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Squid #378
(published April 17, 2008)
Ask the Giant Squid: Clean it up yourself, Mr. President!
Who is Poor Mojo's Giant Squid?
Dear Giant Squid,

There is this boy who is the class president in my grade. We never really got along before, but were not enemies. One day our school went on a field trip, ate at a restaurant, and left a HUGE mess. A group of my friends and I were sitting down, having cleaned up our mess. The "popular kids" were playing pool and had NOT cleaned up their tables. "Mr. President" comes up to us and starts bossing us, telling us to clean up! I, half-serious half-joking say "Clean it up yourself Mr. President!" Then, he starts cursing at me, calling me a "dumb ass and a bitch!! I was speechless! Now he makes fun of me behind my back, glares at me in the hallways, and makes my life MISERABLE!! What should I do???? HELP!!!

unsigned


Dearest Nameless School Citizen,

Presidents, as a species, are ever a bilious, feckless, choleric, morallyenfeebled, and vengeful lot, generally either overtly lacking or overly characterized by sang-froid (myself excluded). As such, you are well advised to retain your anonymity, as you have elected to do here. This, I applaud.

As to the solutions of your problem, I can readily recall four instances, American Historical in nature, which may be of some utility in putting this matter to rest.

HOW THE COLONISTS THREW OFF PRESIDENTIAL SHACKLES

I fear that this particular anecdote may be somewhat obscure, so please bear with me. Once upon a time the great city of Boston was a favored tourist attraction for the wealthy and hard-drinking Native American populations west of the Appalachian Mountains. Annoyed at the taxes and levies placed upon their many decks of cards, pints of ale, schooners of tea, and sundry souvenir stuffed animals by the British Presidents of these Colonies, the Native Americans planned a boycott, during which they would visit not the Cheers Bar, nor the New England Aquarium, nor the Old North Church, nor any other famed and profitable attractions — apart from the Brewer of Sam Adams, where card-carrying Native Americans drink for half-the-price on Thursdays. On that cold, snowy evening, as the Native American's blood alcohol levels slowly climbed, a single cell phone chirped in the dim pub, alerting an inebriated Brave to the formation of a flash mob. Word spread quickly, and the several tribes present worked to hastily disguise themselves as Congressmen, and then headed to the harbor. There they arranged a great plenitude of small tables at which were seated many dolls, to which they then mockingly served tea, scones, crumpets, and cigars. This obvious jibe at their love of porcelain dolls infuriated the British Presidents, who quit the island of America for 190 years, only to eventually return in the company of four giant insects. But, even so reinforced, they were still unable to wrest control of the land from the noble, drunken Americans who lovingly rule us to this day.

DESTROYING THE COLOSSUS

I cannot guarantee the complete and factual accuracy of the following account, as I have pieced it together from a variety of sources. But, of this much, we can be certain: On this very day, 143 years past — April the 14 of 1865 — the dreaded earth-walking Spider God, Abraham Lincoln, did decide to rest on his laurels. Having already smashed the South so very thoroughly that their dentition and standardized-test scores still bear the marks to this very day — not to mention having stolen from them many millions of dollars in valuable slaves — this strange goliath thought he might "take the easy" for an evening's entertainment. He elected to attend a fine performance of an execrable comedy, Our American Cousin, and reclined in his box seat, tipping back his stovepipe crown to a jaunty angle and extending his 17-foot-long legs over the cowering crowd below. Seven-tenths of the way through the performance, Admiral Johanna Wilkes Booth — whose dentition and slave portfolio had suffered mightily under Lincoln's exquisite iron boots and searing ruby fist — leapt from beneath Lincoln's chair, vociferously proclaiming that the American cousin, Asa Trenchard, was in fact a woman named Rosebud, father to Luke, a phantom child-psychologist made of soylent green, and that the Planet of the Apes was, truly, earth all along. The spoiler proved fatal to Lincoln.

WITH THE LIBERAL APPLICATION OF THE MAKE-UP

Alternately, consider what I understand is a yearly tradition in the American West of ColoRadios. In this large, rectilinear state, the schoolchildren gather annually to address their grievances in the Massacring of the the Columbines. As you no doubt well know, the Columbine is a delicately-petaled vegetable sex organ, known for its arrogance and lack of regard for others. What might be less clear to you, depending upon the region of the nation from which you hail, is that "Massacre-ing" is a common "folkish" pronunciation of the more common gerund "Mascara-ing". If my many and assorted assumptions, half-hearings and crypto-imaginings are correct (they have yet to fail to me), I surmise that this festivals focuses on the ritual painting black of the sex organ — in your case, The Vaginum Minorum (which is, as I hear tell, behind the lapelia, which is the collar of a fine jacket or trench coat) — as a preceding to the public airing of grievances. Such Columbine Mascaraing was, at one time, thought to balance the unbalance that comes between groups, sexes, and societies in the High School Americanum, although the efficacy of the tradition has come somewhat into question in the intervening years. I believe schoolchildren are now taught to keep their grievances bottled up on the inside, although on this, I cannot speak with authority.

A COMPLETELY TRUE RECORD OF EVENTS

Finally, consider the following events. One time, President Billiam Clinton was in the vast, friscallant, and feculent burgh of Las Vegas. His teeth twisted and grey, his intelligence shoddy and unreliable, and economically depressed by the dip in the value of his slave holdings following their governmental seizure, he sought for the inebriates. Entering a Native American brew-pubbery, he began to drink heartily (Presidents drink for half-the-price on Thursdays in Native alcohol dispensaries). Quickly and inexplicably, he became exceedingly inebriated. At this time, his recollections became fuzzfull, but he seemed to later recall going in the company of a woman — possibly an American cousin — to her room or rooms, where-in she did perform a burlesque, paint her genitals and the lapels of her tenchant coat, and he lost all consciousness. Hours later, he awoke in the bathing tub. The tub was full of ice and water, which caused his testicles to ache mightily. After showering and dressing, he discovered that one of his kidneys — previously within his body and to the left — was now without his body and in parts unknown (it would later be discovered that it had been installed in Strom Thurmond in an attempt to communicate to the dodecagenarian some portion of Billiam's legendary potency). Upon return to Washington Deca, Clinton grudgingly signed the Contract on America, and ceased forcing the Republican Senate to clean his leavings after meals.

I offer these as illustrative examples. While it is clear that none contain a template, per se, for your resolution, I believe each does have its own quaint strengths. Although I am generally noted for my reserve and subtlety, I would advise you to, in this case, go "hole the hog": Put on your fancy coat, paint your genitalia and lapels, drink your beers, then mock this President's dainty and caffeinated dolly libations, perform for him an execrable drama, and steal and sell his kidneys. Only in this manner can he learn.

I Remain Blessedly Ex-Presidential, and Yet Still,
Your Giant Squid
Editor-in-Chief

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