So, my ne'erdowell room-mate, Aaron Markham, has plopped what would seem to be his ultimate turd sandwich in my lap. After eight years or so of being room-mates, he's decided to go live on a boat, which he will float out in the harbour and thus live without rent. I don't begrudge him this. What I do begrudge him is telling me - this morning - that he's doing so at the beginning of November. 

This means, basically, that I have two weeks to line up a new room-mate, since whoever it's going to be will have to get their crap together by the beginning of October, so they can give their land-lord notice and get their arrangements in order. Two motherfucking weeks. 

After  all the bullshit he's subjected me to, of all the nonsense I've had to put up with, it seems somehow appropriate that this should be how he ends our shared living arrangement. This is a man who, in these eight years, has never once taken out the recycling. This is a man who has forced me to buy the toilet paper for the appartment eight times in a row, since he simply refused to do so in spite of admitting it's his turn. This is a man who will leave bags of garbage festering in the front hall for weeks without taking them down to the dumpster, in spite of - again - admitting it was his turn. 

Really, if he were considerate or thoughtfull about the manner in which he ends this arrangement, it would somehow lack poetry. At minimum, it would demonstrate a lack of follow-through which I would find distasteful. No, he's leaving on just the right note: Selfish, self-absorbed and inconsiderate. That's how I want to be able to remember our time together, and he's given me just the right means to ensure that's the case. 

The practical upshot of this is that I'm in need of a room-mate. I've got a prospect, but it's shaky. It's a decent place; a block shy of Kingsway. A ten minute walk from Edmonds skytrain station. Thirteenth floor, great view. Fully furnished, with laundry facilities, a dishwasher and a fully-functioning toilet by means of which to rid yourself of unwanted bodily excretions. $450 a month, or thereabouts. Available, apparently, November motherfucking first.

Aaron (my room-mate): "Wow! Tigger (his hideous cat) ate all his food!".

Me: "Mm! Voracious He must be nearing his maturation cycle, ready to evolve to his next form! Soon, we'll come in here and find him hanging from the ceiling in a coccoon, woven from cat hair and vomit, ready to emerge in a new form".

Aaron: "Yes, either a dog or a small child". 

Me: "Let's hope it's a dog. Children always have such awkward questions about where they come from, and we always have to lie to them about the mommy-daddy dance. They couldn't handle the truth. And, oh, japan. What they do to those poor cat girls. I've seen the cartoons. I know".

Those who are aware of my particular tastes and fancies know well my peculiar fascination with the 19^th century. The aesthetics, the crisp diction of the time, and the enterprising spirit which characterizes the time all speak to some peculiar element of my person. In this taste, I have been well-served, of late. With first my receipt of Matthew Fraction’s Five Fists of Science, and now, more recently, my viewing on one Mr. Michael Mignola’s ‘The Amazing Screw-On Head’, I must confess, it does not seem unlike that there are those in the entertainment industry whose intent it is to see to it that my interests, in particular, should be seen to. With the upcoming release of the third volume of Mr. Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this impression is only bolstered.

For those who, like myself, brisk adventure in the science-fiction vein, who are not averse to a good hearty laugh or two along the way, I would most vigorously endorse the aforementioned Amazing Screw-On Head, which can, at present, be viewed free of charge here. All that the proprietors ask in return for this service is that, on a purely voulentary basis, mind, you should do the courtesy of filling out a brief survey as pertains to your thoughts on the preceding programme.

I will note here, that my room-mate, Aaron, being an absolute boor and ungrateful lout, could not see his way to filling out the review form even after watching and enjoying the programme. If an act does not immediately benefit him, then even the least of efforts towards that act is inconceivable for him. Gratitude, even in the spirit of enlightened self-interest, is quite foreign to him. He is honestly something of an oaf.

I'll try to cut this for length, but I'm not sure that that works with LJ's stupid new interface.

A couple of years ago, my friend BJ and I were walking down the street, when I spotted a photograph sitting on the sidewalk. Naturally, I scooped it up and had a look at it. 

On it, there was the face of a fairly handsome young man, with a vaguely confused look upon his ill-shaven face. All at once, a hillarious idea sprang to my mind. 

"You know what we should do with this", I asked BJ, rhetorically, since I didn't actually care if he knew or not, since I was looking forwards to telling him, just as I look forwards to telling you now, "We should scan this, and use it to create a missing person poster". I giggled madly as I went on to explain that we should have it say something like "Have you seen our friend, Danny? He is very special, and we are all very worried about him. He has been missing since [two days ago], and has special needs which need to be taken care of. If you have seen him, please call (and here we would put the phone number of someone we don't like)". 

I then went on to explain that we should put them up all over the place within ten blocks of the spot where we now stood, where we found this photograph. 

Now, it's entirely possible that this person lives nowhere near this neighborhood. He could live in Russia, for all I know, and this is a photograph his sister took with her when she moved here, and it fell out of her bag as she walked down the street. Who knows? But... he COULD live in this area! Or, at the very least, he might pass through this area, perhaps on his way to work. Or perhaps his mother or girlfriend or boyfriend or someone does, and that's why they were in a position to drop this photo here. 

And when they see this, they will be as confused as all get out, and they will angrily call the person I don't like, whose phone number is on the bottom of the page. 

And, of course, I would never see any of this. Not the baffled look on their faces. Not the angry phone call. Not the look on the face of the person who I don't like. 

And these people would never get the joke, themselves. Probably.

But I could IMAGINE all of this happening, and periodically, as I'd be walking down the street, I would begin to howl with laughter at the idea of it. 

Now, this is the sort of humour that a lot of people don't get. They don't get how fucking overwhelmingly hillarious this would be, just... giving birth to a joke like this and then setting it loose in the world, to do its business on its own. In a sense, there would be no punchline, right? No point at which the joke would stand revealed, and everyone would get it and laugh. It's really just for me. It's selfish, and it's vicious, and it's sociopathic. 

And really, if the idea is all that matters, and not the actual looks on anyone's faces, then I can laugh just as much by thinking about it as by doing it, and thus not actually hurt anyone's feelings. And I do, which is why I haven't done it through all these years, and yet still burst out laughing periodically while walking down the street. And hey, by sharing it here with you folks, I can share the laughter with all of you, assuming that any of you are even capable of sharing my bizarre sense of humour. 

And so it went, as I was on the way home from work this morning, cackling to myself for no obvious reason, as is so often the case, when a new variant occurred to me. 

What if I were to take one of the photos of my room-mate, Aaron Markham, and put them all over this neighborhood, and the neighborhood that he works in? And then put HIS phone number on it? And identify the number as being that of "Aaron Markham's Mama"? 

So people would see this, and, like, one in a thousand of them would recognize Aaron's face on it, right? Because these are in the areas where he IS, and they would call HIS number, right? And then they would ask Aaron HIMSELF to speak to Aaron Markam's mama. And Aaron would be all like "Why you want to talk to my mama?", and it would be all confusing and weird. And I would be in the next room, listening to half of the conversation, barely suppressing my gales of laughter. 

Now, you might ask me: "But Dave, if you ever wanted to do this, haven't you just ruined your chances by talking about it publically on your journal like this?". 

A valid question! But here's the thing: I've lived with Aaron for many years. And I know very well that he will never, EVER read my livejournal if he is not specifically and FORCEFULLY prompted to do so. And why? Because if there's one fault that he has which transcends all of his others, it is this: Aaron does not care about anyone around him at all. Not a bit. He genuinely, truly does not give a shit about anyone but himself. As a result, although ALL of the details of this prank are RIGHT HERE for anyone who gives a shit about me to see... Aaron will never see it, because he is too full of himself to be ABLE to care. 

And that makes the joke, like, ten THOUSAND times funnier to me. Because not only could he undo this entire prank just by having some emotional connection to the people around him... but that this very FAULT of his is what the entire joke HINGES upon, by the very act of my writing this long-assed post! 

And the idea of a practical joke which hinges upon the faults of the people you know is not only delightfull to me, but the fact of the matter is, if he didn't have this fault, I would never even think of doing something like this to him. 

Which, to me, is motherfucking poetry.