Hunks of porous, veiny chicken skin-fat and lawn clippings in a piquant clotted cigar-butt saliva sauce.

~ my lunch today

In the past few weeks I've begun a slow but relentless transition into one of those people when I am browsing through the flash-frozen dinner-thing section at the market for my healthy lunch selections. What often happens is that a decidedly one-way conversation ensues which causes the nearby soccer-mom hefting a twenty pound burlap sack of tater tots into her second pushcart to hasten on her way a tad more expediently. It usually goes something like this:

No, not that one - remember? The "beef" tasted like unlaundered road-crew jockstraps and the rubbery string beans needed to be sawed into tiny hunks to be swallowed whole. This one gave you gas that could strip the rust off a lug-nut and curled the linoleum in the bathroom - not to mention the melting of the shower curtain. This one, once cooked, reminded you of that time you found that unidentifiable dead thing washed up on the beach - a mass of protein, hair and a savory brown ooze. Mmm, but that one over there was my-t-fine!

I've begun to communicate with others nearby who, foraging for their meager yet healthy sustenance like me, ask for friendly, peer-based counsel on their selection. "Uh, no", I will say shaking my head and tutting softly, "that one - the chicken in Pinot Grigio sauce? Yeah, that smells like an infected wound and tastes like burned-up Cell-O sponges soaked in gasoline." Soundlessly the product is lowered back into the freezer to await the wretch who, unable to heed my sage recommendation, will purhase it and find themselves in the presence of Satan in the form of "tender chicken medallions" in a "creamy butter and white wine sauce."

{An aside: when did it become fashionable to use the word "medallion" to describe lumps of flesh? And, if it is just that - a smaller-than-a-fist piece of something - I am going to rapidly incorporate it into my everyday speech patterns. "Oh wow", I might say to a fellow travel companion, "did you see that roadkill? There were *insert animal name* medallions all over the highway!" How utterly sublime. }

In stark opposition to other attempts I've made to slim down - effectively circumventing the grim necessity to go shopping in one of those specialty stores that proudly display an 18X pair of slacks resembling a Bedouin tent as their "Big Boy" size - I may actually be able to stay on this one. Fruit and juice for breakfast, a ghastly slurry of flesh and grain products/flaccid vegetables for lunch and a sensible dinner with bruising bananas as snacks in between. It should be bracingly delightful.

Like a slow-sheet enema filled with nearly frozen chunky garden-style Ragu pasta sauce.

***

In the Greenwood Mall there exists a midway stall in which is ensconsed a gentleman who, for a merry little fee, will airbrush any damn thing you want onto "hi-quality" preshrunken t-shirts and other blank items. While not unique in his trade (show me a boardwalk or carnival/circus/county fair where there isn't one of these mutants and I will gladly consume a knuckle of my left pinkie), this particular gentleman seems to delight in showcasing some rather - and here's a surprise! - tasteless license plates. Indiana is a "back plate only" state, so one is able to move as the spirit commands in terms of what one drills into the front bumper's holes. As my eyes alighted on several of his masterfully crafted pieces (Git 'Er Done among them), I managed to behold one that looked like the skyline of Indianapolis - crowned as it is with the uniqueness of the Giant Electrical Outlet Plug Building - but underneath, instead of "I [heart] Indy" or "Speedway City" it said, uh,

Naptown.

Naptown? It took me about five minutes to figure it out; this is because I have apparently lost control of several key chromosomes during my twenty-five years.

India - NAP - olis.

My first thought was, uh, what the motherfeck is this happy horseshit? I have lived in this state for about three years now and I can say with clarion certainty that I have never once heard someone refer to the Crossroads State's capital as Naptown and, had I, I would have punched that person in the neck and run away as fast as my stocky little legs would carry me.
These must be the same people who, I assume, make Bloomington into B-Town (ignoring utterly that the last syllable is -ton, not -town), Orlando into O-Town (the name of an ill-fated boy band whose members, if there is a God, have all had their bowels torn out by timber wolves), and - perhaps most alarmingly - Sacramento into Sac-Town.

Sac-Town. Because that's dignified.

***

Alert Life in the Corn Devotee Gwyneth and I have, as of late, been caught up in the "umm, what the feck?" drama of having bizarre, Blair Witch-esque objects carefully placed in our offices by parties unknown.

Fact #1: Gwyneth, after returning from a weekend to the drudgery of a Monday morning, was greeted by a small, sausage-shaped ball of hair and lint (but not dust!) and a rusty nail in the middle of her office floor as well as other, nearly unidentifiable objects on her desk.

Fact #2: Under my desk there have been placed - for the past three weeks in a row - dead leaves. These are clearly brought into this space as they show no signs of having been tramped upon.

Both of us agree: should a bundle containing a bloody tooth appear, we're resigning and moving to Guam.

Is it the cleaning crew? Is it a disgruntled international who wishes to inject icy fear into our veins? Or is it, as I suspect, Markie Post's nefarious work?

As always, I remain,

Domonic