Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floofmencement (floofinition) – An act, instance, or time of beginning an experience with, or engaging with, an animal.
In use: “With many people, floofmencement began with looking into an animal’s eyes. From in there, people grasped love, pain, sadness, hope, among other emotions, and took it on themselves to be with and help this creature.”
Floof Node (floofinition) – Receptor organs (located in the brain, hands, and heart) in humans that allow them to enjoy animal companionship and take and give comfort to animals.
In use: “Overstimulation of floof nodes often caused humans to stay motionless in an uncomfortable position because they didn’t want to disturb a sleeping animal.”
Floofsination (floofinition) 1. Something that provides a deep allure to pets. 2. A person’s deep attraction to pets.
In use: “Like many cats, water provided floofsination for Jade, but her most intense floofsination was when bath water was being run. Hearing it, green eyes brightening, she’d leap up and race for the tub. Jumping onto the edge, she’d then dip her paws into the water as it rose, or tangled her tail in it.”
Floofnik (floofinition) – an ardent supporter of pets and animals’ rights; someone who fervently loves animals.
In use: “When her children left home, she became a floofnik, spending time at shelters, fostering animals, helping animals, and raising them, eventually buying a large property to use as an animal sanctuary.”
He came across a disaster. Dead ants were spread everywhere. Most were smashed into small, curled bodies. Some were obliterated. Ant parts were everywhere.
He couldn’t imagine what’d happened. Down on his hands and knees, he ignored the traffic in the street beside him and mourned their losses, watching as the bodies were collected and carried away. After the final body was gone, he went to rise when he saw the ants come out and face him. All were still for several moments. When he felt an appropriate amount of time had passed, he bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry.”
The ants retreated to resume their lives, and he went on his way.
I presented my Festivus list of grievances to my beer buddies the other night. Although the grievances are supposed to be personal and about the people present, I had a general list, and I took a humorous, provocative approach.
One of my items that generated much discussion was the hacked butt plug. I know that I’m not part of the demographics of people that use butt plugs, so I don’t know much about them. I also didn’t know that they could be hacked, or why others would want to do that. Still, it’s part of a larger world that I don’t get, not because I’m over sixty, but because the shit people do is alien to what I think of as fun. Besides hacking butt plugs and other smart sex toys, a term called screwdriving (hah!), I don’t get people doxxing others, or eating Tide pods, or catfishing. Yes, I understand the intellectual reasons behind people doing things, just like people doing weird shit when I was a kid, but those things didn’t appeal to me then, either. Being a writer, though, is about trying to understand, looking into people, thinking about their motivation and the impact of what they do has on them and their lives. So, I explore…
While mentioning the butt plugs the other night, over half present reacted, “Why would you want to know more about butt plugs?” But others were like me, saying, “How can you not want to know more?”
You see there the sprawl of human differences. Some invent butt plugs. Others use them. Another group hacks them. Someone else shies away from knowing about them. Someone else writes about them, and others read and talk about them.
It’s a wild, wild life that’s teeming with diversity. It makes it a much more interesting world.
At least, to me.
Ever catch yourself ranting and raving at others for their behavior, like their driving or the speed of their walk, as though they have full and absolute control over themselves, and realize that your ranting and raving is a demonstration of the small measure of control over yourself?
No? Is it just me, then?
Damn.
“Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster is a maniac.”
George Carlin had it right. I stew behind other drivers, awaiting the day when they will be in a self-driving car, leaving me to self-righteously and serenely pilot my car around the roads the proper way.
I have categories for “them,” the other drivers that irritate me. Probably at the top of my list are bizarro drivers, employing a secret logic for their decisions. “School zone with a speed limit of twenty? I’ll go thirty-three. Residential area with a speed limit of twenty-five? I’ll go thirty-three. Country road where the speed limit increases to thirty-five? I better slow down to twenty-eight.”
WTF? I canna fathom their thinking. I’ve written it before and will do so again, their brains are wired backwards. Further proof of this is how they treat yield and stop signs with the exact opposite behavior directed by the sign, and the law behind the sign. It’s a yield sign, so they’ll stop. It’s a stop sign, so they’ll roll through. When “their lane” is ending, they don’t make an effort to signal, move over, merge and integrate, oh, no, that would be too logical. They just keep going straight, hanging onto their lane until others are forced to give way and let them in.
Arrrrrrr!
Let’s not even consider what the hell happens in traffic circles and parking lots. Both of them are like driving in the Thunder Dome. Add rain to the mix….
What is it with rain that it seems to make so many drivers frantic and more erratic? It’s as though the rain causes them to think, “Which out, it’s raining,” and their backward wired brains trigger the opposite of safe behavior. “It’s raining, let’s speed, and not use turn signals, and drive down the road straddling the dividing lines, because we want to be safe.”
Madness, I tell you, frigging madness. Add in some distraction, and OMG. The distraction need not be much. Construction in progress and police cars with flashing lights going off to one side, I can understand, but why are you slowing down to look at people walking dogs? Have you never seen people and dogs before? Are you looking for missing people or missing dogs? Are you not familiar with creatures walking?
This bizarro behavior afflicts cyclists, too. More than half of the cyclists that I encounter around our little town are on the sidewalks. All those great bike lines and bike paths? They seem to treat them like they’re lava zones that will kill them if they enter.
No, I don’t understand. But then, everyone else is an idiot or a maniac. I’m the only sane nut on the roads.
Michael Seidel, writer 