Tag Archives: quarantine

Usual Rubbish

Designated shopper.

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2000 Years to Christmas

Okay, I know I drew the short straw. Let’s give it another go, shall we? Best two out of three. Ready …. steady … pull. Damn. Short straw again. Best three out of five?

Oh, hi. I’ll be honest – I’ve never been much of a gambler. And yet here we are, drawing straws to see who will go out and do the weekly shopping. Now I know what you’re going to say – “Joe!” you’d say, “You have a personal robot assistant. Why not send HIM out to shop?” Very good question. The trouble is, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is a dead ringer for some rogue ripoff automaton that has been terrorizing the local shops for a good six months. No matter how we identify Marvin as distinctly himself, the store owners around here lack the … um … subtlety to imagine that Marvin might not only be a totally different robot but, in fact, one that shares none of the nefarious habits of the nasty robot. Appearances can be deceiving! Look at us, for crying out loud. You’d think we were a band or something.

Why do we need someone to do our shopping? Pretty obvious, isn’t it? I mean, this whole county has gone COVID crazy. Frankly, I wouldn’t walk across the street in this town without a hazmat suit. Or maybe one of those survive-a-balls the Yes Men came up with a few years ago. It’s getting hairy out there, people – very hairy indeed. Who would blame us for sending Marvin out with a couple of sacks and a claw full of dollars, our shopping list written in grease pencil on his brass belly? That’s what any reasonable people in our circumstances would do, right? I mean, picture yourself in an abandoned hammer mill with a bunch of out-of-work musicians and some oddball hangers-on (including a robot and a man-sized tuber) … what would you do, dear reader? I mean … aside from getting a life?

Wow. I feel safer just looking at those things.

Actually, it turns out that the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill is probably the ideal location for quarantine. Think about it – it’s isolated. Nobody comes here except bill collectors. The place is riddled with holes, so air flows freely throughout the structure – all of the air is replaced every 45 minutes. (Trouble is, it’s replaced by Cool Whip.) Frankly, they should be sending COVID positive people here to ride it out, or folks that have been exposed and need to stay our of circulation for fourteen days. In fact, I’m surprised the local officials haven’t thought of that. Unless, of course, they’re reading this blog. Yikes! FORGET I SAID ANYTHING. THIS IS A TERRIBLE PLACE …. DON’T COME HERE.

Usual Rubbish

Walled-off salad.

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2000 Years to Christmas

I don’t have any walnuts. Apples? Nope, none of them either. Celery? Who the hell eats CELERY? Aside from anti-Lincoln, that is. (He’ll eat anything except chicken fricassee, the real Lincoln’s favorite dish.)

Yeah, well … it was bound to happen. This sequester, social distancing business is getting pretty old. I know what you’re going to say (just call me Kreskin) – But you guys are always cooped up in that abandoned hammer mill! you’ll say, what the hell’s the difference? Such an insolent question! Actually … yeah, you have a point, but watching all these crazy people get even crazier because of home confinement is prompting us to get kind of sick of it too, if only for appearances sake. I mean, I don’t want to be that guy … you know, the one that isn’t climbing up the walls, even though he hasn’t been able to go golfing since last November. Of course, I’m genuinely not that guy, but you see where I’m going with this, right? No? Fuck. I was hoping you could tell me.

Anyway, that’s me. What about my fellow hammer mill-dwellers? Well, they are going stir crazy. Nothing to do with the quarantine. It think they’re just sick of my stir fry. You see, I’ve somehow ended up as the mill cook by default. The job originally fell to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), as that seemed well within the scope of his job description. (“Other duties as assigned,” it says in big red letters.) Anyway, when he set a tossed salad on fire last week, he was out, and because he reports to me, they handed me the apron. I let a few days pass to see if they’d forget about it, but they didn’t, and well …. they were getting kind of hungry, so I put the kettle on. I’ve had worse assignments. Like selling insulated windows over the phone. Sheesh, what a gig!

I think it needs more fire.

Ever try to make something out of nothing? Well, if you haven’t, come on down the Cheney Hammer Mill kitchen. We’ve got some ginger root that’s been lying around the pantry for about five years. There’s a half jar of mustard. Two digestive biscuits. Half a pint of club soda. Oh … our neighbors sent over some carrots. Um … that’s about it. I’m making a casserole. By that, I mean … I’m throwing a bunch of random stuff in a pot and putting it on the fire. I might stir it a couple of times, but again … they didn’t like last night’s stir fry, and I’m getting a little sensitive about the criticism. Mitch Macaphee had the gall to put a review of my cooking up on Yelp. Ripped me a new one, the bastard. Hell, he‘s the mad scientist …. why doesn’t he just invent a decent dinner? TAKE WHAT YOU CAN GET, YOU SHIFTLESS MOTHERS!

Ahh, I feel much better now. Soup’s on!

Usual Rubbish

There’s this baby, see?

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2000 Years to Christmas

So what the what? And is that really the way it ends? God damn it. Six bucks down the drain. And in THESE hard times! All right … time for Planet of the Apes.

Oh, hi. We’re just endeavoring to entertain ourselves here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our COVID-19 quarantine site in this time of pestilence and putrid infection. What better way than to make use of Netflix or some other streaming service, eh? Except … well, we don’t have anything like that, as we are as poor as church mice … except that even THEY have the run of the donation basket and the leftover sandwiches from the parish volunteer society luncheons. In other words, we’re poorer than church mice. Just think of us as Mill Rats, scrounging for crusts and little fragments of entertainment. (Call me crazy, but when the mouth sits idle, the eyes need to work overtime.)

Well, fortunately, we have our mad science advisor Mitch Macaphee, inventor of Marvin (my personal robot assistant). I asked him this week if he could engineer some kind of hack that would allow us to watch Netflix movies for free. He retreated to his laboratory, then came up with a kind of solution. Actually, it was like those old rabbit ear antennae they used to put on old-school television sets … except much, much bigger. Fifteen feet tall, actually. A little intimidating, to tell the God’s honest truth. Anyway, Mitch planted it on top of our borrowed walnut console TV and hooked it up to the coax. He messed around with the array a little bit, squinting at the static-choked screen as he worked. Suddenly, a stable image appeared. It was the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. We hooted a bit, congratulating Mitch, but he quickly explained that this was not, in fact, Netflix, but actually the reverberations of ancient transmissions of movies that have been bouncing around the solar system for the past fifty years. Hey … potato, po-tah-to, right? What the hell difference does it make, so long as there’s something to occupy our down time.

Still kinda fuzzy. Try the vertical hold, Marvin.

So, we’re watching 2001, and it brings back memories of when it ran in theaters locally during my childhood. I went to see it with my dad, as I recall, who provided a running commentary about features of the moon and astronomical facts (many of which a father in the seats next to us repeated to his offspring). My sister, I believe, talked about seeing it and some dude was explaining the strange end to the movie to his companion, starting with the phrase, “There’s this baby, see? And that baby … is God, see?” Why am I thinking of this while watching this antiquated and quite strange movie? Well …. because it’s kind of freaking boring, and besides, the reception of television signals bounced off the Kuiper Belt is a little fuzzy to say the least. Yeah, I’m letting my wits wander. As long as they don’t get lost, it’s okay.

Well, that took care of Friday. What do we do with ourselves next week? Suggestions? Send them our way. (Play music, perhaps?)