Solanum lycopersicum, formerly Lycopersicon lycopersicum

I was installing something on my laptop that promised to take a half hour to install. It was late and I needed to sleep. So I shoved the laptop under my bed, turned of the lights and tried to sleep. Except that now there was this eerie glow oozing out from under the bed. It looked like a scene from a horror movie, the unpleasant kind, where the monsters below the bed are not friendly but are intent upon eating you. Perhaps with a tasty garlic sauce.

But if there were monsters under the bed, I suppose that they would diverted by the wonder that is the internet. And by wonder I mean porn. And by diverted I mean…diverted. How would a monster find porn on the internet? Googling monster porn? Or would they go to monster.com? How would they handle that disappointment? No monsters. What about truth in advertising?

Monster.com? “I need a job. I should definitely go to Monster.com. Because jobs are monstrous, and monsters are hiring?”

I was sitting in a sweltering basement waiting (That would be not half bad start to a horror novel, “I was sitting in a sweltering basement. I could hear the creature’s foot steps on the floor above my head. The half audible snorts and growls as it looked for porn on Monster.com”) for my Canadian Visa. My slip said B124. I naively assumed that this meant that my turn would come after B123 and before B125.

I was wrong.

(At this juncture, I need to ask you if you expected me to say that I was right, that the process took me ten minutes and I rode happily away into the sunset. Or took the train happily away into the sunset. Why do people ride/drive/swim away into the sunset? The sun is setting. Pretty soon you cannot see a thing. You might run over an unwary monster hunting for a mate. (This is one of those primitive monsters that has not yet discovered the internet. It finds the mates the old fashioned way. By jumping unwary travelers and shaking them down for information.) We need more inspired imagery. People riding away into a brick wall. A short ride, and then the rest is rest.)

They started at B104 and crept steadily up to B116. Steady progress. I approved. And then it all came crumbling down. From B116, they jumped to B142 and then to B183. And then they came back to B117. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was but a temporary lapse into insanity. Normalcy had been restored. The barbarians had been beaten back from the gates. B120 was reached. Champagne bottles had their corks popped. There was wild cheering. The proletariat rejoiced in the streets. A national holiday was declared. Somebody important gave a speech. People were moved. Good resolutions were made. Rainbows were born. Rabbits and deer pranced blithely. The chicken crossed the road. Tom-ay-to, the committee decided. Tom-ay-to and not Tom-ah-to. The Tom-ay-to faction lost all credibility. It’s leaders retired to the countryside to grow Tomatoes. Bereft of the Tom-ay-to-Tom-ah-to analogy, people everywhere had to improvise. “Potato-Cranberry”, “Alligator-Crocodile” were proposed. The people who proposed it were banned to the countryside, where they moonlighted as manure for the Tom-ay-to faction and tried with notable success to avoid the single Monsters that now plagued the countryside; the ones that sidled up to them and offered to buy them drinks.

I had cheered too soon. B120 led to B126 and then B129. Loud booing. The wailing of teeth and the gnashing of women could be heard. The barbarians returned to the gates, and this time snuck in while pretending to be Used Encyclopedia Salespeople (They were not selling used Encyclopedias, as one may think. They were Encyclopedia Salespeople who had been used…for assorted purposes. Usually as props in Knock-Knock Jokes and as stepladders.). And then they went wild. A vowel was introduced. B129 became I301. In hot pursuit of I301 was J42. this was followed by YOUREFUCKED27 and UPYOURS43. I began to suspect that the consulate staff was mocking me. Just a suspicion, mind you, the hints were far too subtle and I wasn’t quite sure.

And the next number was B124.

(Actually it wasn’t. There also was a riot, a parade, a monster’s ball and a discussion about the merits of chicken soup over Tomahto soup. But I’m lazy and I do not feel like typing that all out.)