COLUMN: The Zen of the bliss of a napping dog
I used to be so bitter that I made Sylvia Plath look like a high school cheerleader. That was before I learned to live organically and compost my emotions.
Now I’m as happy as H&R Block in April. It’s simple, it’s green, it’s environmentally friendly. I just put all the emotional table scraps and verbal cat litter box cookies I encounter each day into a bin and let them rot as I sit smug and self-assured; no longer reliant on the community landfill of self-help books and talk show guests.
The social pressure of day-to-day life is more than enough to compress this Freudian flotsam into usable humus that I later distribute to others in need of a little anguish in their lives.
Yes, the key to the Zen of the bliss of a napping dog comes when you become one with the environment. Clean up the world and your own pathetic state of mental health at the same time. Yes, it’s true. You can conserve energy, recycle, compost and put a stop to land filling in your very own lifetime.
Pack up all your cares and woes and haul them on down to the Slightly Off Center House O’ Pain Emotional Recycling Center. People have been recycling ex-spouses and pro sports coaches for years, so why not let this system work for you. Your cast off is another person’s treasure. You’d be surprised how many people are interested in picking up your old anxieties and bad habits at below wholesale costs.
So bring ’em on down to the House O’ Pain where no offer is too weird. Our motto is “You got it, we want it” and “We heed your needs.”
Irritable in-laws? Neurotic pets? Irrational fears? “Funny feeling in the bottom of my stomach?” – all cleaned and refurbished by qualified social workers and resold at a fraction of their original cost.
Recycling your problems is not only good for the environment but it breaks that wasteful cycle of handing down your problems from generation to generation. Just think, no more whining, bitter adult children calling home saying “You know why I chew my fingernails and can’t lose weight now, don’t you? It’s because you passed along all your anxieties to me.”
Now you can reply “Sorry you must have the wrong number you whining, bitter brat because I took all my child-raising guilt down to the Slightly Off Center House O’ Pain.”
We also will buy, sell or trade emotional baggage – all sizes and shapes – for your overnight or around-the-world cruise needs.
Sexual hang-ups? We’ve got a walk-in closet load. (Warning: No one under the age of 21 or affiliated with Attorney General John Ashcroft or Utah Porn Czar Paula Houston will be admitted to this section of the store.)
Avoid the embarrassment of an emotional garage sale with all sorts of strangers picking through your prized personal problems like hungry seagulls. Avoid answering tough questions such as: “How much for this old aversion to commitment?”
“Let’s see $10, no $5, no $10, no $5 … No really, I still may need that, I’m sorry. Maybe you should try another garage sale. I just can’t commit, you know?”
So, shuffle on down to Slightly Off Center’s House O’ Pain Emotional Recycling Center. “Serving your psychotic needs for nearly a 50th of a century.”
Free fresh-roasted bitter dregs coffee to the first 100 customers.
Void where prohibited. Some restrictions may apply.