Quasimofo Unmasked!

I'm afraid it's time to end this little charade.

I set up this blog for the purpose of getting a review from humor-blogs.com. You can read the details here.

My real blog is MattressPolice.com. I won't be updating Quasimofo any more, but you can read more of the same kind of semi-coherent nonsense at MattressPolice.com.

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement, everybody! It's been fun.

Diesel out.

I Do Mind! I Do!

The other night my family went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant, and the hostess asked if we minded being seated "in the back." The way she said "in the back" made me think that perhaps we would have to crawl through a drainage pipe to get there, but being the agreeable sort that I am, I unthinkingly said, "That's fine."

I regretted it immediately. While we waited, I speculated as to what horrors would confront us "in the back." Would there be chairs? Tables? Exposed wiring hanging from rusted nails? Perhaps we would be expected to scavenge our own appetizers from the dumpster behind the meat-packing plant. I looked around for other diners headed for 'the back', anxious to form an alliance to ensure the safety of our guacamole supply.



"We should never have agreed to sit 'in the back,'" I said to my wife. "Now we have no one to blame but ourselves." There would be no point in complaining once we were back there.

"You say you don't mind," the waiter would snarl, befuddled and a bit put out. "Why do you say you don't mind, if you do mind?"

Why indeed? I would have no answer for that. And there we would sit, tossing tortilla chips at rabid monkeys and trying to build a table out of cardboard and packing foam.

As the hostess came for us I wanted to say something, anything, to get out of my commitment to sit "in the back." But what? It's not like she was unclear about what she was asking me. They ask you that question for a reason: Because most people do mind sitting in the back. They mind it one hell of a lot, to tell you the truth. But some people -- maybe they're a little crazy, maybe they have a death wish -- some people don't mind. And there's no switching sides. You don't suddenly go from being someone who doesn't mind to being someone who does mind, just like that.

What kind of explanation could I offer for my sudden conversion? A minute ago I was all, "Screw my family's safety! I want to be Mr. Tough Guy, hanging out 'in the back' with the crack whores and guacamole pirates!" And then just like that I develop an overwhelming need to sit somewhere with modern sanitation facilities and fresh salsa? No, that wouldn't fly. The fronters would never accept us. We'd always be the Table that Thought They Could Make It In the Back But Then Chickened Out.

We took a collective deep breath and headed toward the back. The fronters averted their eyes as we walked by. We passed the bar, the kitchen, the bathrooms... and kept going. As the bright light of the restaurant's main dining room grew ever dimmer, I silently whispered a prayer for protection against the hazards and travails we would soon face. Before I knew it, we were there.

It turns out that "the back" was a lot like "the front," but slightly further away. Hence the name, I suppose. I had the enchiladas.

A Slurry of Monsters

As my wife and I were walking through our cherry orchard the other day, inspecting the trees for blight, rust and urban sprawl, I caught a glimpse of a distant gathering of undead creatures. At first I thought they were zombies, but they could have been ghouls. They're hard to tell apart at a distance. Our orchard was planted on top of an Indian burial ground, so it's not uncommon for us to see various flavors of undead roaming amongst the trees in search of human flesh and a place to whizz. Well, technically it isn't so much a burial ground as it is a casino that collapsed due to God's punishment on immorality and a lack of sufficient sheer support. Efforts were made to rescue the trapped gamblers, but when their relatives were informed that the odds of anyone getting out alive were a million to one, they decided to take their chances elsewhere.

Anyway, now our orchard is plagued by the spirits and/or reanimated corpses of several hundred dead gamblers still trying to beat the odds.

I grabbed my wife's arm and whispered, "Look! A bunch of zombies!"

"A bunch of zombies?" She said disdainfully, barely glancing in the direction I pointed.

"Yeah, look! I think they're grazing...or something."

"I'm pretty sure it's not a 'bunch' of zombies," she said. "And zombies don't graze; they scavenge for carrion."

"What do you mean, it's not a bunch of zombies? There are like eight of them."

"No, I mean it's not called a 'bunch.' You know how it's a pride of lions, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows...."

"A trifling of meerkats," I added helpfully.

"Anyway, I think those are ghouls. They're not scavenging; they're menacing. Zombies scavenge; ghouls menace."

"That doesn't sound right," I said.

"Ok, you're the expert. It's not like I'm a fourth grade teacher or anything."

"Ok, ok," I said. "So what do you call a group of zombies?"

She thought for a moment. "A groan, I think."

"A groan of zombies? You're making that up."

"It's a groan of zombies and a chilling of ghouls. I think that's right."

"What about skeletons?"

"A rattle of skeletons."

"Poltegeists?"

"An annoyance of poltergeists."

"Mummies?"

"Tangle."

"Vampires?"

"Fang."

I thought for a while, trying to stump her. My wife's knowledge of the undead and cryptozoology is formidable. Finally I seized on one that I was sure she wouldn't know.

"What about sasquatches?" I said. "Tell me what a group of sasquatches is called, smarty pants."

She sighed and looked bored. "A blur of sasquatches," she said.

Damn, she's good, I thought.

"We should go," she said. "They look like they're menacing in this direction."

"Hey," I said, as they shambled closer. "I think that's just a bunch of drunk teenagers."

"A posse of drunk teenagers," she corrected.

"Still, they're menacing in this direction."

"Yes they are."

"How do you kill drunken teenagers again?" I asked. We didn't get many of those around here.

"Bullet to the brain," She said.

"Thank God," I said. "Beheading is a bitch."

We drew our sidearms and fired.