preferably chocolate, darker the better), doesn’t really say how much
>> you love someone or how much someone loves you.
>> 
>>        It’s like the difference between:
>> 
>>        "I love you."
>> 
>>        and
>> 
>> Q:      "Do you love me?"
>> 
>> A:      "Yes."  (?)  (or worse: "I guess so.")
>> 
>>        But this is besides the point.  That was just the overture to what
>> I really came here to tell you.  And what I wanted to tell you was about
>> how Meyshe and I have designated chores for certain days of the week, so we
>> can keep track of how this sameness of time is passing.  We’re trying to
>> keep on schedule.  The schedule we designed for ourselves ordered us to
>> change Meyshe’s bedsheets.  This hadn’t been done in quite a while. And
>> with things like that, the longer you put it off, the more reason there is
>> to put it off.  We weren’t looking forward to it. So we skirted it until
>> yesterday.  I’d say that’s remarkable for righteous avoidance.  Today I
>> look back on our monumental accomplishment. And I am happy to tell you what
>> I wrote about the experience. This is straight from the pages of my
>> journal, unexpurgated. It’s a sorry thing the way my brain works.  I mean
>> when it works. Lissen here:
>> 
>> 
>>        The unenviable task Meyshe and I undertook yesterday took a bit
>> longer than we thought. All we needed to do was make the bed — change his
>> sheets. That shouldn’t be so hard, even if the sheets hadn’t been changed
>> since …………….. oh dear.  It hadn’t occurred to me until I thought about it,
>> then asked myself.  How long has it been since Meyshe’s bedsheets were
>> changed? The last time they were changed, Susan must have changed them. And
>> that means some time before Governor Newson ordered us all to shelter in
>> place.  As I said yesterday, Meyshe doesn’t get into his bed. He sleeps on
>> top of the covers, so it couldn’t be that bad. But that was not true. It
>> was bad. The sheets were bad. They were worse than bad. They were stiff
>> with habit or disuse or rigor mortis or what I feared most:
>>        spews of bodily fluids that just leapt ecstatically from their
>> source to soak the sheets nearly a year ago. And would that have been a
>> reason Meyshe stopped sleeping under the covers? Perhaps his ecstatic
>> celebration had not dried yet?
>> 
>>        I recall the awkward wordless negotiations between myself and my
>> lovers——who was going to sleep on the wet spot? Well, someone was going to.
>> Either that or change the sheets, fetch a towel that will ball up under
>> your thigh, cut a hole in the sheets, move to another city, purchase a set
>> of those self drying fitted sheets. But there are problems with those
>> sheets as we all know.  Yes, they successfully and efficiently dry the wet
>> spot, wick it away into a second layer of the sheet that quickly
>> biodegrades leaving no trace. Clever, patented formula that is also used in
>> diapers, sports wear, table cloths — many uses. But the problem with the
>> self drying sheets is not that they are faulty but that they are too
>> enthusiastic . The wet spot disappears within seconds, but the material
>> also sucks the moisture out of your naked flesh.
>> 
>>        WARNING! DO NOT FALL ASLEEP ON THESE SHEETS!
>> 
>>        The design flaw was discovered when a newlywed couple on their
>> honeymoon in a luxurious hotel hide-away in beautiful Hawaii did not check
>> out as scheduled. The DO NOT DISTURB (wink wink) sign was still hanging on
>> the doorknob so they’d been left alone to swoon and spoon in the June
>> lagoon. But when the staff got no answer from repeated vigorous knocking,
>> the manager was summoned and when they broke into the room the couple was
>> found mummified in the bedsheets.
>> 
>>        What?! A suicide pact? Had they taken their vows and then feasted
>> on the dozens of tiny packets of desiccants thrown into pill bottles, bulk
>> salt bins, cleaning powders? Autopsies disproved that theory. How had this
>> happened? The place swarmed with police, investigators, pathologists, then
>> the FBI. The grizzly incident was kept secret. At least they tried, but of
>> course the news leaked out. Every news outlet from the National Enquirer to
>> Buzz Feed to The New York Times sent reporters. Mostly they were interested
>> in the visuals, and exciting the rumor mill. When the biochemists were
>> called in and the culprit discovered, the official and very public denials
>> were issued.
>> 
>>        Naturally, the families of the happy young couple sued the hotel.
>> The hotel sued the manufacturer of Magic Formula DryUp, who sued the
>> brilliant inventor who disappeared into his clothes hamper without a
>> trace.  Parents who’d prided themselves in having thought they’d potty
>> trained their babies at eight months realized how close they’d come to
>> tragedy and switched to good old fashioned 100% cotton untreated diapers
>> and felt grateful to be knee deep in shit. A famous sports shoe
>> manufacturer who had spent millions on a new ad campaign touting their
>> shoes that kept the whole Olympic marathon team’s feet so dry after 26
>> miles that they guaranteed eliminating that dirty gym sock smell forever,
>> had to swallow billions of dollars worth of magic shoes with their "Just
>> Don’t Do It" recall campaign.
>> 
>>        And I was going to tell you about how Meyshe and I conquered the
>> changing of the bedsheets ordeal. All I have the time and energy for
>> tonight is to whet your appetite for the story by telling you that to
>> change the sheets on Meyshe’s bed, we had to get to his bed first. To do
>> that we had to implement an assault on the overgrowth and undergrowth
>> choosing a scorched earth approach. His room put up a valiant struggle, but
>> we prevailed.
>> 
>> 
>>        And that’s what’s going on in our house.   How are you all doing?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Love,
>> 
>> 
>> Tobie
>> 
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>> 
>> "Pica: a bad cook’s dream guest" THS, 2021
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Tobie Helene Shapiro
>> tobie at shpilchas.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
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"In this country, we make old age so awful, it's no wonder people die of it."  THS



Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>