Irrelevant Cheetah

Deep within the depths of Mount Disturbing, you are imprisoned. You have traveled far, through the perils of the Lint Trap Jungle, and have managed to infiltrate the underground lair of Dr. Nichtsogut, the evil genius bent on taking over the world and broadcasting Newlyweds reruns non-stop. However, you stupidly walked into a trap he had baited with tapioca pudding and a back issue of Omni magazine, and now you are hanging helplessly twenty feet above a pool of sharks. Hungry sharks. With lots of pointy teeth.

Struggling mightily, however, you manage to free yourself and escape the Shark Room, and utilizing a combination of secret ninja moves and a plethora of witty one-liners you locate the shut-off switch to his Doomsday Device. Just as the conveniently-placed timer is about to reach 00:00:00, you reach for the switch. At that precise moment, however, you brush a strategically-placed platypus on the control panel. Immediately your throat swells up, preventing you from breathing, and you collapse to the floor, unconscious and thus unable to witness the destruction of the world’s collective I.Q.

How many times has the aforementioned scenario happened to you? If you’re like me, it’s never happened to you, but you worry about it constantly. (On a side note, if you’re like me, you’re probably plagued by a host of other problems, for which I am deeply, deeply sorry.)

Other problems aside, however, you can avoid this situation. At great personal expense, I have created Allergall™. At further great personal expense I expect to come up with a better name.

To put it simply, Allergall™ will tell you about all of your allergies. If you do happen to be allergic to platypus dander, this miracle product will tell you so, before that knowledge (or lack thereof) could adversely affect your ability to deactivate Dr. Nichtsogut’s Doomsday Device. Just think what a difference a Benadryl™ tab in your secret agent fanny pack could have made in this situation. (On another side note, if you’re still wearing a fanny pack, then you have no business trying to save the world. Let’s get your fashion sense out of the ‘80s first and get you into a first-class Batman-style utility belt.)

If you’re like me (once again, I apologize) a good portion of your day is spent wondering about all of the things you might be allergic to. Platypus dander? I don’t know. Albatross down? Your guess is as good as mine. But now, with Allergall™, you need wonder no more! Using state-of-the-art technology and really tiny needles, this product will introduce into your system the possibly-allergic-reaction-causing substances from no less than 150,000 different kinds of animals and almost that many plants. Once histamine formation in your body begins, the (patent-pending) stainless steel helmet (googly eyes not included) will analyze your reactions (read: sneezes) and determine your probable allergen level, as well as the probable cause. Probably.

So order now! Against my better judgment, this product is compatible with all versions of Windows, except that stupid Vista™ nonsense. New plug-and-play technology encourages ease of use, and if you act now, allergens from any future animal discoveries will be sent to you at no charge.

So, before you save the world: Allergall™!

ASIM turned it down. Didn’t take long, did it?

On the positive side, however, the readers did have some critiques for me, so I can decide whether to fix the problems (some of them were just embarrassingly obvious) or to just trash the story and take up banking.

Odd how things come together sometimes.

WordVixen turned me on to Simon Haynes and his Hal SpaceJock series of books. Although I have never read any of his books, I immediately liked his blog and started to read it regularly. He often mentions that he is an editor/slushpile reader for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, a small publication that is printed in Australia. Interesting factoid, but nothing more, I thought. Oh – and I entered the drawings to win his current books, which aren’t sold in the US yet.

I also started reading 101 Reasons to Stop Writing (also in my blogroll.) About a week ago 101 Reasons began posting a three-part interview with Haynes and other slushpile readers for – you guessed it: Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Apparently it’s a vague, weird, three-part process, going through several stages, in order for a story to get accepted and printed in the magazine.

So I did the only thing I could: I submitted a story. I won a free issue from one of Simon’s drawings, and after reading it I realized that I write that sort of stuff. I ignored all of the voices telling me to stop, carefully followed ASIM’s submission guidelines exactly, and submitted one of my own, recent stories.

Here’s where it gets good. I just got notice that “The Fixers” has passed the first round of slushpile tests. ASIM is very good at keeping authors informed throughout the submission process as to how their work is doing. I realize it’s a stretch yet before it’s actually accepted/published, but I’m still jazzed. Wish me luck.

I can’t decide if I love or hate the mailman. He’s a nice guy, I’m sure, with absolutely no predilection for kicking puppies or committing mass murder with a fully automatic weapon. But it takes forever for him to let me know that I’m either (a) published or (b) still an unknown wannabe.

Like most writers and wannabe writers, I think, I hate the long response times from publishers. I hate that it will take ten weeks to find out if Ms. Smith at Knitting America liked my story about a serial scarf murderer.

Note to self: must pursue that story idea. It’s kinda twisted and just might work.

So I keep checking the mailbox, and have a new submission packet all ready to go to another market in case my latest gem of prose is rejected, for one reason or another.

The one pro to all of this is that because your work is tied up sitting in a slushpile somewhere, if you want to continue to pursue new writing opportunities, you have to continue to write. It’s that simple. Wanna be published, but “Joe and the Monster” is tied up at Magazine XYZ for the next three months? Then write another story for submission elsewhere.

I have to admit, it works. Sure, I’d like to place all of my eggs in one basket and hope that my latest story wins the Nebula Award, but until I find out, I’d better keep writing other stuff.

Now as to whether that other stuff is any good, well…

how if you don’t post for a while, you feel like poop. Guilty, even. So you try to justify it: “I won’t post unless I have something worthwhile to say,” you tell yourself.

Next you’ll be telling yourself, “I can stop anytime I want to,” right? So you end up making a post like this one, wishing you had even a crappy YouTube video you could share.

Oh, well. No wonder nobody reads this crap.

Two houses down from us is what you could call a “house of ill-repute,” if you were feeling kindly. If you weren’t feeling so kindly (and I never am), you could call it “the house where the couple routinely shoots crystal meth and drink until they fall down or hurt each other, whichever comes first.” As you may have guessed, I don’t live in the Hamptons.

Yesterday I was sitting on the porch, watching my son riding his bike, when I heard the now-familiar mating call of the meth-whore: “You’re going to jail! I’m tired of this s***! I’m leaving!”

Without warning I looked up to see a truly frightening human (I think) female stalking up my walkway and coming directly towards me. Before I had a chance to retreat, she was less than six feet away. “Can I use your phone?”

My synapses raced like an Olympic-class relay team as I frantically tried to figure out how to prevent her mouth from coming within twenty feet of my phone receiver.
“Uh, my phone’s not working right now,” I replied. Obviously, in the clutch, brilliance fails me.

“Oh,” she said, slowly, clearly trying to wrap her brain around the concept of a non-functional phone. “So I can’t use it?”

“Nope. Not working.” For some reason I felt more clarification was in order. “Hasn’t been working for a day or so now.”

“Well, can I just stand here for a minute?”

At this point, several different things were going through my mind. First and foremost, I was expecting a phone call from my wife at about that exact time, so this little voice was screaming telepathically please don’t call please don’t call please don’t call. I didn’t expect her to hear it; in the past I’ve telepathically asked her for things ranging from beer to a jug of Neosporin to a DeLorean, with no luck yet.

I was also thinking that retreat into the house was no longer an option, since the boy had stopped his bike ride and was heading up to the house to see who Dad was talking to, and I would rather leave him alone with a cobra with PMS.

The last thing going through my mind was that the damn dog had immediately decided that this was a new person who would probably be qualified for ball-throwing duties. Real guard dog, that one. Without so much as a “woof!” he pranced up to her and offered her his prized tennis ball.

“Oh, aren’t you cute!?” slobbered the meth-whore. She took the ball from his mouth and, with a herculean effort, tossed it about ten feet away. I made a mental note to bleach the tennis ball later.

There was an uncomfortable silence as the dog retrieved the ball. Upon his return, she made no move to take it from him, and I assumed she was probably exhausted from her previous effort.

After about two minutes of this, I stood up. “Let’s go inside and get ready,” I said to my son and the dog.

“Where are we going?” he asked (my son, not the dog.)

“We have to go see Mommy, remember?” At this point, I would have promised him an off-season trip to see Santa Claus, if it would have enabled me to extricate the three of us from this situation.

Luckily, he decided not to argue, and he and the dog followed me through the front door. Feeling rather like Lot’s wife, I risked a look behind me.

Apparently my brilliant social skills and survival instincts had paid off: she turned without a word and slithered back in the direction from whence she had come. I may not be able to walk at the moment, but at least I can rest tonight, assured that I am still capable of rescuing my family from whatever truly frightening things might come their way.

Just call me The Protector.

Yesterday morning I went to see a podiatrist about the little Nodule of Pain and Suffering that has been the bane of my ambulatory existence for several months now. For reasons which I am not free to discuss, podiatrists are uniquely qualified to identify signs of extraterrestrial technology.  Sure enough, he confirmed my initial suspicions that there was actually an alien implant inside of my foot. Though implants are supposed to be inconspicuous, apparently this one had been placed by a rookie alien, perhaps freshly-graduated from his cattle mutilation position. Either that, or it was a plantar wart. I wasn’t listening.

At any rate, after his examination, the doctor offered to remove the source of my agony, to which I readily acquiesced. He first numbed the foot with a mixture of Freon and liquid nitrogen, after which he injected 2 liters of horse anesthetic with the medical equivalent of a Cuisinart. Then, using a coping saw and an ice cream scoop, he deftly popped the offending Nodule out and brandished it toward the sky like a Roman gladiator saluting Caesar.  He then proceeded to scrape and clean and scrape some more as I thanked the Crocodile God that I was numb down there. After reminding me cheerfully that “All bleeding stops eventually,” he artfully made my foot resemble that of Cheops, gave me some anti-alien/anti-infection gel, and sent me on my way.

There is now a hole in the bottom of my foot large enough to hold a silver dollar and a pack of gum. Apparently my insurance plan only covers painkillers in the event of involuntary amputation, so I am currently hopped up on Advil and Yuban, an interesting combination. I fully expect the Little Blue People from Orion to be visiting soon, trying to discover why they are no longer able to track the migratory and beer-purchasing habits of the Alaskan Geek.