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2004-10-31 @ 6:66 p.m.
thou shalt not chop thy neighbor's aorta in a grinder bought on television



Where to begin? I went out to the lake today for a walk. The weatherman had promised temperatures in the mid-70�s, but when I was about 100 yards from my car in shirt sleeves, I realized that he was wrong. Fortunately I had a bag of clothes for Goodwill in my car, so I went back and pulled out a sweater. What was I thinking? I live near the Canadian border. Its late autumn, and there was a stiff breeze blowing off the lake.

I was soon on the path though. People were walking by. It seemed like a lot of people were wearing orange. How clever of them. It being Halloween and all. I saw a guy walking a beagle. The dog was dressed like a pimp-daddy. Now isn�t that an obvious choice for a Halloween costume for a beagle? A pimp. Snoopy Pimp Daddy.

As I was walking I was thinking about how bad my sleeping habits have been the last few weeks. I�ve always been proud of the fact that I�ve been on disability for 3 years, and that I keep regular hours. I set my alarm and get up every day around 8:15. I�m not sleep-all-day watch TV all night disability person. But lately, I�ve been staying up as late as 4 a.m. and sleeping until noon or 1 p.m. A lot of times I�m not even getting up. And then I�ll take naps late in the afternoon. Much of it has to do with the amount of physical pain I�m in with my fibro. But some of it has to do with how much despair I�ve been feeling about the dissolution of my relationship with Married Guy.

I finally headed back to my car. The wind was whipping so strongly, that I decided to head up one block above the lake and walk through a neighborhood. I figured the houses would block the wind. It seemed like a nice neighborhood. That is until I saw a headless guy sitting on a lawnchair in the front yard of one house. He wasn�t totally headless though. Some thoughtful soul had put his head back into his lap and his entrails were arranged Martha Stewardesque amongst pumpkins. How charming. A little further along First Street I saw another guy hanging from a tree. His face was frozen in a rather strangely contorted grin. I guess the Clan meeting which had preceded his lynching had been fun.

On the other side of the side of the street was a large newly sprouted cemetery. There were as many as 15 tombstones planted in the seemingly innocent yard at 666 First Street. And there were epithets aplenty... �Here lies my beloved Dick Head. He cheated, so I deleted.� And nearby was the outline of the body on the sidewalk. Married Guy? I swear I wasn�t there. Honest.

Seeing all this carnage on such kindly Stepford street had unnerved me a bit, so I knew I had to get home. I also knew that there was a nap in my near future. So when I got home, I took some pain medication, a clonopin and a muscle relaxant and laid on the couch. I flipped on the TV. I don�t have cable so I only get a few channels. I switched around and saw my utterly thrilling choices. Two college football games. A very snowy version of my buddy Jack Skellington in Tim Burton�s �Nightmare Before Christmas�. And two infomercials.

College football. Blecch. Forget it. I tried to watch �Nightmare� for a little while, since I love Tim Burton, but the reception was so crappy, that I finally gave up. Guard Cat was sitting over on the piano bench staring at me. Staring. Staring. For a second it looked like her left eye lit up like a Christmas tree light. And I was like WTF? But then it was back to just blank cat stare. Yes, Guard Cat, I know you�re in love with Jack Skellington, but you�re just going to have to get over it.

So then I flipped to the first infomercial. Its amazing how good the TV reception was on those. I wonder if the advertiser paid extra for that. There was some Eye-talian guy professing his total love and if not sheer horniness for spring loaded cake pans. Since I don�t bake, I had no idea what he was talking about until he showed me how easy it was to release cheese cakes from their metallic baking harnesses. Who knew? I was somewhat medicated by then, so it did seem kind of fascintating. He had put 5 cheesecakes out on the counter in front of him and then was criticizing each one. (Hey, my mom would have enjoyed this program..it had someone criticizing things). Anyways, he was like �This first cheesecake has too much sour cream. This next one has too much sugar. The next one�s crust is too big. Its disrupting the cheesecake�s aura. This next one, well...it looks like Regis Philbin and I have this overwhelming urge to stab it. And this last one...it was just whipped to much.

And I was laying there thinking, how is that even possible?. Being whipped TOO much. Especially by a chef with a whisk. Hmmm. Sounds good to me. Can I be next?

Suddenly though, I was really scared that they were going to throw those 5 cheesecakes away. All in the name of a stupid infomercial. Its not their fault they�re imperfect. We�re all imperfect in some way or another. I�ll eat them!! Even the Regis Philbin one.

I then started yelling at the TV...�Free the cheesecakes, free the cheesecakes, free the cheescakes. I�ll take them. Free the cheesecakes!!� And Guardcat got very unsettled. Ok, she got totally freaked out. She was suddenly running around the living room knocking stuff over and its only when you see your cat hanging at a 45 degree angle off your bookcase, that you realize that screaming �Cheescakes� at top volume in the living room is probably not normal. It had to be the meds. Had to be.

It was only then that I decided to flip over to the other infomercial. One without agitating cheescakes. This one was about the Penultimate Chopper. It was hosted by Jenilee Harrison, the blonde chick who replaced Suzanne Somers in �Three�s Company� back in the 70�s when she went onto a hopelessly muddled and boring career in Vegas and hawking Thighmasters greener pastures.

Oh Miss Jenilee Harrison, what has happened? For a minute I thought I was still watching Jack Skellington in �Nightmare Before Christmas�. She was terrifying looking. If television puts 10 pounds on you, this would bring her up to about 68 pounds. She had been a cute girl in the 1970�s. Slender, ok. But with some curves. But now she looked positively skeletal. And what made her scarier looking was that she looked like there had been a collagen explosion on her face. Her lips looked like radial tires, and her eyes looked strangely buggy too. All I could think while watching her was that she hadn�t had a job in 20 years, and that her agent had called her and said, �J! We�ve got an infomercial for you! And it involves food! Ya want it?�

She was paired up with Chef �T�. I was a little foggy with medication by then, so I wasn�t sure if it was the same guy who liked to whip cheesecakes or not, but he was sure chipper. As was Jenilee. As was the audience, who I think had either eaten a lot of sugar earlier or was receiving small electrical volts under their seats everytime the cameras showed them. Because they would �awww� and �Ohhh� over the smallest things, like the Penultimate Chopper chopping up cement blocks or one of Jenilee�s ex-husbands.

And I�m sure with all its chopping abilities, that you know that this is being geared towards serial killers, who when they�re not out killing people are probably sitting home watching infomercials, right? What? You didn�t know that? What else do you think would drive them to such heinous crimes? Right now, serial killers are most likely sitting home updating their Jenilee Harrison fan websites, and flipping through infomercials trying to find ways to make their lives easier. And what better way than the Penultimate Chopper? After all...these little devises can chop through literally anything. Chef �T� shows them. He throws everything into them. Veggies. Meat. Fish. Cement blocks. Early John Kerry votes.

And then television makes the job even easier, by making the chopper so damn easy to buy. Because if you call their 800 number... IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTE...you can also get...A bad ass butcher knife (like for decapitating), a stainless steel paring knife, a set of 5 steak knives, a juicer, the deed to some property in Central Florida and a miracle knife, which promises to cut through anything including those pesky leg and arm bones, which may not snap initially when you are in a murderous rage with your butcher knife. Yay!

And then they cut to Jenilee Harrison who was grinning madly, like whee, I used that on my gardener when he wouldn�t go to the 7/11 and buy me a Snickers Bar.

And then of course, there was the usual infomercial testimonial from the �regular� people such as the Plump middle aged woman who said: �I love my Penultimate Chopper, especially when my husband goes on business trips and I�m lonely. (wink, wink) and the Man with a Yankees baseball cap who said: �Chef �T� was nice enough to personally come to my house and show me how to clean my blades. We write on the Internet now.� And the young woman who is dressed in a sexy negligee who said: �I�d invite the Penultimate Chopper into my house (seductively) anytime.�

Headline in the newspaper the next day: Young female body found in pieces in New Jersey Sunday night. Chef�s hat found nearby.

I really started to fade in and out by then though. Because first it was Jenilee humping a Thighmaster, and then it was Chef �T� chopping phallic shaped cucumbers and then it was Chef �T� dressed like Dr. Frank N Furter from �Rocky Horror Picture Show� and then Jack Skellington was stabbing Suzanne Somers with knitting needles. I was really confused. I guess that is the last time I will take drugs and watch infomercials on Halloween.

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Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty

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