Matryoshka is full of herself

He walked up to the teller’s window and said I want to check my balance. So she pushed him over. He said, leave me a loan. I’m really an archeologist, she replied. My career is in ruins. Don’t go, he begged. At least stay long enough for a proper goodbye. But she was gone without further adieu. Distraught, he decided to end it all. He went shopping for arsenic, all the while singing I’m Getting Semimetal Over You. He rejected our offer of a free coffin, saying that’s the last thing I need. It was left to us to barium.

Don't get all pithy

What makes most famous quotes memorable is judicious editing. Like when Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” what most people don’t know is that Plato piped up right away with, “Dude, you got that half right.” Or when MacArthur left Corregidor what he actually said was, “I shall return… when it’s safe.” Finally, it has often been reported that Charlie Chaplin once said, “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman, and a pretty girl.” Most sources leave out the next part, where he said, “And a camera. Somebody should bring a camera.”

Mussel up. Clam down.

Life can be worrisome but I hate to think of you sitting there fretting. Try to relax; I’ll talk you down. Here are some things that might or might not happen that would not require you to feel the vaguest inkling of concern or even interest:  To reinvigorate the downtown business district, they could hold a bus-stop sign redesign competition. IHOP could introduce a new syrup. Lapels could get wide again. They might have a library fine amnesty. Or that one guitar player from Rush might announce that he’s starting a new band with those three other guys from Aerosmith.

Hereby resolved

I’m thinking of words that lack opposites. Like reckless, for example. Turns out the word reck comes from the same root as reckon, so reckless means without consideration, without thinking. Feckless? Feck is short for effect, so fecklessness achieves nothing. Feck is also a second word that is spelled and pronounced exactly the same, defeating the whole purpose of language. It’s a minced oath along with dang, heck, shoot, and corksoaker, a bottling worker responsible for the thorough wetting of stoppers. Anyway, this year I intend to be more reckful, feckful, sheveled, and gruntled. And especially gormful. Always extra gormful.