Should these acquaintances be forgot? Oh, yes.

And did Schuyler The Cat have a very merry Christmas? Oh yes, he did. The kids were awash in wrapping paper and packing peanuts and wonderfully fun and exciting – albeit affordable – gifts that continue to entertain them for hours. Mrs. Schuyler The Cat – otherwise known to you as “Schuylers Kitten”, got a shopping spree – although not a high-dollar shopping spree – at a local department store which she favors, which she then employed to buy a pair of riding slacks which tuck neatly into brown boots and a sweater of just-so cut and fit. The resulting effect of this outfit causes Schuyler The Cat to get watery eyes and have to sit down rapidly.

And I spent the day listening to records.

Pink Floyd (DSOTM), Miles Davis (Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue), Stravinsky (Firebird, 1911 version, Cleveland Symphony, 1979), Frank Sinatra (In the Wee Small Hours), Kiss (Destroyer). Records. LP's Talking Machine Plates. If you don't remember or never experienced these curiosities: they are just like CD's, only bigger, black in color, look funny when they spin around on a turntable, and they sound delicious.

My wife found a very clean 1972 vintage Thorens TD-160 turntable on Ebay, snatched it up, wrapped it, and stuffed it under the tree. I have never in my life been so completely pleased by a Christmas gift, ever. Thank you, Mrs. Schuyler The Cat, my little kitten.

I trust and hope all Flysters had as fulfilling a Christmas as I. And it is in that spirit that I booted up this day, and remembered “oh, yes: it is Thursday, and shipments, entire warehouses full of morons have plied Prudence for advice this day. I shall see to them.”

Bloody hell. I have.

The originals can be found HERE.

***

Job-Stealing Friend – Are you male or female? Can't tell from your letter. No matter, in the end: you're still a shitheaded fucking asshole of elephantine proportions. If I was your “friend” I'd go after you with a goddamn baseball bat and slowly beat your sorry ass to death. And then I would spit on you.

Meanwhile, I hope you get the job, and this situation haunts you for all eternity. I hope you wake up in the middle of the night every night you work there in a cold sweat, screaming, after another dream of her creeping into your room with a syringe full of battery acid which she plunges into your brain, causing it to slowly expand until your head explodes in a bloody gush of gooey, bloody lather and pus.

Oh: By the way, first round interviews are tricky. I have found relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga are very helpful when performed prior to interviews, like many other stressful events - you may want to look into those methodologies. There are a lot of helpful web sites with job interview advice available as well – since you are soon to be a “fresh out of school” graduate I have to assume your interview experience is limited, so be careful and patient, get that good advice rolling, and most of all: relax! Even though this is an important event, you need to find a way to get yourself calm and confident. When you set out to totally fuck up another persons' life with malice aforethought, it pays to be confident and calm, especially in the middle of that tricky interview (about the time the “tell me a little about yourself” questions go off) when drops of sweat run down your sternum and spine and you realize that she's probably waiting in the closet at your home, poised to leap upon you and cut your throat and stuff your worthless bloody fucking corpse in a freezer, you cheese dick.

Anyway, best of luck in your new career!

***

Accepting My Loss – Losing a parent sucks ass – so sorry to hear about your mother. And besides, it's a bloody shame you are such an idiot.

Now don't get all huffy – I don't mean that in a mean, nasty, way. I mean it in a...well, I guess I mean it in a mean nasty way after all. You carry the cards, bonehead. You are the dealer in these conversations. You are the one claiming to be comfortable while everyone you talk to is not quite aware how you are handling this thing, and even though you can just skim the deck and hand over the aces and kings, you keep giving everyone deuces and fours.

Too metaphorical? I go like that sometimes. Here: people think you're submerged in grief, you goddamn dolt. They don't understand you are moving on. You need to clue them to it. Hell, maybe you are still deep in grief, but I will assume you are stupid instead, because it's easier, and besides, it's fun for me.

So! We turn to the tried and true “Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Say O-Matic!” Please note that this is not to be confused with the ever popular “Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Do O-Matic.” Your results may vary. Not to be used in conjunction with prescription medication or during sexual intercourse. Do not operate heavy machinery while using the Schuyler The Cat Tells You What To Say/Do O-Matic. Side effects include headache, nausea, revelation, and sudden uncontrollable bowel movements. You must be at least this tall to ride the ride. All rights reserved. Patents pending.

Disclaimers aside, here's how it works: I give you three optional things to say to the idiots you hang out with, and you pick one, even at random, then use it during conversations. Ready? Great! Let's fire this beyotch up!!!

1.) “Gee, Virgil (or “Pliny the Younger”, or “Tiger”, or whatever your fucking stupid hipster friend's name is), I feel that I am dealing with my mother's death pretty well, so please don't worry about hurting my feelings when we talk about my mom. It's okay, really.” (This is what a smart person would say, so I have to give more examples in your case, because...well...there you go.)

2.) “Listen asshole, I'm not six fucking years old any more, and I can deal with the fact my mom shuffled loose this mortal coil and all that, but what I absolutely cannot fucking stand is your kid glove, pedantic, asinine treatment of me, like I'm going to fucking break into shards and chunks just because we talked about her, so knock it the fuck off or I'll pin you to the street and double-fist your ass until you scream and beg me to kill you. You got that, dad?”

3.) “Oh look! A unicorn! I just love unicorns!”

And I'm spent! Ah, another day steering and guiding the lives of ginormously and profoundly lost people...ahh. Bliss.

***

Doting Dad – Jesus, the noise! What the hell is that noise? It seems to be coming from you...a massive cacophony of sound, like a thirty foot tall wall of...

...Whining! Yeah, that's it! Whining.

Go here. This is for you. It's something I wish I had invented, but I didn't. It's called the Give-A-Fuck-O-Meter. See the needle, all the way at the bottom? Get it? I thought. Let's move on.

A digression is in order: when I win the lottery, or inherit millions, or encounter whatever method I do when I find myself rich beyond the very brightest dreams of the greedy and the avaricious, I am going to go to every major city in America (for starters, anyway – I'll work up a deployment for Pac Rim and EMEA after a few stock splits) and open a store in each. It'll be a fairly small footprint retail establishment, since it will only have one product: testicles. Yes, I, Schuyler The Cat, am gong to open an entire chain of Testicles-R-Us stores coast to coast.

And when I do, you get your flailing whiny fucking ass in there and buy some, you simpering little butt-rubbing, nose picking, semi-pubescent blobbet of crotch cheese. May I recommend the “A-Cup” model for starters, because balls, you see, sometimes have a little horsepower to them. I fear you wouldn't be able to handle B's or bigger. You can grow into them later, after you learn to handle the power, the force, the sheer outrageous awesomeness that is testicles.

And check it, Sonny Jim: This is not a dis on your wife. Not at all. This is a dis on you and you alone. Yeah, I think her fears are unfounded and a little superior-sounding, but this is her child and that's how parents roll. They worry needlessly sometimes. We're good at it.

And here you are, and you said something intelligent. Fuck me! Intelligent? In a Dear Prudence letter? The walls they will come a-tumbling down, O Lord, for I fear the universe cannot abide this news! It's like a goddamn black hole or something, rolling through the milky way, eating everything in it's path and converting the matter it encounters into a misty spatter of subatomic particles! It's the end, the end I tell you!!!

What? Oh right, sorry – you said “If he ever wants to find out things about his biological family, I think it would be helpful for us to have had at least limited contact with them throughout the years.”

You said that. And all the while you are completely unaware that you answered your own goddamn questions weeks before you ever wrote this infantile goddamn letter in the first place.

What a fucking rube.

Oh! I forgot: Testicles-R-Us is a strong supporter (pun!!!) of “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Since your wife obviously has some balls – probably the only ones in your household – maybe you should ask her to borrow them for a little while? They can be tricky, but she can teach you to use them, I suspect. Idiot.

***

Flowerless – Oh, la la la. I picture, in my head, scenes from movies that feature a moment in time when someone makes a mental connection, and comes to a remarkable realization. The actors seem to begin to glow – I'm thinking of Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump,” and Alistair Sim in the old version of “A Christmas Carol.” Very different movies, but what Hanks' character realizes he can walk to Jenny's apartment – rather than wait for the bus – he seems to levitate, and the look of marvel and joy on his face is absolutely beatific. Same with Sim, when he awakens after the spirits have left him cowering and clutching the bedpost. An amazing awareness, it seems, comes over him, and he is transformed.

You sound so astonishingly and extraordinarily stupid that I suspect you have never looked like this, ever, in your entire life.

When I have rolled out all my Testicles-R-Us stores, and after I have made a million-willion dollars, I think I will create a series of facilities for people like you. They will be indoors, with lots of windows to see out (and for curious onlookers to see in), bright and cheerfully painted, furnished in soft, comfortable things like pillows and bean bag chairs. I will offer low-cost access to the families of people like you, and they can just drop you off for a few hours, like the ball pit in Ikea. Once there, you can just dodder around and look at the pretty things, safe and blithely happy amid the broad, cushioned spaces. There will be televisions which loop “My Little Pony” commercials endlessly in the background. Big stuffed teddy bears to cuddle and nap with. You can waddle to and fro, free and without a care, unless you have to make doody, and don't you worry about making doody, sweetheart: I'll have trained staff there to wipe your stupid fucking ass for you, brainless.

Sorry about all that nonsense above – it's how I deal with life. You make a good, unwitting source too, because you only understand about a third of it.

Listen up, now – eyes front, sit criss-cross-applesauce, and no giggles. Stop picking your nose. Listening? Got your thinking cap on?

Okay. Here we go!

He doesn't buy you flowers because he's just using you for sex.

Okay then!

Now you go on back to your Spongebob show, and the rest of the world will continue on it's course, racing around the sun and revolving away without a worry for you, as it is completely unaware that somewhere here in America, an unimaginably intellect-deficient 32 year old mother of a teenager has, for the first time in her entire life, come to an amazing and bona fide realization, and has perhaps gotten “that” look on her heretofore slack-jawed face.

Cheerio!

***

I dunno about New Year's. It's not my favorite “holiday”, if one can call it that.

This year was a high-low affair for many: Bambam got the nod for the White House, and immediately set about disappointing everyone on the planet (I say he's coming on stronger for round 2, but I am an optimist who prefers this disappointment to any single day of the previous 8 years of mis-administration under The Psychotic Savant from Crawford, Texas), financially everyone took it in the shorts (except bank executives) and H1N1 got me and a few people I know, though none of us died. It's one of those New Years when all I can say is “hell, it HAS to be better than 2009. Right? I mean...right?”

I will ring in the new year by digging deeper into my freshly unpacked records collection and finding the gems I have waiting roughly 20-odd years to listen to. Dire Straits. Julie London. Count Basie. Jimmy Lunceford. Ambrosia. More Pink Floyd. Maybe Led Zeppelin, but I think I gave all those away in 1989. Jaco Pastoruis. I have about 400 or so, and I've yet to inventory them.

One last “huzzah” to a foul-weather year that can't end soon enough; me, Schuyler's Kittens, my talking machine plates and a bottle of Korbel or two, waiting for the fireworks and a cheerful – if not entirely understandable – Dick Clark to say “Happy New Year” for the 46th time in my life.

And so, in the spirit of the season: Happy Fucking New Year, Flysters!

May your worst day of 2010 be better than your best day of 2009!

May your paychecks all cash out as fortunes!

May the work you do be an adventure!

Don't catch your weenie in your zipper!

Salud,
STC =^oo^=