Dear Readers,
I really screwed this one up. This column was supposed to be due at 3 p.m. on Monday (which is already a pretty generous deadline). Right now it is 6:12 on Monday.
What happened, you ask? The short answer is that I just plain forgot about it. The longer, more complex, more truthful answer is that I just plain forgot about it. Whoops.
So here's what I'm going to do: I've got some thoughts and scribblings lying around. Odds are that not one of them would be sufficient to sustain a humor column on its own, but cobbled together they just might work. So that's what I'm going to try.
Remember that AIDS quilt from the '90s? This is going to be like that. All cobbled together, a mash-up of different pieces that don't really look good together, but that bring everyone to tears because the thought is so touching and Maya Angelou read a poem in front of it or something.
This column is going to be the 2008 version of the AIDS quilt. Except instead of raising awareness for AIDS, it'll raise awareness of my crappy memory. But in all other ways, it's exactly the same.
The first piece of the quilt: Right now there's a billboard on North Charles Street, just north of Penn Station, that's advertising for the Baltimore Opera. Here is the exact text of the billboard: "Opera. It's better than you think. It has to be." Is it just me, or does that ad reek of the purest and most blatant form of desperation? The implied final line is "Because we know you think that opera is the stupidest thing ever." Perhaps the same ad agency could put up political ads such as "Mike Huckabee. He's less crazy than you think. He has to be." Or perhaps an ad for Alaskan tourism: "Getting mauled by a bear. Come on. It can't hurt that much."
Next piece of the quilt: Two weekends ago I flew out of town for a couple of days. The stars must have been in alignment, because I found myself sitting in the exit row - in the aisle seat. For anyone who doesn't know, this means extra leg room. It's magnificent. Any exit row seat is great, but the exit row aisle seat is basically the holy grail of air travel.
In honor of the occasion, I wrote six haikus before take-off. Here they are:
Haiku One:
In the exit row
I stretch my legs, Oh! The joy!
While others suffer
Haiku Two:
If this plane goes down
I'd save lives, be the hero.
All that, and leg room.
Haiku Three:
God, I don't ask for
much. So just one favor: all
rows should be exits.
Haiku Four:
Flight attendant, skip
The nuts. I'm busy doing
Yoga in my seat.
Haiku Five:
Doing the can-can
On an aeroplane? Who knew?!
I'm now a seat snob.
Haiku Six:
I can stretch and twist
And cross my legs if I please.
Suck on that, first class!
The final piece of the quilt: I recently made an appointment at the health center to get tested for STDs - all of them. I have no reason to believe that I have an STD, but there just comes a time in a man's life when he realizes with mild pride and complete terror that he should probably get tested for everything under the sun.
The receptionist told me that my appointment is with "Allegra." Something tells me that Allegra is not a man. Barring the possibility that I have an appointment with an allergy medication, Allegra is probably a woman.
This brings up all sorts of embarrassing possible scenarios. Is there such a thing as a happy ending after someone has swabbed the inside of your urethra? Probably not.
Well that's my quilt. Might we have a poem, Maya?
