We all have our personal hobgoblins--The Bore, The Mean Weller, The Self-Appointed Sage at Work, etc.--so in the spirit of the day and in an attempt to spread some virtual garlic around my sphere in the hopes of warding him off for a few months (and maybe allowing you to suffer evil torments vicariously and thus freeing you to live an unscary day), today I will discuss one of my everyday monsters, Dr. Julius Schanke, aka The Guy Who Shows Up At The Least Opportune Times. Schanke pronounces his name to rhyme with manque (manque), but everyone I know calls him Doc Schanke, rhyming with crock crank, though I've taken to referring to him simply as TGWSUATLOT. I first had the misfortune of meeting Dr. Schanke (professor emeritus of Ingestibles, Ballistics, Dirigibles, and All Things Nauseous at The Ohio State University, Ashtabula extension campus) back in 1992 at an in-person meeting of the alt.phlegmatics BBS community. He introduced himself as "the suave Brahmin of the slimy, a sort of crypto 'suami', if you will." I wish I hadn't. I can abide heavily bearded men and women with assorted shards of food adorning their countenances, but not--incredibly and in seeming opposition to the three laws of physics I'm familiar with--clean-shaven ones. I'm wagering that soon after his inevitable (?, one never knows) death, halitosis as we know it will be known henceforth as Schanke Syndrome.
In the nearly twenty years since our fateful meeting, six months have not gone by without my running into TGWSUATLOT, or more aptly, his ambushing of me. And, true to his title, these tete a tetes never occur when I'm wiling away a couple hours in a coffeehouse or mulling the slings and arrows while observing a single leaf of grass somewhere, but always when my dander is in the blood red zone and Old Father Time is goosing my ass something savage. For example, a few years ago, I--merely trying to buy a stamp in order to post remittance for an overdue municipal tax bill of $2.32 and dangerously in jeopardy of being late for my drive-thru, voluntary/cosmetic root canal appointment--was stuck in line at the Post Office behind a woman attempting to get passports for her brood of seven children all under the age of four (who were howling, climbing, drooling, and defacing government property) and a man of questionable heritage trying to mail what he swore was a box of nails and demanding to pay with six different money orders he had yet to purchase. In the midst of this maelstrom I suddenly heard, "Ergo, in re of our discussion in re of the use of obfuscating foreign phrases, I regret to inform you ... " Damn!, I shuddered, TGWSUATLOT. Forty-seven minutes later, with nothing to show for it but a wrinkled, self-adhesive Kwanzaa stamp (this was mid-July, btw) in need of licking, I stood in the parking lot dodging wrong-end of the dashboard driving mail scooters and attempting to assuage growing-hostile TGWSUATLOT with scores of "I see your point," "I'll have to get back to you on that," and "Really, I must be going," would-be placating phrases. Luckily my ersatz oral surgeon had an open schedule that afternoon and a shortage of anaesthetic, so I was eventually distracted.
Another time, as I was waiting in line at the confessional for my annual reconciliation appointment, who steps out of the box but TGWSUATLOT. He instantly lit up a nefarious smile, took me rather roughly by the elbow and quietly intoned, "My boy, don't waste your time with that quack," a quick lurch of his shoulder back at the confessional box, "for I've been going in and out all day, changing my voice radically each time and confessing to a panoply of sins, and all the poor man can come up with is, 'Say a baker's dozen Hail Mary's and scare up a nun to hold a door for.' Come with me rather, and I'll shrive your sins the holistic way over some rhubarb tea I brew in my car with the help of my cigarette lighter." I don't know how or why, and the memory is still too raw to detail, but I ended up doing two weeks of penance spraying Ly-Sol in every extant phone booth in Portage County.
Anyway, I'm sure you too have TGWSUATLOT in your life, maybe (hopefully) not as annoyingly monstrous as my TGWSUATLOT, but bothersome nonetheless. Perhaps my public sharing of my travails with my TGWSUATLOT will serve as sufficient vicarious terror for you, liberating you to enjoy your day sans Halloween foolery. Just call me your Halloween scapegoat, thank me when you run into me (God, I hope I'm not somebody's TGWSUATLOT!), go ahead, eat some candy, and get ready for two months of real holiday mania.
And finally, just in case you need a little more diabolical pondering to surfeit your market-imposed craving for something evil today, debate this question with yourself: Who is the greater monster in your life, the One-Upper (the person who can always top your present joy) or the One-Downer (the person who can always bottom your present woe-is-me warm wallowing)? No need to share your conclusions.
No comments:
Post a Comment