Improbable nostalgia = early-onset dementia?

In an improperly-ventilated suburban-blight rental home lodged somewhere in the corn, a man - and I am certain this man is not me - settles his porcine form onto a couch after a long day of working with internation - uh, working as a mechanic. Yes, a mechanic. He absently notices that this particular couch has begun to visibly emit rays of reek from dog crotch and cat ass and reminds himself to burn the slipcover in the yard later; he lights a bought-on-clearance-in-July Christmas Wreath Yankee Candle in an excercise of utter futility. Unshaken by the insensate evil wafting from the furniture, he pops a movie into the VCR - yes, people still have those - and settles in for forty minutes of enchantment as the narrator begins to tell the sweeping tale of the brilliant, daring but ultimately hubris-doomed city-state of Athens.

Again, I am duty-bound to stress: this person is not me.

Now: While watching the film, this particular man begins to have a sensation that he is not sure will be dampened by the Smirnoff Watermel - uh, 40oz. Bud Light - he'd begun to consume. At first, he manages to convince himself that it's pent-up gasses yearning for release after his sup of four Oscar Mayer turkey-dogs and half a box of Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese. After the aforementioned malt beverage begins a slow but relentless percolation through his misshapen hulk, though, he begins to relate to the documentary through

improbable nostalgia

which, I might add, has never happened to me.

So what the feck is improbable nostalgia? Well, it combines two fairly innocuous occurrences and transforms it into a clarion notification of a profound mental disorder which, I hasten to add, I do not harbor. The equation goes something like this:

regular, normal-people nostalgia X insanity / [the square root of] abundant impossibility

Still not with me? OK. Alright, the difference is this: it's the difference between feeling like you would have liked to live in a particular time period (combining wistfulness and playful whimsy) and KNOWING that you lived in a particular time period and being nostalgic for it DESPITE it being utterly impossible, physically, for you to have lived then.

Examples:

A) Millicent spends much of her free time learning about medieval times and yearns, in the present-day climate of near-hysteria and the decay of all the world holds dear, for the values and dramatic heroism of that age. In her dewy-eyed youth, she is unaware that it was also a time of rampant anti-Semitism, rat-borne pestilences that decimated urban and rural populations, stagnation in many of the arts and sciences, and fantastically bad smells. I mean, come on: knights had to relieve themselves in their armor once it was on, and you can bet that oral hygeine wasn't top of most people's lists. Plus, they were burning women like cordwood all over Europe. Good times.

B) During the holiday season, 26 year-old Dirk pops in his well-worn copy of A Christmas Story into his beercan-ring-covered DVD player. While watching, Dirk begins to remember being a child in the relative innocence of the early 1940s and begins to long for a time when "boys were boys and didn't have any of that candy-ass long hair", when a pack of smokes cost a nickel and could be purchased by five-year-olds and when rubbers were for only for filthy sailors on shore leave in Singapore. The sporadic Asian landwar phenomenon would be more than a decade away and women cooked dinner in heels, lipstick and pearls.

See the difference?

Let us pause for a moment and thank our lucky stars that you and I (especially I) do not succumb to this rare and highly destructive dementia.

[humming; sounds of the fashioning of a chiton]

***

This morning, Alert Life in the Corn Acolyte Keith phoned me on the way to work (wherein he then girds himself in period clothing and tells baldfaced lies to sullen schoolchildren) to alert me to an avatar of the Virgin Mary I'd scarcely dreamed existed. After a hasty pre-work Wikipedia crawl, I was able to confirm the existence of

Our Lady of Prompt Succor

who is, among her other duties, the patroness of the state of Louisiana AND the city of New Orleans. [irony? resounding "yes".]

Now, I know that calling her "Our Lady of Really Quick Help" is trashy and unbefitting her status, but come on: prompt succor? It's like something *I'd* make up. But the best part is that there is a Catholic high school that is called the Our Lady of Prompt Succor High School and I, who can faintly smell the brimstone, have to wonder:

What the hell would their mascot be?

***

Finally, a note for the gentleman in the jacked-up Ford F-150 I beheld this morning on my death-march commute:

Dear Sir,

I would like to take a moment to thank you for providing me with an opportunity to view your tasteful rub-on window declaration this morning. I am happy to know that, as far as desires go, "[You] like lipstick on your dipstick." I would like to also take a moment to inform you that part of my pleasure in viewing your aforementioned "decoration", replete as it was with a faux lipstick imprint and an amusing Comic Sans font, was envisioning the mute horror a potential lipstick donor would feel when confronted by your shriveled micropenis, which resembles in size, shape and smell a sundried salad shrimp.

I see the wad of Skoal the size of a Mekong catfish crammed in your lip and your sweat-salt-crusted baseball cap and wonder: do you think you are attractive? I see your proudly-displayed Confederate flag and wonder: do you think you are a rebel? I see your "decoration" and think: do you think this witticism is going to provide you with female-originated oral pleasure?

Who are you trying to convince?

I think you know who is shellacking your shrimpie, good sir, and I know he'd look awkward in a tanktop.

Sincerely,

Domonic

***

Until next time, I remain,

Domonic (ok,eww) Potorti