Monthly Archives: December 2003

Today at the gym, the instructor introduced a particularly grueling exercise and said, in honor of last week’s holiday, “We’ll call this one Pie-B-Gone.” After the glimpse I’d caught in the locker room of the tiny love handles that weren’t there this time last week—I actually thought I saw Jesus in one of them but then realized it was just a freckle—I redoubled my efforts with Pie-B-Gone. Wish me luck in getting results.

Then I started thinking about the time when this woman [link no longer active] took the summer musical theater writing class I was co-teaching. One day there was a guest instructor who introduced us to the principles and practice of sketch comedy; one thing we had to do was come up with a commercial for a product. She and I were paired for the exercise, and we came up with an idea for a product that I still think somebody ought to put on the market. It was called Enemy-B-Gone, and it was a machete. The commercial included several illustrations of the various uses of Enemy-B-Gone; all of these illustrations are long gone from the sieve that is my memory, but I do remember our tag line, which was “Enemy-B-Gone. Because some people just deserve to have their heads chopped off.”

It’s occurring to me now that what would really sell, though, is a two-in-one product: Pie-‘n’-Enemy-B-Gone.

Does anybody have any contacts at the U.S. Patent Office?

I am now back from western Maryland, having survived a week in the middle of nowhere with this man, his dog, his boyfriend, his boyfriend’s sister, my dog, and some very scary movies. On the drive back, we passed a site on which someone was rebuilding Noah’s Ark. We knew the structure was Noah’s Ark because of the sign that said, “Noah’s Ark Being Rebuilt Here.”

The thing is, we passed the very same structure with the very same sign on our way back from western Maryland when we went last year. And it was in the very same state of completion.

Clearly, somebody has been falling down on the job.

I mean, come on. How long can you really think it’ll be before God destroys the world again in a flood the likes of which hasn’t been seen on earth for millenia?

Except wait. The whole point of the damn rainbow after the flood was over was the covenant God made with Noah that He would never destroy the world in a flood ever again. So what the hell is the point of rebuilding Noah’s Ark?

I guess the builder came to that very same realization.

Too bad he was out all that lumber already.