“Why are you running?”
“I just got chased out of the bathroom by a toilet fly.”
“Ew.”
“What? I did.”
“Shut up.”
“But I want to talk about it. It was traumatizing.”
“That’s why I don’t want to know.”
“But not like just a regular fly. It was that little black kind with the big wings?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do. It’s got a black dot for a body and it’s wings are sort of dark gray. I don’t think it’s actually a fly. In fact it’s definitely not a fly.”
“I don’t know or want to continue this discussion.”
“Would it help if we changed the setting from the bathroom to a sunny meadow?”
“No, I already know it happened in the bathroom.”
“They are very resistant to being killed with liquids.”
“Why are you still telling me this?”
“Because if you see one of those bugs in the bathroom, you should avoid it.”
“I avoid anything in the bathroom that’s alive.”
“Good because you should. It was on the wall of the urinal and I flushed and the water knocked it down to the drain-cage, but it just started flying as though it were completely unfazed.”
“That’s a little odd.”
“So then I tried to pee it to death.”
“Great.”
“And I hit it a few times with a hard stream, and still nothing.”
“This is where I lose interest in continuing-”
“And then the damned thing starts flying at me.”
“Serves you right.”
“Are you kidding? That’s completely hideous. It’s covered in toilet water and pee and it thinks it’s going to touch me? Why would God make a bug that can resist water and pee?”
“Same reason God makes wasps and Republicans other things that only serve an evil purpose.”
“What’s the reason?”
“God isn’t real.”
“Shut up!”
“We live in a cold and empty universe and all we have is our brief stint upon this earth and then we return to the void that permeates all of our deepest fears.”
“I’m not listening! La la la!”
“Sing all you want, it won’t stave off the inevitable decline as age reclaims our life and youth as grim payment for the mixed blessing of struggling through these fleeting years in the dark of a universe that isn’t even watching.”
“God is great, God is good-”
“What are you doing?”
“Let us thank him for our food-”
“That’s completely wrong.”
“No it isn’t! You’re badmouthing God and I’m appeasing him!”
“Her!”
“It!”
“Are you saying God is an animal?”
“No…”
“You just called her an it.”
“God isn’t a him or a her…or an it…God is a he-she.”
“Oh, like a…what’s it…chicks with di-”
“No! You’re twisting my words!”
“I’m just trying to understand here…are you saying God is a woman stuck in a man’s body or the other way around?”
“No! I’m not-”
“Because I think either way you’re getting into some risky territory.”
“No, God, I…Sorry! Help!”
“If you’re so concerned about God, then why are you trying to pee God’s bugs to death?”
“Come on, bugs are bugs.”
“It only has one life.”
“Yes…I know.”
“Think about it. That bug is only going to live once. Even something as insignificant as that. When it dies, everything is over for that bug. No matter how many bugs there are in the world, that bug will never experience the world again. That one bug is dead and will never live again.”
“What about reincarnation?”
“What about the tooth fairy?”
“I suppose I haven’t really thought about it too much in those terms.”
“Well you should. Who are you to say whether or not it should live?”
“I have always enjoyed killing things. You know. Taking lives.”
“Maybe your blanket disrespect for the sanctity of life won’t stop at just bugs. Soon you’ll be killing small animals and before you know it, people!”
“I am already killing those things.”
“What?”
“Yeah, like for fun. You know, for sport.”
“…”
“…”
“Not for a career, though?”
“No.”
“Okay. Because that would be pretty unethical to make money for killing people.”
“Oh no no no. I’m strictly a weekend warrior.”
“I hear that.”
“I live for the weekend.”
“Live for it.”

Welcome to very first installment of Circumstantial Safari, where I tell you how to make the best of things that aren't going to happen. I’m glad you could make it, because I was just thinking about lions, and what might be a good way to behave if you found yourself face to face with one.

Not that it’s something that happens regularly, but it could. Maybe you’re strolling across the top of a moving train having just vanquished your foe and you fall through the top of a circus car. Not likely, but that’s just the way odds work, right? If you did happen to fall through the ceiling of one of the cars, you can be sure it will be the circus car and I’d wager it would contain a lion or lions.

Now first up, if there is more than one lion you are probably dead so I would suggest focusing most of your energy on not crapping in your pants and dying as proudly as you can, although the following advice might still help you out, just know that the odds, which are already dismal, are doubly so.

The first thing I would do is scream like a maniac. But not in a frightened way. It would have to be the type of scream that says “I’m coming for you, lion.” I think it is important not to just scream aimlessly or fearfully. There has to be a specific intent to it, and it has to be a predatory one. You have to make that lion think twice about eating you. Human beings have a primal nature that we have arguably lost touch with. Reconnect then and there, without hesitation. It’s important.

Also flex your muscles. Even if you don’t have many to flex, do it anyway, as though you were stacked beyond beef. After all, wiry definition and bulging veins can own a sort of intimidation. If you are heavy set, maybe you should stomp left to right like a sumo, suggesting to the lion that you are about to charge (although I guess that could get you immediately killed, maybe.) Point is, if you don’t believe in yourself, the lion is definitely not going to.

If that doesn’t work which it most certainly won’t, I would advise punching the lion as hard as you can right in the nose and if that backs it off, maybe look for something with gouging power and then go for the eyes or the throat. But, and this is important, there can be no hesitation when attempting to gouge any part of the lion. You have to stick it and stick it right. If you let your wrist go limp in mid-gouge out of fear or pity, then that lion’s belly is where you belong and odds are you didn’t make it past the kill-shout.

And if you manage to give it one good gouge, you can’t stop there, gouge anything you can, particularly the eyes. I guess if you got its eyes you could try to hide, but they have good noses, lions, and something tells me it would be pretty difficult to gain access to the eyes, anyway. The lion knows his eyes are important and will be loath to give them over to you. It is vital that you keep hacking at it as fast and hard as you can - like you are a wind-up hack-toy that whoever wound it up is now forcing the winding mechanism the opposite way, causing you to hack much faster than your manufacturer intended. Your arm should be a machine gun of hacking, over and over, never ceasing, even if the lion starts whimpering like a sad kitty. Don’t fall for it. Stick that thing until it is a big red mass of wet fur and holes.

Now we all know that there is basically no chance of gouging the lion to death or blinding it and it will probably just pounce on you and commence to mauling. If this happens, keep a cool head. Panic is useless alive or dead and you have to keep sharp. As it mauls you, try to find the moment when you have the right leverage to kick it swiftly in the privates. I bet this would work because privates are pretty much sensitive across the board in all animals. That has always been my sense of privates, in any case. I can’t imagine an animal with armored privates. Well, that’s not true, I can pretty easily imagine that (just picture privates, only metal), but a lion’s privates are definitely not armored.

If that works, kick it a few more times just to keep it down and also to insult it some, for you have just deposed the king of the jungle and I think a little showboating is in order. Then get the hell out of that circus car.

Chad is under fire after he renounced the existence of diabetes and proclaimed sugar to be the only healthy food! How can he maintain his pristine reputation amidst rising global fury?

Featuring Special Guest Jim Ranchhand from Fleet Week The Musical!

The science of the Sugar Rush Diet is simple: keep a steady sugar rush during the waking hours, so that whatever may happen when you're coming down happens while you're asleep, when it doesn't matter anyway.