Tales of A Thwarting

Thwart: To hinder, obstruct, frustrate, or defeat ( a person, plans, wishes, etc.)

Yesterday I wandered away from the Forest of Serenity. I found myself in the Desert of Annoyance. I have a long and storied history of exploits in this Desert. My path is well marked and heavily traveled. Everybody there knows me. I have a reserved table in the best restaurant, right next to the kitchen, because this is, after all, the Desert of Annoyance. "Right this way, B-Man," the Maitre'd says. "Your money is no good here, B-Man," they tell me. "Sorry about the locusts, B-Man," they say, eyeing the plague of insects darkening the sky with their sheer numbers.

I woke up from a lovely nap, somewhat annoyed. I woke up on the wrong side of the couch. I realize any sympathy I may have generated by the tale of my travails in the Desert of Annoyance has just evaporated with the nap-on-a-workday information but this is a program of honesty, unless of course it's convenient to lie. I drove to a local mega mart to purchase a mop. My present mop has experienced a catastrophic structural failure, prompting me to think: "What a world: we can put a man on the moon, although not recently, but we can't make a sturdy and durable mop."

The mart had a poor selection of mops, favoring models with totally small mop heads. I don't like to mop as it is and it seemed to me that these mops would increase the mopping time, which didn't increase my enthusiasm for the product. There were no replacement parts available to fix the broken mop that I owned. A good thing because I had already slammed the thing on my asphalt driveway, hurting my hand, and broken it into several pieces. "I showed that mop who was boss," I told SuperK as she tried to staunch the bleeding. I'm a bad MF when it comes to dominating inanimate, inorganic products.

Piqued, I made the long trek back through the mart and across the parking lot, dodging all of the cretins who were specifically spending their free time trying to impede my progress. They had it out for me. It was a big conspiracy to thwart my mop work. I drove into a normally congested area devised by people who belong to the Urban Planning and Road Engineering Union of Satan, and got stuck in traffic. I decided to swing into an outer lane to zip right by everyone to the head of the line, and pop into a mega building supply store minutes earlier -- Hooray for me! I'm the winner! - except traffic was heavier than normal and I got shunted right by the mega store. In the not too distant past I just wedged my way wherever I wanted to go. I can't do that anymore . . . as much. So I gave the store a friendly wave as I passed by, and executed a partially legal U-turn somewhere down the road.

You know what? I'm exhausted recounting this story. Mentally exhausted. I spend so much of my time raging against the machine. I forget my friends imploring me to slow down and take it easy. "What are you talking about?" I shriek. "I have to get a new mop!"

I did find a model that suited me, in the airplane hanger sized building that passes for a retail establishment these days. I made it home, safe and sound, and put the mop in a dark closet deep in the bowels of my basement. I had no enthusiasm for mopping. I decided to try to passive-aggressive SuperK into trying out the new mop instead. "Boy, these floors really could use a good mopping," I'd say, eyeing her from my spot on the napping couch, still warm from my excellent nap.

"Really could use a good mopping."