We’re Losing The Battle To Reverse Global Weirdness

Internationally, weirdness is off to a rollicking start just one month into the new year.
In Myanmar, former leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to four years in prison for using a walkie talkie. Presumably, if she’d have been caught using a cellphone or heaven forbid, she’d have been caught driving while on her cellphone, they’d have really thrown the book at her.
In Norway, supply chain problems have created a severe shortage of underwear in the military. Passed down from previous conscripts, new recruits are now required to wear recycled socks, knickers and ‘tighty whities’ although, without a ton of Tide, that last one might be a misnomer. In the UK, where the absence of truck drivers caused a shortage of beer and ale, the average British pub goer would gladly swap a pint for a used pair of ‘snuggly uglies.’
In Carlow, Ireland when told they could not collect the cheque of a pensioner unless he appeared with them in person, two young lads showed up at the post office and propped the old guy up on a bench. After a few questions they fled the building leaving the senior, who was dead at the time, alone to collect his cheque. It’s never been easy for pensioners to collect their money but for those who are deceased it’s damn near impossible!
In Denmark, a severe snow storm forced 30 people, both customers and employees to spend the night in an Ikea store. First, they had to make their own beds. Also nightstands were out of stock. So, to be clear — no one night stand.
The Ikea sleepover was not nearly as embarrassing as the situation in Zhengzhou, China where a young woman went to dinner with a man in his apartment on a blind date. Who goes on a blind date to someone’s home? Her name is Wang and she’s still there. Upon leaving after the dinner Wang got caught in a snap COVID-19 lockdown and was forced back into the man’s apartment by security guards. In her daily video diary Wang admits to being lazy, sleeping in and not helping to either cook or clean. So it’s like they’re married except the roles are reversed. Lockdowns in China usually last a month but only 3% of Chinese men who commit suicide jump from buildings. Just sayin’.
US scientists in California believe they have discovered “a big, weird moon in a far-off star system.” So they’re going to send up a big, weird guy in a far-out rocket to investigate. Elon Musk will leave earth on his birthday, June 28 in a spaceship shaped like a Tesla with a trunk full of cannabis, bottled water and cans of pork and beans. He plans to stop on Mars just long enough to take a leak and do an oil change. Said actor William Shatner: “Dibs on the backseat!”
In Danville, Pennsylvania, a pickup truck towing a trailer containing 100 lab monkeys was involved in an accident with a dump truck. While four of the macaque monkeys from Mauritius escaped their cages, one remains at large. Police have warned people not to approach, make contact or try to apprehend the monkey. For his part, the monkey on the lamb is demanding the release of all 99 of his compatriots and — after hearing Harry Chapin on the pickup’s radio — Thirty Thousand Pounds Of Bananas!
In preparation for next month’s Olympics, China is slaughtering small animals and blaming the Omicron variant on Canada Post. After a COVID outbreak in a Hong Kong pet shop, the government ordered the killing of thousands of hamsters, rabbits and guinea pigs. This might reassure the athletes about their safety but Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen is getting really, really nervous.
Chinese health officials claim the first case of the Omicron virus discovered in Beijing came in a parcel shipped from Canada. If nothing else, this gave our heavily overworked virologists a badly needed belly laugh.
Honestly, it was enough to make a camel curl his upper lip in contempt. His surgically collagen-enhanced lip, that is. Headline: “Over 40 camels barred form Saudi ‘beauty contest’ over Botox.” Attempting to make a camel beautiful is like trying to make a Chinese panda bear ugly.
Why would anyone apply the shallow values of thin-skinned, artificial objectification of beauty to camels when humans hold those rights exclusively!?!
Imprinting human qualities onto animals is patently absurd. It’s like training a cow to jump through hoops of fire or asking a rat to detect landmines. Meet Magawa! Even for a rat, Magawa from Cambodia is an ugly little rodent that only a mother rat with poor eyesight could love. Yet in a career that lasted five years. Magawa, an African giant pouch rat saved more lives and limbs than any human did.
Magawa sniffed out over 100 landmines and other explosive devices in the once war-torn country of Cambodia. Weighing 2.6 lbs and a little more than 2-feet long, Magawa cleared 1.5 million square feet of previously unusable land. For his “life-saving devotion to duty” Magawa was awarded the Gold Medal for Heroism by Apopo, the Belgian charity that trained him.
At age eight, Magawa retired last summer and died this month. He was blown to bits while walking home from his local pub when he stepped on a ‘Soviet Toe Popper.’ No, no. That’s terrible. As was fitting to his illustrious career, Magawa died peacefully in his sleep… during a nightmare in which he dreamt he’d stepped on a ‘Vietnamese Bouncing Betty.’
‘COVODDOTY’ — how the strange survives the pandemic.
For a comment or a signed copy of The True Story of Wainfleet
email:
williamjthomas@gmail.com

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