As I sit here at the keyboard this morning,
I am 36 years old.
My driver’s license indicates that I am 5’10” but
I think it likely that I am 5’9″ tall. I do not
remember where that extra inch came from.
I think I’ll blame my mother.
I weighed 292 pounds during a recent visit to
the doctor’s office.
My penis is 6 inches long when erect.
I have not measured it while flaccid.
If I knew what my IQ is, I would share that
too, but that is a secret even to me.
I wear size 40 pants at the hips, my actual waist
size is probably closer to 42.
My inseam is 29.
I drive 2.3 miles to work every morning and
2.3 miles home in the early evening.
I work from 8AM to 5PM with 1 hour for lunch.
I make $65,780 per year by surrendering 40
weekly hours or 2,080 hours per year.
I have made approximately $234 dollars from
the writing and performing my poetry.
I have been married for 21 months, the
best 21 months of my terestrial existence and I
am not saying this to blow sunshine up my
wife’s ass. I am seeking no advantage or
sweet speaking upper hand by
saying it, I do it merely to state fact.
I own one vehicle manufactured in 1989, one
house built in 1939, one detached garage built also
in 1939, one pine tree, one maple tree, one
holly tree suffering from a ph imbalance because of
the as from my charcoal grill and
thirteen miscellaneous shrubs ages undetermined.
One dog and five cats share our house. Not long ago,
we had two dogs. I also have one gallon of home brewed
sorrow and 42 canning jars filled with pickled regret put
up in the basement. Those, are my numbers. People are obsessed with
numbers. From my numbers, people who know
absolutely squat about me will make assumptions,
judgements and draw conclusions:
You’re old, you cannot possibly connect with the
swift, electronic youth of this country.
You’re too young, you do not know anything.
You seem taller in your poems.
Like 2/3 of American adults, you are obese, lose
weight fatty, you’re overburdening the stressed,
yet insanely profitable health care system.
Short legs, average penis. You will never be a porn star.
You work for the man! You’re Whitey’s bitch! 40
hour wage slave! 8 to 5 shuck and jive toadie!
Look at that salary! You are wealthy. You’ll never
understand the suffering of the delicate, sad masses. You
are part of the problem not the solution. Step aside.
If you are so successful, where’s the shiny car,
the new house and the children?
Why write poetry? It pays so little. You could
make more coin punching license plates at the
State Penitentiary.
Only freaks and old, lonely people own more than
two animals.
Such are the reasons why numbers are problematic,
people judge others because of them, we judge and
criticize ourselves because of them, we make life
decisions, effect massive change based upon them
and yet no where in any of those numbers can you
find a quotient or indicator of happiness. These
numbers are meaningless and I will prove it. I
added up all of these numbers in my life, the
sum was 68,755.60, a completely arbitrary figure
that has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.
68,755.60 does not fail to attain the mystical,
magical USDA instituted
Universal Happiness Threshold of
70,000 life points.
68,755.60 is not an indication of my
credit rating or my
utter failure as a human organism nor
does 68,755.60 mean that I am in the
top ½ % of the world’s human population.
To conclude this, my lyrical lecture on numbers,
I offer this: If the sum of these life numbers is
meaningless, it seems logical to me
that the numbers used to obtain
that sum, are similarly meaningless.
Garbage Out. Garbage In, to reverse a famed acronym.
So…fellow citizens of earth, throw off
this oppressive yoke of numbers and
buy one of my books.
You do not need numbers!
You need me!
THE MIND ATTIC 