Monday, August 10, 2009

Letters in the sand compost

This will not stand. Time for a sternly worded letter.














Dearest tarp,

You've done a stellar job covering my propane grill when it rains, but I wonder why I shouldn't know what you're spending all that wholly undeserved loot on. Not just a lot of Scotchguard, I'd wager. If ever I was to get oodles of leafy green vegetables as a reward for pouring battery acid in your 2% milk, I'd be more than happy to tell you what I plan to make from them, possibly a stir fry with some teriyaki chicken, perhaps some nuts, pens, paper, flapjacks, plane tickets and, for when I get back from soaking my brain in reservoirs of inspiration that I've tried and shockingly failed to divine in northeastern Ohio suburbia despite free-flowing champagna, a giant library full of musty, rare and erotic tomes -- don't scrimp on the gilded edges -- and shelves not made of cheapo particle board, thus my subtle plea for oodles of leafy green vegetables. Oh, and a smoking jacket.

"You don't smoke."














My poor monocle needs a fashionable companion -- inanimate fashionable companion, my sweet sometimes-better-half, you're my animate fashionable companion -- so, in conclusion, pretty please be sugary and spicy and everything not-that-nicey and tell me how much flight time per hour your fancy jet costs as you scoot your way to the swankiest escort agencies in order to sample their special services in person, wink, nudge.

Love,

Randal

23 comments:

Ubermilf said...

I don't understand. You've been pelting your grill cover with vegetables with the expectation that it will begin talking to you?

And then Christopher Walken shows up?

You've totally lost me.

Holte Ender said...

Would it be fair to assume that you have given up eating meat, but feel guilty about not using your grill, but as a compromise you are prepared to start grilling your salads and you turned to Christopher Walken for support.

La Belette Rouge said...

I want to hear what your BBQ and monocle have to say about all of this.

Utah Savage said...

Your grill tarp is going to escort agencies in a smoking jacket? Sheesh! That's one very cool grill tarp.

Christopher said...

I took a lot of shit from readers for opposing last fall's TARP scheme. I just asked people to explain to me why it had to be done by Wednesday -- we couldn't wait a week and look at the numbers and ask the American people for our input first?

Oh no. No waiting, the American way of life would collapse if Congress didn't act before the opening of the next day's Asian markets, they said.

So here we are. Nearly a year on and what has changed? Well, banking aren't lending and credit card companies are reducing our limits but hey, at least CEOs are getting millions in bonuses again.

Randal Graves said...

übermilf, jeez, do I have to spell it out for you? X Q Z Y W F T A A V P L Q W W. Duh.

holte, aside from the giving up eating meat part, which is simply never going to happen, that is 100% partially correct.

LBR, so would a lot of people, but national security. You understand.

utah, it learned from the best. Godspeed, Mr. Walken.

christopher, DC has brought back 'kinder, gentler' from Bush the Smarter. And they say no one is recycling.

Utah Savage said...

If you can't keep track of what your tarp is spending the money you paid for it on, how do you expect me and the other idiots we call fellow citizens to understand the TARP? Sheesh! And see how this whole thing has forced me to write unreadable sentences or non sentences. It's a tangled web of unfollowable gibberish and numbers with $ in from of them. See? I didn't even finish that sentence. Now you have me thinking about the vanishing dollars and not the query letter I'm supposed to be working on. Oh shit! I might as well try once again to clean my house. All else us hopeless! And so is cleaning my house, since once a chore is done it's in the process of getting filthy again.

Tom Harper said...

"Where did all that money go?"

After the Enron implosion, somebody said those missing billions of dollars went to the same place your lap goes when you stand up. That's as good a description as any I've heard.

Tengrain said...

Graves, you swine!

Here I am, happily in denial as we are circling the drain, and you go off on Christopher Walken (the baddest of the bad boys) with a tarp to look for a smoking jacket?

Walken will eat your liver before the day is out, mark my words.

Regards,

Tengrain

Randal Graves said...

utah, if you have a tarp, perhaps you should ask yours to pen your query letter, or at the very least, send along with the letter some tasty BBQ.

tom, heh heh, that about covers it.

tengrain, does everyone have broken reading comprehense-o-meters today? Walken is a bad mammajamma. If I was as cool as Walken, my grill wouldn't need a tarp.

S.W. Anderson said...

Randal, is there just a chance you got some peyote buttons or other hallucinogenic ingrediment into the stir-fry mix, ate hardy and then wrote this post?

I mean, extreme champagne intoxication might explain mistaking your covered grill for the object of your affection, but not ravings about your better half jetting off to avail herself of the services of an escort service.

Oh, and let's not cast off on cheapo particle board shelving. Some very nice, poor-but-honest folk do the best they can with particle board shelving.

Demeur said...

Tis quite simple, they got the elevator and we got the shaft. Isn't that the way it always works? Tarps are self serving things you know.

Bee said...

Hail to the grill! It shall overcome the self-conceived rule of the tarp! Power to the Hot Wings!

Commander Zaius said...

Funny you should bring up the tarp stuff. I was recently lectured by a family member, one of my brothers, for whom faith in the capitalist system goes hand and hand with his faith in Jesus and Sarah Palin.

Feeling that arguing with such foolishness/ignorance/stupidity/blatant abandonment of common sense would only serve to raise my blood pressure and bring me down to his level I went outside with a beer and cooked some hot dogs on my grill. Oh, the tarp, yeah I rested my weary head on it as it lay on other pieces of the outdoor furniture and I browsed a smoking jacket catalog.

The Cunning Runt said...

That particular Christopher Walken sketch is one of my favoritiest thingies ever!

susan said...

Americans have the most hilarious culture on the face of the planet today. I only wish I could be watching it all from a safe distance.

Christopher Walken is my kind of man. Thank you.

Laura said...

Am I the only one that sees "Cunt" when they first look at the name "The cunning Runt"? nevermind....

Anyhow. Your tarp is lovely Randal. Looks brand new! Mine is ripped up and utterly disgraceful.
Chris Walken.. love him!!!! I'm curious. Who do you look more like in real life? "Randal Graves" or Christopher Walken.

((Hugs))
Laura

Randal Graves said...

SWA, I think my letter was composed with perfect clarity. Are you suggesting I provide a gloss?

Virtually all of my books currently reside on particle board shelving. The massive curving tells me that they are quite inadequate, thus, this letter.

demeur, if we got Shaft, I think we'd be in better shape, because he could fuck them up something fierce.

bee, now I could go for some hot wings. Not too hot, I don't think burning tongue is covered by my insurance.

TCR, it's a work of genius.

susan, if you mean hilarious in a train wreck kind of way, I'm on board.

sunshine, cunt? You misogynist! That's not my tarp, I only steal images from The Google. Moi? Neither, actually, they're both far more handsome than I.

Laura said...

The Google is a wonderful place to steal images from. When I get my "photoshop" I'm going to go there to find my new bod. :)

Hmmm... not as good looking as eithr huh? Well, as you know, I'm nothing to write home about either so, I suppose it doesn't matter. ;)
~hint~ I was fishing there....

Anonymous said...

Don't you dare mock the tarp. He does his duty well to protect a too-big-to-fail grill, which, left to endure the acid rains of NE Ohio would rust and rot faster than you could say Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

Dr. Zaius said...

I had the same problem. My smoking jacket quit smoking. Now it is just irritable all of time, and chews a lot of gum.

Randal Graves said...

Have you tried the nicotine patch? I think they come in tweed.

Dr. Zaius said...

Hee hee!