Tuesday

Monday came and went like Mondays tend to come and go. I seem to just sort of ride through them on my slow-going carnival rollercoaster, catching bits and pieces of interesting things here and there, but for the most part everything just sort of blurs together and I end up back at home again.

I read something last night about lent and another slow-moving stream of commuter traffic brought me past a church just long enough that it reminded me. I was brought up a Christian so I know what lent is all about. Jesus was in the desert for forty days being tempted by Satan and we're supposed to give up chocolate; or something like that. If I worked for Cadbury's marketing group, I'd be amping up my spring campaign to keep product moving in these risky times.

I always thought that lent was really contrived. It's like Valentine's Day, made up to promote something that people should, and usually already recognize. I'm hardly the model Christian, seeing as I am now a complete non-believer, but shouldn't you just not be tempted by sin all the time, just like you should love the people that mean something to you all the time instead of only on February 14th? Do forty days of not eating chocolate really mean anything when Easter comes along and you're filling your mouth with those delicious Cadbury chocolate eggs? And really, Chocolate is what you're giving up? Get creative and give up something major, like using your sofa or third gear in your car for forty days. It looks like this guy in front of me gave up third and fourth. I'll gauge how happy Jesus is with this man's devotion by how much he doesn't crash.

I, for one, am excited for lent because I'm going to give something up that I have been carrying with me everywhere. It's been on me for months and I feel like it will be strange to rid myself of it for so long. But, I have to give it a shot. Goodbye, static electricity!

I honestly cannot remember the last time I touched something--anything--that can carry an electric charge without getting shocked. It's gotten to the point where I have to plan to touch anything metal. I haven't casually switched on a light in weeks. I'm getting goddamned PTSD from flipping light switches.

I'm generating enough electricty with my pants alone that I may be able to illuminate low voltage LED's with my fingertips. If I were alive at the height of the Egyptian empire and exhibited this much tangible electricity, they would've made me a god. Last night, I went to turn on the light in my kitchen and the spark from the screw below the switch extended out, actually illuminating the switch plate, guiding me in to flip it on. I'm waiting for the day when I just produce rare-occurring ball lightning and vaporize myself as I reach the corona of a door knob.

My pants are the main culprit, the heart of my newly acquired powerplant. They've turned my legs into Tesla coils that periodically shoot visible sparks between each other. I always knew I had power between my legs, but this is ridiculous. At a micro-level, my legs must look like those large towers that held human bodies used to power the machines in the Matrix movies, complete with giant electrical strands pulsing from the bottom towards the top. In the dark, I wouldn't be surprised if my balls were beginning to emanate an eerie glow from the amount of static charge that constantly bombards them in waves from my ankles. I've become my own electric chair, with the positive and negative contacts placed firmly on Dr. Strangelove and Oscar Guzman. I'm a hostage in my own clothes.

Spring starts in less than a month and I can't wait. Shorts, being outdoors, warmer weather, leaves back on the trees--to hell with all that noise. I'll just be glad to no longer be a walking capacitor, a ticking time bomb filled with raw energy waiting to explode off of me next time I get close enough to something it would like to take a lick of.

Believe me when I tell you that if it was socially appropriate to free myself from this electro-sticky prison for the entire winter season, I would absolutely do it. In fact, I change my mind.

I'm giving up pants for lent.