The Ballad of Calendar Math

As our pudgy little stick-figure frames slog through the screechy terrain of September, we occasionally pause for a bite to eat. When we eat our minds tuck themselves into the cozy inertia we've recklessly purchased...again. And just as our minds begin to shut their eyes, we are reminded by the speciously apologetic nudge of similarly listless travelers, ordering something similarly acrylamidic. The path we're on is the pit, and everyone here is 100% legal. We look out at the bright lights whizzing in the distance and say, "It's always so backed up."

Back on the road there are two choices in front of us: "Merge" or "Return" We rarely choose the former. It makes us sleepy. And when we sleep...a glorious procession of gears and other submachinery, to their beds...we sometimes travel down the path marked "Merge." Complicated by all that precedes us, our driver turns his head briefly to see his briefcase then quickly turns his head back and focuses on the road. He sticks out his hand towards the briefcase and twists the combination on the right side to 6-2-4 and then again on the left side. The case flicks open and parenthetical fumes suffuse the back seat, where we have been seated all this time.

An explosive mixture of chemicals and poor decisions emulsify at once and traditions grow taboo under the intense glow of a halogen flashlight - strapped to the helmet, the yellow plastic helmet, of the leader, of our team of miners. We employ about four miners, so... Sometimes gases from the crust of the earth ignite the mixture and we spin out of control as the last domino in a chain of people who aren't the last domino. Our hands tied behind us, we see a lineup of the alleged perpetrators. An unfriendly, dishonest officer asks us to pick out the one who's done this to us and we all start to cry - and I become nostalgic.