Redecorating the Ocean

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: I am tired of the color of the sea.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: It’s boring. Let’s jazz that sucker up.

ME: Isn’t the ocean different colors in different places?

MY BRAIN: I guess. But it defaults to that bluey-green. It’s blue and the sky is blue. It’s so derivative.

ME: I’m afraid you’ll have to just put up with it. You can’t exactly paint the ocean.

MY BRAIN: No, of course you can’t. That would be stupid.

ME: All right then. (Tries to work.)

MY BRAIN: I’m going to need about four quintillion Skittles.

ME: …

MY BRAIN: I figure if we divide them out into maybe eight parts and take them to strategic spots, we can let them go and the tides will do the rest. A few weeks of currents and we’ll have a nice Skittlefied sea.

ME: You can’t Skittle the ocean.

MY BRAIN: No, YOU can’t Skittle the ocean because you won’t think big and take risks. On the other hand, I am a mover and a shaker. Besides, think of all the advantages.

ME: I’m pretty sure there no —

MY BRAIN: Sure there are. We could color code every body of water. Screw longitude and latitude. You could sail from orange to blue.

ME: Wait a minute. You just said you were tired of the sea being blue.

MY BRAIN: That was that dull greeny-blue. I’m talking about a nice artificial color chemical bright blue. Something with some attitude. SASSY OCEAN!

ME: Uh-huh.

MY BRAIN: And think of all the lives it would save. You’re out on a cruise ship, you accidentally fall overboard, and look, Skittles for miles. You eat Skittles, the sharks eat Skittles. Much safer for you.

ME: Oh yum, Skittles that have been marinating in salt water for months.

MY BRAIN: BRINE, dummy, BRINE. Pickled Skittles. The preservation possibilities are endless. Shipwrecked sailors could write messages in Skittles on the sands of their islands. And if there was coral reef damage, no sweat. Skittle reefs.

ME: Skittle reefs.

MY BRAIN: Taste the ecologically-responsible rainbow.

Atlas Toked

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: So pot is legal in Colorado now.

ME: Yup.

MY BRAIN: And people are moving there specifically so they can smoke weed in peace.

ME: That’s what I hear.

MY BRAIN: It’s just like Atlas Shrugged when people were moving to Colorado.

ME: Exactly, if you consider pursuing unfettered capitalism and smoking pot to be the same thing.

MY BRAIN: They should redo the book then. Call it Atlas Toked.

ME: Um.

MY BRAIN: Of course, it would have to be only 420 pages long.

ME: It could probably do with some strategic editing.

MY BRAIN: And Dagny Taggart gets this roach and she spends half the book trying to figure out who rolled it.

ME: I always wondered what was in that cigarette.

MY BRAIN: A is A… but have you ever really, REALLY looked at A?

ME: I shudder to think what John Galt’s speech would sound like.

MY BRAIN: And instead of everyone asking “Who is John Galt,” they would ask “Who is John Galt, *and where did he get that great shit?*”

ME: I’m not sure what Rand would think of that.

MY BRAIN: Hey, she was all in favor of smoking. And she never said smoking what.

Pride and CookieCrisp

ME: (Trying to work, reading a list of book titles)

MY BRAIN: Pride and Cookie Crisp.

ME, DOING A DOUBLE-TAKE: No, Pride and Prejudice.

MY BRAIN: Pride and Cookie Crisp.

ME: How are you getting Cookie Crisp out of Prejudice?

MY BRAIN: They sound the same.

ME: Not really.

MY BRAIN: And I want to read something more interesting. “Oh, Heathcliff, I stay crunchy even in milk!”

ME: First of all, that’s Wuthering Heights. Second, we need to get this list sorted.

MY BRAIN: Fine. Snap, Crackle, and Mr. Darcy.

ME: …

MY BRAIN: I’ll bet you ten dollars he stays crunchy in milk.

ME: Would you please knock it off? We’ve got to get this list done, I have ten thousand things to do.

MY BRAIN: Fine.

ME: Fine. Pride and –

MY BRAIN: Captain Crunch.

Karen Carpenter and Odin

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: Why do birds suddenly appear / every time you are near?

ME: Hey. No hating on Karen Carpenter.

MY BRAIN: I’m not hating. I’m worried about her.

ME: Probably unnecessary.

MY BRAIN: Dear Karen, I don’t think you understand that being stalked by birds is not a normal human experience.

ME: Do you think she can hear you?

MY BRAIN: Unless you fill your pockets with seed and bathe in Eau De Millet, birds aren’t going to pay that much attention to you.

ME: I’m pretty sure Karen Carpenter couldn’t care less about this topic.

MY BRAIN: Yup, Karen, pretty much what you got there is a classic case of bird perv. Or.

ME: Oh, Lord. Or.

MY BRAIN: It was Odin.

ME: What?

MY BRAIN: It was Odin and his ravens. Huginn and Muninn probably got tired of going all over the world, and so they decided to focus on one really cool person, so they picked Karen Carpenter. And then Odin decided he liked her, and they started going out.

ME: I always figured Karen Carpenter would be more of a Thor person.

MY BRAIN: And obviously she’s not going to brag about dating Odin, so she just referred to the birds, and figured we’d all get it.

ME: We all didn’t get it.

MY BRAIN: Well, *I* did. Also there was that other hint.

ME: I don’t recall any other songs about birds.

MY BRAIN: The following year she released that song “Rainy Days and Muninn”. She must have broken up with Odin by that point.

ME: I’m going to have to rethink my stance on medicating you.

MY BRAIN: Of course Muninn’s always been kind of a dick.

How About You Ram Those Spoons, Prufrock

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: TS Eliot, you old bastard.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: Measuring your life out in coffee spoons? How posh. How first world. I am measuring out my life in plastic swizzle sticks from McDonald’s and you’re bitching about spoons.

ME: Hello?

MY BRAIN: HOW ABOUT YOU RAM THOSE SPOONS, PRUFROCK.

ME: I am sensing some anger here.

MY BRAIN: In the room the women come and go, talking of Family Guy episodes.

ME: Not quite how the line goes, I think.

MY BRAIN: Guy lived in an oil painting and all he can do is complain. Spoons. I would love to measure out my life in spoons. Instead I start measuring it out in swizzlers and get it all over the table. I have to scoop my life up off the floor using the five second rule.

ME: Disturbingly literal, yet almost impossible to visualize.

MY BRAIN: My life has floor cooties all over it.

ME: You could get a spoon.

MY BRAIN: But I need spoons plural.

ME: You could go to Starbucks. They have spoons. And sugar and things.

MY BRAIN:

Would it have been worth while,
To have given them my order with a smile,
To have squeezed my wants into a brief talk
And rattled it off like a caffeine-starved parrot,
To say: “Venti half-caf extra whip
with a shot of peppermint to top it off,”
If the barista, handing me a red-eye,
Should say, “That is not what I heard at all.
That is not it, at all.”

ME: Cool. Do one for Dunkin’ Donuts.

MY BRAIN: No. I heard the mermaids singing, each to each, and they were doing an aria called “Knock it off with the pastries.”

ME: Sounds like you’re stuck with the swizzlers for now.

MY BRAIN: When I do get around to disturbing the universe I’ll poke it with a sharpened coffee stirrer.

ME: That’ll learn it.

TS Eliot’s Love-Song is slightly different.

Chitlins and Surrealism

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: I want to be Minnie Pearl Laurie Anderson.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: I want to come out in a white suit wearing a garish hat festooned with price tags and old electronics and I want to say “HOW-DEE!” and then my voice would get all deep and I would say, “I’m just so proud to be here.”

ME: You are reaching new heights of weird.

MY BRAIN: And I would do a song called “O Superman, Bless Your Heart,” and the b-side would be called “Uncle Nabob’s Day.”

ME: Um…

MY BRAIN: And I would do performance art pieces about Grinder’s Switch but instead of William Burroughs I would have Jerry Clower.

ME: I’m pretty sure he’s dead.

MY BRAIN: Holographic Jerry Clowers. CLOWERGRAMS.

ME: You’re scaring me.

MY BRAIN: I have always, always been for the successful fusion of chitlins and surrealism.

ME: …

MY BRAIN: I’m sorry it’s taken you this long to realize that.

Goose Goes Barefooted

ME, TALKING TO A CO-WORKER: We have to secure that shelf or it is going to fall over as sure as a goose goes barefooted.

(Later)

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: YEE-HAW!

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: As sure as a goose goes barefooted!

ME: Oh crap, here we go.

MY BRAIN: As sure as a giraffe has neckbones!

ME: …

MY BRAIN: As sure as a frog has a waterproof ass!

ME: Would you please shut up?

MY BRAIN: I’m not the one talking like Minnie Pearl’s mom.

The Good Ship

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: They said it was a good ship.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: The good ship Bounty.

ME: Yes. In the book it was the good ship HMS Bounty.

MY BRAIN: I call bullshit.

ME: Why?

MY BRAIN: Because who said they were good? What about anybody they shot a cannon at? Good is too subjective. We need qualifiers.

ME: Okayyyyy…

MY BRAIN: “The Good Ship, Though You’re Welcome to Have a Different Opinion and We Want to Be Inclusive, HMS Bounty.”

ME: That wouldn’t fit on the side.

MY BRAIN: Fine. You can do it in initials. The Good Ship TURIW HMS Bounty.

ME: TU –

MY BRAIN: Though Upon Reflection I Worry. The Good Ship ETOT HMS Bounty.

ME: And that means… ?

MY BRAIN: Except That One Time.

ME: What one time?

MY BRAIN: I don’t want to talk about it.

ME: …

MY BRAIN: At least I don’t need any of that. I am just The Good Brain, Brain.

ME: How come “good” is too subjective for a ship but just fine for you?

MY BRAIN: First, I don’t have cannon. Second, could any brain but a good one be this interesting?

Truly Outrageous

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: I don’t think she did anything THAT outrageous.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: Truly outrageous. Truly truly truly outrageous. And yet nothing even controversial comes to mind.

ME: It WAS a kid’s cartoon.

MY BRAIN: Did she gather cell phone data on The Misfits?

ME: I don’t think so.

MY BRAIN: Did she mismanage the whole American structure of home mortgaging?

ME: She wore some interesting outfits.

MY BRAIN: Unless I missed the episode where she was fined by the FCC for a nip slip, that doesn’t count.

ME: I don’t recall that one.

MY BRAIN, SINGING: Jem is somewhat mildly interesting, somewhat somewhat somewhat mildly interesting…

ME: That’s a little tougher to sing.

MY BRAIN: But honest.

That One Time

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: Do you remember that one time?

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: That one time.

ME: What?

MY BRAIN: When that thing happened that one time.

ME: Huh?

MY BRAIN: And you said those words.

ME: Um…

MY BRAIN: Wow. I’ll never forget that. That one time.

ME: What are you talking about?

MY BRAIN: And when we have Chinese food it’ll be that wonton time.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: And when we’re tired it’ll be that wan time.

ME: Grrr…

MY BRAIN: And when we spend money in South Korea it’ll be that won time.

ME: You are beltsanding my last nerve.

MY BRAIN: And when we watch Star Wars it’ll be that Obi-Wan time.

ME: Are you finished yet?

MY BRAIN: Just about. And when we get a bump on our heads it’ll be that wen time.

ME: I need to feed you less simple carbohydrates.

MY BRAIN: And right now? It’s that one wonton wan won Obi-Wan wen time.

ME: …

MY BRAIN: GOOD TIMES!