Rantics

By DANA MUELLER

It’s been a slow week

Only the third week, and I am already out of ideas! Damn! I do not want to complain about something for a while, I need to keep that fresh. Maybe I could write an intelligent column, one that really might say something?

I ask people for suggestions, and I get some really funny ones, but they just would not be so funny to the general public. I mean, how much can I really say about toe fungus, sweaty palms, or the not-so-great smell of Old Spice after shave?

“Hey, man, I want to laugh. What the hell is all this crap?”

If anyone feels the pressure, it’s me, the writer. I wish I could strike literary gold each week, but it is just so hard to do with a schedule so packed. Let’s see, I have to oversleep, then wake up and sit on the couch for a while contemplating why I ever decided to take a class before noon. Then there is the on-going struggle with bodily maintenance and feeding myself, which is a real drag: showering, shaving, and . . . uh, relieving myself. Then realizing that I am brushing my teeth with my finger this morning because I dropped my toothbrush on the dormitory bathroom floor. Then I have to start looking through my drawers for my idiot costume of the day. I strap that on, check myself out in the mirror, and fully understand why my girlfriend can never leave me: I will be a lonely, lonely, poorly dressed young man. Lastly, I put on a hat because I have given up on the whole hair cutting idea, it is just too much effort.

Anyway, with all of these daily rituals, it must not be difficult to imagine the rough time I have writing a coherent sentence. I could lose all coherency at any second. Far down: $% just about, in out or on www.org funny happy time?! (See what I mean!?) It is just this sort of thing that keeps a column from being written. If I spend so much time thinking for the first 15 minutes of my day, how the hell am I supposed to write a column? How did I ever start doing this? Where am I? Who are all these people staring at me? And who in God’s name is P-Diddy?

I can remember a better time during my earlier youth, during the prepubescent years of Easter suits and Superman underpants. Yes, this was the time of life when days felt like hours and hours felt like days. I could spring out of bed at seven in the morning, and feel like I was on the top of my game, batting a thousand, winning rookie of the year on my own personal team of me, myself and I. Mornings were great! There was cereal and mom, and sometimes pancakes and orange juice. These things were all very exciting and fantastic.

Where did that feeling go? No, not to the nudie bar with Uncle Sid. It left when I realized that Conan O’Brien is a very funny man, and that the nighttime was the right time! Soon, orange juice was not just for breakfast anymore and there was not really any fairy figure giving me money for my teeth. Nothing was the same, my mom started bringing home very boring and uneventful underwear, and the spring that had previously spurred me on into the morning’s excitement, was broken. (The method of repair is still unknown.) Maybe I could go to bed sooner, but then again, Conan O’Brian could come on earlier.

Thank you for reading, and remember, just say no to drugs.