What-the-hell-ever.

Today, as I attempted to remain dry in the Venice that Bloomington has become in these monsoon rains (thanks, civil engineers), I thought about a ridiculous commercial that they show in my hometown of Bangor pretty much every hour, on the hour, just before premium programming. It begins with someone humming:

mm mm mm MMM

There's a crazy Old West sort-of beat to the music, and then the singing begins. It's very obvious that the age-ed male singer of the song is high on roofies and also quite drunk, perhaps on scotch and distilled airline fuel.

We've got the sharpest pencil in town!
We just sit around in the showroom, figgering deals
And whittling that old pencil down!
'Cuz we know if you buy once,
You're gonna be back!
'Cuz when you buy one, you buy two
And that's a fact!
We've got the sharpest pencil in town!

During this, they show the all-male staff of the establishment, doing things like sitting, or standing there productively. At one point, there's a man with what appears to be a Haitian death-machete whittling an obscenely large pencil. The establishment itself is entered into by way of a monumental gateway whose crossbeam is a seventeen-foot-long pencil.

Finally, the owner comes on, and in the enchanting Downeast dialect, he says:

"C'mahn down, neighbahs, the cawfee pot's on."

Now, I have been away from home since July, and I am sure that there has been remarkable innovation since then...well, wait a minute. That same commercial's been on the air since I moved to Maine TEN YEARS AGO. The people get older, and that's about it.

I'll bet you couldn't guess what they are selling if you tried.

*drums fingers on desk, rolls eyes*

Isn't it OBVIOUS? They are selling gigantic RVs! Yes! It's an RV dealership! RVs, which I, if I were to be issued hood-mounted surface-to-air missles on my car, would turn into smoking hulks of white-hot metal.

Every time I see the commercial (which is infrequently, I admit: when I am home it gets turned the moment I hear the hokey music and see that lunatic with the machete) I think to myself: what the &*#$ ? How on EARTH is this commercial possible? It's like the albatross that rests around my neck every time I go home, waiting, ever-so-slightly putrescent, for my horror.

It just goes to show that sometimes things that should make sense go horribly, plane-wreck-in-the-Andes awry.

I asked the Ouija board tonight about the nature of love. I spoke with "Anatole", who got a B- on a Calc final at Harvard and put his hand in his garbage disposal.

Me: So, "Anatole", bet that had to hurt.
"Anatole": G...e...t...t...o...t...h...e...p...o...i...n...t.
Me: You mean, like the pointy thing you made out of your arm? Ok, that was a low blow. So, since you have taken the Big Dirt Nap and now are fairly omniscient, tell me: why even try?
"Anatole": B...e...c...a...u...s...e...p...e...o...p...l...e...a...r...e...
m...a...s...o...c...h...i...s...t...s.
Me: So, get drunk much in the afterlife? Or is that Heavenly Heroin?
"Anatole": S...o...m...e...o...n...e...s...o...m...e...w...h...e...r...e...
w...a...n...t...s... t...o...l...o...v...e...y...o...u.....t...i...l....y...o...u...
d...i...e...a...n...d...t...h...a...t...i...s... w....h....y....y...o...u....t...r...y.
Me: Hmm. You make a good point, dead man. "Hahvahd" did you some good.
"Anatole": M...a...n...t...h...i...s...s...m...a...c...k...i...s...
f...a...n...t...a...s...t...i...c.
Me: Gotcha.

The world's looking brighter, Indiana.

Good night.

Domonic (Demir)