The Flyswatter

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Monday March 27, 2006 · 6:49 PM PST

2006/03/27 · 18:49

Dear Reader(s), No author should presume his audience will be annoyed by seeming slight inconsistencies, or would even judge small painterly mots as worthy of serious notice. But insofar as possible, any author--consider the authors of "Nutrition Facts" on NISSIN Top Ramen packages as exemplars--strives for accuracy along with "the right word" because the audience deserves no less despite its forgiving grace and facile reading talents. Therefore I'm citing the SEEMING inconsistency between Entry 1 and yesterday's. You may have felt the action so far was set on a Sunday, yet in THE FLYSWATTER entered on March 26, 2006 there was clear mention of a typical Regis & Kelly broadcast--an ineffably merry show!--and Granny Pus's delight thereby. Your humble author had earlier mentioned inveterate Sunday drop-ins. Know now that in the Pus family home, the last of those parasites never clear out before late Tuesday morning. Stragglers might be in attendance at little baby Drew's christening party, but, to Aunt Kar, they Read More

The Flyswatter

MikeR

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Sunday March 26, 2006 · 5:15 PM PST

2006/03/26 · 17:15

Granny Pus craned her neck left, then she craned it right. There was Kelly Ripa dressed like a cowboy for the "Brokeback Mountain" interview she and Reeg were doing with a slightly abashed actor. Then there was little baby Andrew taking to flyswatting technique like Clyde on a ride. The boy was so good at demolishing ants and flies that he needed no encouragement, but from her seedy supine throne Granny pitched in anyway.
"Pretend them's bicycle riders! Swat! Swat! Swat! Pretend that one there's clogging up the street! Swat 'im! Pretend that one 'ere just ran a red. Smack!
Look at that fly on the stool! Geed 'im, Baby Drew! Swat! Swat!"
"Reeg!" Kelly was calling her co-host. She mugged straight at the camera, as if she were pouting right at Granny Pus.
"I wish my name was Drew," one of Andrew's uncles grumbled. It was Uncle Joe, JoJo's and John's oldest brother. Whenever he got drunk all his jealousy and resentment of his nephew rumbled out with the same words: "I wish my Read More

The Flyswatter

MikeR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday March 23, 2006 · 3:04 PM PST

2006/03/23 · 15:04

4 Granny Pus was worn out from the waiting. She lobbed her flyswatter to baby Andrew and said if his daddy wasn't dawdling like Dopey somewhere "I'da hadda big blue baptism boy ribbon on it for ya. Sure woulda, Baby Drew. Big and blue and shiny as a . . . uh . . ."
Worn out from the waiting. Andrew took the flyswatter as his own and fulfilled the mimetic urge which is the key to early education. He swung hard as his tiny arms allowed and smote three flies. It was something of a magical number, he thought to the extent his toddler's mind stretched. Unless Aunt Kar was home, he only got brief spates of affection and attention. His young intellect swung into operation again, recalling that his mother's gibberish was full of numbers, and the number three was her favorite. The ideational amalgam of love of mother, group extermination, and just-manifested mimesis prompted the feeling that something about Three was special. Ants were in the house always, but now they intruded upon the six proprietary Read More

The Flyswatter

MikeR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday March 21, 2006 · 9:59 PM PST

2006/03/21 · 21:59

3 Picking his nose so engrossed John Pus while he waited for a blueberry smoothie that he didn't hear how heavily the mayor of San Anselmo had loaded "Like . . ." with sarcasm.
John silently said, "Winner!" Gratified, his ears warmed and opened and he heard the rest of the mayor's pronouncement, ". . . San Anselmo really needs another restaurant."
He thought it was insider information. It was just the thing! He needed to do something fast with the bequest he'd gotten from The Crazy Lady. For a few years he'd hung around her house close to town--as filthy as his own ramshackle habitat, Alder Avenue's anathema--letting the crazy old bat cook meals for him, loan him coffee change he never repayed, and give him the keys to her late model Saab convertible for drives by himself to the bars of west Marin. He also had convinced her that he was Elvis.
"I love Elvis!" she said. Read More

The Flyswatter

MikeR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday March 20, 2006 · 5:58 PM PST

2006/03/20 · 17:58

Dear Reader(s), THE FLYSWATTER will resume ASAP, with Entry 3 in practically no time at all. I shall continue to make baby Andrew and his caring aunt available, along with the rest of the Pus family, a pod of petty thieves, petty dealers, petty moochers, petty scrounges, petty no-good lie-abouts, and petty liars. And you will note, soon enough, they are unclean.

The Flyswatter

MikeR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday March 09, 2006 · 7:49 PM PST

2006/03/09 · 19:49

2 Aunt Kar's eyes were open, but she dreamed of many members of the Pus family pitching in. Dreams in vain of a family effort to move all the parlor furniture to the walls. Then baby Andrew clearly would be the center of attention on his baptism day. The dream was as peaceful as flower petals tumbling in breezes of her mother's angel wings. Kar had left home, home of respectful and God-fearing parents, and cleaved unto JoJo, Andrew's uncle. In her daydream, the entire Pus household and inveterate Sunday drop-ins surrounded the baby and eagerly bestowed smiles and gifts.
"Moo!" she whispered, carton of fresh white milk in hand. But Kar knew. No one would bring a gift. The furniture would stay where it was. "More than probable," she uttered, breaking off the dream. It would be life as usual until the last second, when one Pus or another--now Kar merely was envisioning--yelped, "Right!" A couple of them might pull back their legs and slouch
in a different direction. Then gingerly Kar could approach through the sprawl Read More

The Flyswatter

MikeR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday March 07, 2006 · 5:38 PM PST

2006/03/07 · 17:38

At last, it was baby Andrew's very own day. Never mind he was two months shy of three years old and none but Aunt Kar--pronounced "Care"--brought tortes or cookies or any other mouthwatering little gifts, the merry cupcakes with frosting parapets to nibble or to mush. A child might once in his life be allowed to take a colorful plastic fork and splatter viscous sugar when it's his day!
Aunt Kar purchased a quart of whole milk early that morning. Skim milk, she opined, was not festive, for it had the color of ordinary cotton underwear that had been washed a hundred times.
Whole milk! Glorious whole milk, as snow white as the well-folded, ultra-fluffy terrycloth bath towels of her daydreams, the amenities of colossal five star hotels so far and different from home sour home. Kar made sure the expiration date was many, many days away by sorting through two entire shelves of cartons. She got the very freshest, not the last of the lot which supermarket stockers had moved to the front row with corrupt assurance that
most of their valued customers weren't as scrupulous and thoughtful an Read More

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