OMWHFTGTM (c’mon, you can figure it out) (it’s pronounced “ahm-hwhift-GIT-um”, accent on the third syllable; if placed on the first, it means something entirely different that isn’t appropriate for my demographic), I saw a pinkish-orange rose lying in the rain on the wet pavement, its petals splayed every which way like the limbs of a fresh murder victim awaiting a chalk outline. I wanted to take a picture of it, but decided it would be too trite. “Oh, look. It’s symbolic somehow, in a way that I can’t quite identify. But it’s, like, pretty and sad at the same time.”
I wanted to take a picture of the Empire State Building in the rain, its hypodermic needle disappearing into the flesh of the fog, but that seemed trite too.
I didn’t see any dead umbrellas lying, mangled and twisted, in the street or in any trashcans, their curved handles resembling the necks of strangled ducks hanging in a Chinatown window. I was glad, because I knew that if I did, I would remember that day in the late spring of this year when the umbrella I was carrying blew out one too many times, and I yelled at it, “That’s it! I’ve had it with you!”, and before I knew it, I was actually wrestling with it, choking it, twisting its neck until it could no longer gasp, and discarded its broken and bruised body into the nearest trashcan. OMWHFTGTM (the second “T” is different here — again, figure it out), I walked home along a different route, because I knew that if I passed by the trashcan and the umbrella was still in there, I would get all sad and have to rescue it and bring it home to live with the three or four other crippled umbrellas in the front closet.
I was reminded of the chair/stool I found back in January, which every day thanks me for rescuing it, even though its sole function is to hold the throw pillows I remove from the bed before I go to sleep. (Hey, it’s still a function. If it weren’t for the chair, the pillows would be on the floor, which would definitely piss them off.)
And it all conspired to compel me to “share” this cartoon, which is so “me” I can barely stand it.
I told you I love french fries.