Fifty Things to Do Before You Die

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1. Portray Blanche Dubois in a stage version of A Streetcar Named Desire.
2. Affix postage to a live duck and try to mail it to Walla Walla, Washington. It only counts if the stamps are canceled.
3. Shave a swear word into your pubic hair with a straight razor and a stencil.
4. Dance the Flamenco with Bruce Villanche.
5. Share a firm handshake with the sideshow’s glass eater.
6. Deliver a ten minute speech about radishes.
7. Put an eight dollar trifecta on “Lucky,” “Chance,” and “Fortune.”
8. Write several letters to a Colombian pen-pal.
9. Make a toast in honor of the Prime Minister of Canada.
10. Lose a backgammon tournament, but remain a good sport about it.
11. Dial a number at random and ask for Steven.
12. Chase an escaped canary across a frozen lake.
13. Play Trivial Pursuit with members of your local VFW.
14. Sneak seven kilos of heroin through customs.
15. Have sexual intercourse with Sarah Polley.
16. Eat an entire Virginia ham in a single sitting.
17. Swindle a vegan.
18. Attend a rodeo while dressed as Thomas Jefferson.
19. Smile at an albatross.
20. Break a glass and then blame it on your sister.
21. Pretend to date a cute blonde girl named Samantha.
22. Get winked at by a fat guy using a gas station slot machine.
23. Feign interest when Isobel talks about her back ache.
24. Discover a new atomic element.
25. See Rock City.
26. Face down an angry moose while bearing only a can of Pepsi.
27. Receive your ordination by mail and bless water fountains in your town.
28. Put on your aviator sunglasses, grab your corn cob pipe, and show that Chester Nimitz your MacArthur impression.
29. Ridicule an old lady’s knick knacks.
30. Lay underwater cable across a local pond.
31. Dress up like a samurai to impress girls.
32. Dress up like a gun moll to impress boys.
33. Fax a crossword puzzle to a dairy farmer.
34. Perch on a tree limb and pretend to be a songbird.
35. Make nuclear reactor construction plans out of origami.
36. Put chain link fence around a cubic foot of space.
37. Eat spaghetti (with or without meatballs).
38. Deride the works of that tart Chopin, but get him confused with Franz Liszt.
39. Cross the streams.
40. Buy something, anything, that says “manufactured in Micronesia” on it.
41. Play your wax paper and plastic comb harmonica for a bus full of graveyard shift factory employees on their way home in the morning.
42. Argue with a German about how Cologne is really part of France.
43. See Daniel Bester, Inc.’s Humongotronic, the audio-visual telescreen borne aloft by four zeppelins, as it makes its stately procession over Katharinetowne.
44. Play drums in a band which achieves minor celebrity amongst the nation’s so-called tastemaking class.
45. Engage in sexual activity with someone who isn’t that into it.
46. Attempt to organize the defense of a bee colony. Exhort them to go down fighting if the operation wavers.
47. Sell charcoal-filtered air on a street corner in brightly-coloured plastic bottles.
48. Remind five people a day for an entire week that Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens and it rhymes with lemons.
49. Construct a ramshackle Greek trireme on wheels, plug your ears with wax, give it a good push down the road and strap yourself to the mast. Include some friends who are easily distracted by singing if you want verisimilitude.
50. Experience the groaning agony of pancreatic cancer.

Katie Stalin in Atlanta

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stalin

Atlanta

Atlanta, GA– Why, you might ask, am I writing this award-neglected travelogue from Atlanta, even though the fat cats at Axes & Alleys paid for a trip to Reykjavik? Well, it all has to do with the little light-up signs on the airplane. When you need to put on your seat belt the sign shows a seatbelt. Makes sense, right? Now, the No Smoking sign shows a cigarette, doesn’t it? Not a pipe. In fact, no one ever mentioned pipes at all and yet you pull out a pipe after dinner and they act like you’re a godless communist or something. I mean, for Christ’s sake, they’ll bring you a brandy. What was I supposed to do, just sit there drinking brandy and not smoke a pipe?

Yeah, so they went all ballistic and I got stuck in Atlanta. Luckily, I met this cute doctor at the hotel bar. It was lucky for me because he works at this company called CDC and offered to give me a special guided tour. And it was lucky for him in a few different ways that I won’t mention because this is a family magazine.

CDC is a pretty cool company, I guess, you know like in a futuristic way. But their headquarters is pretty big and it’s easy to get lost. There are lots of long, white corridors and rooms full of science and medicine and stuff. They probably even have a janitor’s closet reserved for “maths.” Anyway, they had the biggest refrigerator I’ve ever seen, like almost as big as a whole Arby’s!

There were also a bunch of vials and stuff, and it turns out they were all drugs. Sweet. Though I didn’t know the actual street value of the stuff, I figured it would be fun to try them out and see what happened. I am a journalist you know, and I seek the truth, especially the truth about cool new drugs that even I’ve never heard of like Smallpox or Polio.

Turns out this stuff must have been really expensive. Seriously. You think they freak out when you get caught loading an ice machine from the hotel onto your truck, that’s nothing compared to how these CDC guys freaked. All these astronauts ran in the room and they were armed to the teeth. And they’re all yelling and stuff and made me put all the drugs back.

Atlanta is stupid. First, the hotel pool was closed and second the police won’t believe you when you say you’re not a terrorist. And police station coffee sucks. So, I’m like, who do you have to blow to get good coffee around here? Turns out it’s Special Agent Picket. He took me to get coffee and then while he was in the bathroom, I skipped out of there before I had to pay up on my part of the deal and hitchhiked to the bus station. Sherman was right; screw Atlanta, I’m going to Iceland.

Ask Montezuma: Haduary 2007

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It’s the Anwer Man from Tenochtitlan

montezuma

Montezuma once spackled an entire wall
using only toothpaste. His favorite atomic
element is Neon but he also loves learning
about voles and foxes.

Dear Montezuma,
My girlfriend suffers from narcolepsy. Isn’t that neat? I thought so. That’s one of the reasons I started dating her. But, between bouts of drowsiness, she tells me that she feels objectified because of this. I can understand that. I told her what I was looking for was basically a warm mannequin that smelled good and she fit the bill. The fifth octave E-flat key on my piano is kind of sticky. Should I use WD-40 on that?
Nick L. Odeon
Kingston, Jamaica

Mr. Odeon, many interesting people throughout history have experienced the narcoleptic affliction descending upon them. Meriwether Lewis, I’ve heard tell, slept through the entirety of the Lewis and Clark expedition except for certain segments in Idaho where the local oxygen content of the air managed to create a foggy path out of his lethargy.

Dear Montezuma,
My best friend and I publish a magazine and I was wondering if you had some advice for me. You see, we differ about how the styling on letters should be. He thinks that the opening, body, and closing should have no spaces between them. I think that looks terrible, but he’s the guy who lays everything out. Even if I do put spaces between those things, he gets rid of them, even after I copy edit everything. How can I get him to do it the way that looks good?
Charles Sumner
Columbia, SC

CS, the Modern Language Association style guide clearly states that letters should be double-spaced throughout. However, the Chicago Manual of Style says that the opening, closing and body of a letter should have no spaces between them, as your co-editor currently does it. There is a third option, though. The Punxsutawney Association of Grammarians Guide to Style states that one should avoid letter-writing altogether and instead save up what one wishes to say until there is enough content to go forward with the publication of a monograph. I did this in my book Answering Phil: Responses to Phil Chaudhry of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Montezuma,
For once in my life I’d prefer to go through the day without being anxious about just about everything. I get upset about my coffee and whether it has too much sugar, if I sounded like an ass in my last email, whether I’m doing a good job, and on and on. Do you have any advice for a used watch salesman down on his luck?
Cherry Picard
North Umbridge, AC

My dearest Cherry, perhaps the best idea for you would be to get out of the watch business entirely. Perhaps become a grocery cashier. You see, no one really uses watches anymore. They’re an accessory and one that only highly-snooty persons use. However, grocery employees are always in demand because people must eat. There’s also a high turnover rate across the board, so there’s plenty of room to move up. You may need to relocate to somewhere where the stores are larger in order to suit someone of your talents, but that shouldn’t be difficult in nearby states such as Georgia or Mississippi which do not have the grocery store shortage currently present in Acadia.

Montezuma,
How much is a dead body worth on the American Stock Exchange?
Milton Baily
Mount Keegan, NB

That would depend upon the location of the body within the exchange. For instance, if it was on the floor, probably very little because it would be covered in those papers stock brokers throw around at work. Now, if it were in the vestibule, you could be talking about anything from $4-5 a pound.

Dear Montezuma,
This guy I used to work with here at the blood bank dropped me a line the other day. He wanted my help returning three pints of blood he stole from our office manager. I don’t know what to do. Should I help him or tell my office manager?
George Kawasaki
San Francisco, CA

George, I would wager that your office manager is well-aware that he is missing three pints of blood. The dizziness due to low blood pressure has probably been his first clue. To be honest, I am incredibly interested in how your former co-worker managed to siphon off 20% of your manager’s blood without his knowledge. With skills such as those, it would be most appropriate for your old work comrade to perhaps have taken a job at the Central Intelligence Agency or some other covert government institution. He may even be of interest to various enmobulated criminal enterprises. If your former officemate is, in fact, a vampire, I wouldn’t be surprised that the office manager has not noticed his blood loss as vampires do not exist.

Dear Montezuma,
I am a lesbian and I would like to meet a new woman who can share my life with me. My second-biggest stumbling block is the fact that I am a man. Can you help?
Chax McSorely
St. Johns, Nova Scotia

Chaxy, gender and sexuality are such fluid terms. They shouldn’t be governed merely by the functional organs with which one was born. Seeing as this is true, have you considered sleeping with other lesbian men? Lesbian culture can be so finicky sometimes that it may be best to stick to your small corner of it.

Montezuma,
My downstairs neighbors enjoy the music of Stravinsky, but I hate Stravinsky. On the other hand I enjoy the music of Shostakovich and they hate Shostakovich. This makes being neighbourly a bit difficult when they’re blasting The Rake’s Progress or I have Symphony No. 7 (Opus 60) turned up all the way on my Dolby 5.1. Is there any way to resolve this?
James Carmel
Peoria, IL

One of the most common and best ways to resolve symphonic disputes between neighbors is the bassoon duel at dawn. Depending upon your level of proficiency, this may take some months to prepare for, but will solve the problem once and for all.

montys hints

Many actions in the house (or home) require the use of one repetitive motion or another. Sometimes these actions will require more than one at once! For instance, you have recently spackled several holes in your wall and now need to sand the affected area. Doing so will end up tiring your arm out in moments. As another example, if you need to scrub soap scum from your bathing tub, it will require a similar repetitive motion. What’s a busy home owner, renter, or leaser to do? Alternate which arm you use! That’s right, simply switching from the body part you’re using to an entirely different one can save you stress and/or injury.

Zoos

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Zoos The Ticking Time Bomb

It is important for people of all ages to understand biology. After all, people are animals. For this reason, zoological gardens, otherwise known as zoos or wildlife parks can be found lurking within the depths of many of the world’s urban areas. There, near our schools, hospitals and churches, zoos bide their time, waiting silently to unleash a furry fury upon humanity. Zoos are a powder keg waiting to be ignited. Zoos are a ticking time bomb poised to destroy us all in a bloody orgy of claws, teeth, talons and fangs.

Perhaps you have been to a zoo and seen the variety of animals: cuddly koalas, cute little lemurs, majestic gorillas, and even regal lions. And perhaps you also spied the zookeepers, who, for some reason, wear safari-style khaki uniforms and hats. The zookeepers are the key to this impending catastrophe. Who cares for the menagerie? Who feeds the animals, cleans their enclosures and heals their wounds? That’s right. Zookeepers.

Without the zookeepers (The thin brown line) the zoos would be in chaos. Hungry tigers would greedily eat babies while nearby hyenas would fight over the carcasses of school field trip groups. In the dark corner, a content little monkey would lap up the pools of fresh crimson blood collecting around a dead grandmother whose face had been pecked apart and devoured by blue plumaged macaws.

By night the animals would escape their confines and stealthily invade our cities. Glowing eyes would be all the warning a sales executive would get before being ripped to sanguine shreds by a pack of vicious wolves. Venomous snakes would fly, via centrifugal force, from moving ceiling fans in suburban homes and sink their fangs into the faces of horrid, screaming housewives. After mastering the use of screwdrivers, chimpanzees would remove our doors, kill us in our sleep or cut the brakes on our city buses. Elephants would trample the elderly to death, crunching rib cages like potato chips and giraffes would bite flying kites out of the air and spit them back as children ran away crying. Society would collapse and hippopotamuses would eat our heads.

As you can now clearly see, we need two things if we’re to avoid this calamity:
1. Back up zookeepers, in case the regular zookeepers are sick or unable to work for some reason.
2. Secure locks on animal enclosures.

So, write your legislators and tell them that you do not want to be mauled by a zebra. Tell them America needs backup zookeepers and locks on the animal enclosures, lest we be destroyed. Thank you.