I don't mean to cast aspersions, but it would seem to me parents shouldn't give a child stabby things 'fore the age of three. I don't know whether this household has a pup or kitty, but if the kid can spear the floor the pets ain't look'n pretty. Saying a babe shouldn't have a spear, you'll call me "left-wing nut," but I don't like dog-on-a-stick: even if it's a mutt.
He was an old, soulless Zombie
I met in a diner out on Route 5.
He said he’d kill us all,
but I thought he was joshing.
Then when his music was over–
an ELO tune from the jukebox—
he lunged at the waitress and
bit her clean through the carotid.
It spurt like a shock therapy patient
had a ketchup squeeze bottle in hand.
The diner’s diners commented,
“Surely, that old, soulless Zombie
isn’t gnawing on that poor girl?”
“Poor child probably don’t make minimum wage—
even with tips—
and now an old, soulless Zombie has his chompers in her.”
I know what you’re going to say. Why would I want to murder a cereal killer, a taco belle, a holy cow, a pig in a blanket, a deviled egg, or any of the other bearers of bad Halloween punnery? First, you want to kill someone. You don’t have to admit it to me and I’d advise against admitting it to the District Attorney, but at least admit it to yourself. Second, if you kill the person you really want to kill (e.g. your boss, the tax man, your personal trainer, or your hairdresser—sorry, low blow) you’ll be the lead suspect. Therefore, you need to find a way to vent your homicidal rage into productive outlets, and I’d argue that the killing of punsters is community service. You shouldn’t even think of it as murder. It’s more like culling the Halloween herd. Forest fires kill, but the next year the forest is more lush and beautiful than ever before.
Now let’s get down to the real reason to conduct your own Halloween killing spree. Because it’s the perfect time for the perfect crime. Think about it.
So how will you choose your target? First, as indicated, it’s best to pick someone who’s inebriated because no one will realize they’re dead–and not just passed out–until they begin to stink. Don’t worry, finding a drunk won’t be hard. At a given Halloween party there will be four designated drivers for the 150 people in attendance—so 148 people will be completely hammered. [No, my math is not that bad. Two of those designated drivers are cheating bastards. If you kill a pun who’s a cheating designated driver you’ve hit the trifecta—OK, maybe my math is that bad. At any rate, you get bonus points. ]
Next comes the question of determining whether the costume is a pun or not. This can be harder than it seems. Sure there are the easy ones I mentioned above (and others like Kevin “Bacon” [Kevin nametag on a meat vest], “Bat” Man [w/ Louisville Slugger], Down for the Count [Dracula with a blowup doll orally affixed to his crotch region], Spice Girl, Dust Bunny, Formal Apology [tuxedo-clad man with “sorry” written on his tie], etc.) that will be immediately obvious.
However, what if one sees a guy in a Grim Reaper costume with a bag of pot. Perhaps this is just someone who likes to imbibe. However, if the pot is dayglow green, then you may have a “the grass is greener on the other side” who desperately needs killing. The key is that one must pay attention to the details. Sometimes the costume will be poorly done. Imagine a fine “Tom the Cat” costume with three misshaped spheres feebly stapled to the crotch region. This is a “horny as a three-balled tom cat” who must die.
On the other hand, you should avoid reading too much into costumes. Say you see a girl who looks like a stripper. You shouldn’t engage in some Rube Goldberg-esque thought process in which you conclude that she is saying, “All that glitters is not gold–because sometimes it’s a stripper.” Said woman may merely be costumed as a stripper, or might be a stripper who just got off stage and didn’t have time to go out looking for a costume.
When in doubt, if the costume doesn’t seem to make a lick of sense, it’s probably someone’s sense of clever gone awry and you shouldn’t feel bad about friendly fire against a non-pun.
Finally, some general rules of thumb (BTW: feel free to kill anyone dressed in a giant mitten with a page of the tax code taped to the thumb):
I hope this guide to perpetrating a Halloween massacre has been helpful. I think we’d all like to bring the fear back to Halloween like all the Saints who partied down on All Saints’ Day Eve intended. So, whether you’re a first time killer or you’ve been around the block (another potential costume cliché to kill), a few simple steps will keep you out of the hands of the slutty cops—or regular cops.
Taken in the summer of 2011
I can’t recall anywhere besides Estonia that I’ve seen headstones for sale in a run-of-the-mill market. It was a market with green grocers, florists, hardware vendors, sellers of trinkets, and headstone engravers. This raised many questions for me. Who buys the headstone? Does one buy one’s own? If so, isn’t there a risk of narcissism in the engraved epitaph? If someone else buys it, is it something one would buy for a loved one or a mortal enemy? I can see it going either way. If it’s for a loved one, one probably has it made after that person’s death, but if it’s for an enemy, one gets it made and delivered beforehand–perhaps directly onto the unassuming melon of said enemy.
Anyone who understands the Tallinn headstone market, feel free to enlighten me.
National Land Image Information, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation & Tourism, Japan
1.) Ever heard of the Senkakus? What about Diaoyus? If not, you should look them up. When you’ve been wearing a gas mask for the 33rd day straight, you may want to know about the chunks of rock in the East China Sea that we tripped into nuclear winter over. Simmering tensions between Japan and China have been flaring up over these islands of late. So you’re probably wondering who lives there who’s so important that it’s worth wandering through a minefield that could trigger World War III. If you answered, “absolutely no one,” give yourself a prize. They’re uninhabited. It’s not the islands themselves that anyone gives a rat’s as about, it’s the ramification they have for underwater drilling rights.
The reader may accuse me of hyperbole. (Shh! Dont tell anyone, but– of course– that’s what I do.) After all, China has a boldly stated “No First Use” policy. That is, they claim they will not use nukes in a first strike. Given that Japan isn’t a nuclear weapons state (NWS), there doesn’t seem to be much risk. Except that a.) Japan lives under the U.S. nuclear umbrella; b.) Japan is the non-NWS that could develop nuclear weapons in the shortest time imaginable — they have the material, infrastructure, and technical know-how (okay, Germany is in the same bag); and c.) see #2
2.) North Korea conducted its third nuclear test. This presents a risk because: a.) it provides an incentive for Japan to build its own nukes (particularly if faith in the US umbrella wanes.) b.) [and more importantly] Kim Jong Un has too many yes-men, and no one to slap him in his chubby face and say, “are you smoking powdered unicorn horn?” In other words, he doesn’t have a good idea of what he can get away with before the world unleashes a crate of whoop-ass on his sad country. So he wanders in the minefield.
3.) Europe is getting depressed. Fat and happy Europeans are productive and polite. Downtrodden Europeans have been known to swallow some pretty despicable narratives, and– in doing so– drag the world into war. At the moment this seems really far-fetched. These political movements are at best in the political fringe of countries on Europe’s fringe, right? Maybe so. Time will tell.
4.) If America’s economy is crash-landed, everyone is going to be hit by the debris. This will be depressing, see #3 and then multiply globally. Times like these echo Churchill’s comment, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Any person, company, or government that sees the train coming in the distance but can’t find its way off the tracks can’t be expected to thrive for long.
5.) India and Pakistan, enough said…
![[Don't overthink the symbolism]Attribution: loannes.baptista](https://berniegourley.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/267px-garden_gnome_with_wheelbarrow-20051026.jpg)
[Don’t overthink the symbolism]
Attribution: loannes.baptista
Five nights ago, as the sun sank below the horizon and the glow of vibrant colors faded, we three were visited by a fourth from our world. It was the Hargo Chetti. Like us, he had a long flowing beard and a pointy hat, but, unlike us, his face was twisted into a menacing glower. His shell was monotone brown, it was just a temporary husk pulled together from the earth for our meeting. There was no point in a permanent shell; Master Hargo couldn’t stay in the world of humans for long. (Humans thought of the gnome’s shell as the gnome, but to us it was just a container for our noncorporeal selves.) It’s the scowl. The shell must reflect the gnome’s nature, and no one wants a scowling gnome in their garden. Well, there may be demented people who would like such a gnome, but those people are already beyond our assistance.
In gnomish, a language that doesn’t register in human hearing organs, Hargo said, “I come bearing orders from the Council. They want you to be more active in your man’s dream state.”
I was impressed by Hargo’s ability to project his voice to us, given our wide spacing. We three can only communicate in close proximity, or in the man’s dream state. I was less pleased with the content of his message. I bristled in my response, “I assure you that we are intervening when necessary to keep the man’s dream world from falling into darkness.”
Hargo huffed, “The Council’s orders go beyond maintaining the status quo.”
I said, “We’ve seen nothing suggesting the man needs an injection of cheer into his dream state. Surely, you’ve read our reports.”
Hargo replied, “The Council, which I needn’t remind you has more vision and wisdom than a mere worker gnome, isn’t requesting an injection of good cheer. They desire shadow-mares.” Shadowmares were like nightmares but the ones that cannot be remembered in the waking state. Humans imagine that a nightmare that they can’t remember is inconsequential and has no impact on their waking lives. They are wrong.
Furk, one of my peers, just said, “Yes.” Furk was bored. He thought three gnomes for one man was excessive, particularly when that one man wasn’t important. I suspect because one of the neighborhood cats liked to wee on his shell, Furk had soured on our assignment. Though correlation not being causation, I couldn’t eliminate the possibility that the cats peed on him because he was such a jerk.
I was momentarily speechless. Hookl was also speechless, but that was his usual state.
After a long pause, I said, “I would like confirmation that this is the will of the Council.”
Hargo’s scowl seemed to tighten. Icily, he said, “Are you calling me a liar?”
I felt a shudder rise up through me, but still managed to reply, “No. I just think such a rare and unusual order demands great care.”
“You have your orders.” Hargo said, and then his shell collapsed into a pile of dirt, which was then caught up in the breeze and spread over the lawn. By morning there would be no trace of him.
I didn’t trust the Hargo Chetti. He looked like Santa, sans the jolly. What screams lie more than a scowling Santa. Yet, he is our only point of contact with gnome world while we are on assignment. I’ve always thought that was a weakness in our system.
As Furk began to plan and Hookl resumed being Hooklish (which is to say disinterested), I strained to propel my shell toward the driveway. I moved as swiftly as I could, but it was still a pace that would make a turtle proud by comparison.
A few hours later, I noticed lights stretching down the road toward the drive, the twin beams — with the car— decelerated. The car swung into the drive nearly crushing my shell. Had the shell been crushed, I would have been evicted back to our home world. Gnomes required a shell. I wasn’t powerful enough to summon a shell from the dirt, like Hargo had, not even for a short time. My plan had been to get onto the driveway and block access to the garage. In retrospect, it was not a well-thought plan, but it was the only warning I could give the man in his waking state. Once he went to sleep, it might be too late.
The man seemed to take note of my changed position, but he didn’t return my shell to its original position. He just shrugged and walked into the house.
I wanted to persuade Furk to hold off on obeying the order for now. Silently screaming gnomish across the lawn wouldn’t work, I didn’t have Hargo’s power of projection. The distance between us was too great.
I would have to subvert Furk in the man’s dream state. It would be difficult; Furk would have a plan by now, and I would have to improvise, injecting characters into the dream as needed to counter the shadowmare. In the dream state, I wouldn’t look dwarfish – unless that was called for. I could morph into any character that I could imagine. If you’ve ever had a dream and seen a face that looks totally unfamiliar, you’ve had a gnome dream. If you aren’t sure if you were the lead character in your dream, a gnome has probably been monkeying around in your noggin.
*
Four nights ago, I convened a meeting to the side yard. I wanted to be out of sight. Humans often won’t miss a gnome if it’s gone, but seeing three cavorting draws undue attention. I migrated across in front of the house, a two bedroom ranch, and nudged Hookl, who was positioned midway between my usual position and Furk’s. We then proceeded to meet up with Furk. This would put me at a disadvantage. Moving the gnome shell by force of consciousness is exhausting, and if I had to battle it out with Furk in the man’s dream state that night I would be weaker than usual.
For Furk, who was positioned near the corner of the house, the journey to the side yard and back would short. This was probably why he agreed.
I said, “As you well know, I want to hold off on initiating shadowmares.”
Furk said, “An order has been given by the Council. It may be unusual, but I’m sure they have a good reason, and it is not ours to challenge.”
Hookl said nothing.
I replied, “Maybe they do, and if they confirm their order I will comply. But this is serious, and if there is not an explicit order from the Council, then it is high crime against the Gnome Code of Conduct. You know what shadowmares can do to humans after a time. The humans might not consciously recognize the effects, but we know them well.”
Furk retorted, “If the Council didn’t give the order, then the Hargo Chetti is a liar. Are you prepared to make that accusation, because I’m not?”
Hookl said nothing.
I said, “I’m not calling anyone a liar. I’m just saying this is an extremely rare order and since there is only one gnome linking the Council to us, the possibility for miscommunication exists. If it were a less risky order it might not justify my concern. What if the man does something disastrous because of our mental mischief?” I was lying. I did think Hargo was a liar, but saying that would serve nothing.
Furk said, “It’s like Hargo said, you can’t see the whole picture.”
Before we could even begin our retreat back to our proper positions, we heard the car slow and turn into the drive. There was no use in moving now.
I said, “The man is home. Furk, it is clear that we will not be able to persuade each other. I want to hear where Hookl stands, and we will decide by majority.”
Hookl was not happy to be put in the role of tie-breaker. Making decisions was not his strong suit. “Gee, I’ll get back with you tomorrow.”
We three were well-attuned to the man’s brainwaves. We knew when he went into the house. We all knew that he noticed we were missing. We knew when he was about to come back outside with his flashlight. Soon he was shining the light on us. His forehead was crinkled and his lips pursed. It was an expression of puzzlement. He was trying to figure out how we had gotten into the side yard.
*
Three nights ago, one of us was ejected from this world. As darkness fell, in the feeble light, I approached Hookl to inquire about how he intended to vote. I had no intention of reconvening the group. Furk could come to us if he wanted. He did so.
Hookl said, “I mean, I don’t think we should be hasty. We should take our time, and figure things out. Rushing now won’t help any…” He just went on like that, noncommittally, for some time.
It must have sounded to Furk like Hookl was siding with me because Furk kept migrating, pushing into Hookl’s side. I don’t know if Furk just wanted to persuasively intimidate Hookl, or if his intentions were more nefarious. At any rate, there is a slope to the land in the front yard, and many loose rocks. This contributed to Hookl’s shell begining to tip; Furk did not let up. There was nothing I could do but watch as Hookl’s shell tipped.
There was a hole in the bottom of Hookl’s shell from the manufacturing process. It didn’t matter as long as the hole was sitting on the ground. If the shell tipped over, Hookl could maintain himself inside as long as there was only on hole in the container. It was the same principle as a bucket being inverted and pushed down into water. The bucket captures air inside. Add a second hole, and the water plunges in to push the air out. When Hookl’s shell tipped, its shoulder landed on a rock and the ceramic cracked. In a whoosh, Hookl was ejected and forced back to our world, to our dimension.
There would be at least one more night of battling it out with Furk
*
Two nights ago, my fight with Furk continued beyond the dream state and into the physical world. It ended with a gnome sumo match, and Furk was sent home much as Hookl had been.
I didn’t know how long it would be before someone showed up, Hargo or someone on the Council’s behalf. If I was right, and Hargo had gone rogue, it might be never. He might cut his losses.
I began to rest easy in the belief that I could protect this man’s dream state. And then the putz put a baseball bat through the side of my head.
TO BE CONCLUDED
Attribution: Colibri1968 (Is this gnome too sexy?)
Five nights ago, coming home at days end, nosing my car into the drive, I startled. Where my headlights should have roamed over a patch of bare grass, instead the light glared off of the white beard and ruddy cheeks of one of my three lawn gnomes. I braked and swung the wheel hard to avoid grazing the gnome with my bumper. I could have sworn that gnome was always much closer to the house.
Somebody must have moved it.
By the light of the next morning, a ring of flattened, brown grass confirmed my suspicions from the previous night. I had no time to consider who might have moved the gnome.
No harm, no foul.
*
Four nights ago, coming home, the gnome was not at the edge of the drive where it had been. I assumed that whoever had moved it put it back where they found it. But it wasn’t there either.
Rummaging through a drawer of loose tools and hardware, I grabbed a flashlight. I went through the front yard, swinging the beam of light in wide arcs, intent on finding the missing gnome. It was then that I noticed that the others were missing. I was considering whether it was worth calling the cops for the theft of a few cheap yard gnomes when I turned and my light reflected off something white in the side yard.
I rounded the corner cautiously, not wanting to piss myself if some prankster youths jumped out from my shrubs. There were no youths, just the three errant gnomes. The trio faced into the center of a circle as if they were conversants at a cocktail party. I looked around, in case this prank was being caught on some sort of candid camera. Not that I would be able to see the conspirators in the darkness, for I didn’t want to go shining my light into the neighboring properties. So I shrugged and went back in the house leaving the gnomes to their silent cabal.
The next morning, the gnomes were back in what— as far as I could tell— were their original positions.
*
Three nights ago, I came home hoping the prankster had gotten it all out of his system. But when my headlights washed over the front lawn, I gulped. One of the gnomes lie on his back. The other two stood gazing into each other’s eyes, one at the downed gnome’s feet and one at his head.
This is getting to be enough already, I’d thought.
Given the ominous tone of the latest prank, I didn’t venture outside to reset the gnomes that night. I had a largely sleepless night, wondering if this was more than a prank, if it was some sort of dire message. I put my sleepless night to good use devising my plan.
In the morning I found that two of the gnomes were back in their original positions and the third was missing altogether. That sealed it. I would move forward with my plan.
*
Two nights ago, I came home later than usual, having stopped at an electronics store to buy a video camera with night vision and a tripod. You’ll not be surprised to learn that one of the two remaining gnomes was smashed to shards while the other stood casually at its feet.
Anger now trumped fear, and I was prepared to catch the culprit in the act. Without turning on the light in the front room in order to avoid alerting my tormentor, I set up the tripod. In my bedroom, where nobody could observe me, I made sure the camera worked. I recorded the cat yawning and played it back. I cut the lights and made sure the night vision worked. I confirmed that I had sufficient memory for the entire night. Returning to the front room, I trained the camera on the gnome and gnome remnants. I checked and double-checked the power, memory, and the settings. Confident that all was set to capture the ne’er-do-well, I retired to bed for a sound night’s rest.
The next morning, I strode into the front room. I could see through my front window that the gnomes, broken and whole, were both gone from where they had lain, and that the camera’s red light was still showing recording in progress. I stopped the camera, confident I had captured the scallywag on video. I would call the police, and I would have the evidence I needed.
I pressed “play” and watched the green grainy video. There was nothing but stillness and the occasional branch trembling in the wind. In the interest of getting to work on time, I fast forwarded. When I was at eight times (8X) speed, I noticed there was and impression of movement, an inexplicable gradual shift of the standing gnome. The gnome shards also seemed to become faint, as if they were dissolving. I thought my eyes were playing tricks. At 32X speed, the standing gnome migrated itself out of the frame while the shards seemed to dissolve into thin air. No person or animal — other than a common squirrel– ever entered the frame.
Leaving the house that morning, hoping that the evil was now at an end, I was shocked to see that the remaining gnome hadn’t liberated itself from my property. It was right where I had set it years before. Unsettled and convinced that something wicked had taken up residence in my front yard. I grabbed an aluminum baseball bat from my garage and I swung hard into the gnome’s ear. The head flew off, revealing its hollow core. I must have looked like a madman to my neighbors as they went to work, gawking at me as I smashed the gnome to shards and then the shards to dust.
So you must be wondering why this is Part 1 and why there is further writing below. I just told you how to kill a rogue yard gnome. Did I?
*
Last night I came home to find a gnome sitting indignantly in the place of the gnome I had smashed that morning. It looked very much like the one that I had dashed to smithereens eleven hours before; except that instead of a big, beaming smile, its face was a scowl.
TO BE CONTINUED
the !n(tro)verted yogi 