Crumbling Infrastructure

It’s crumbling, the Infrastructure.

I was driving on the I57 and hit potholes. The crumbling highway, but Holy Cow those potholes shook up the old Firebird’s chassis. The edges of those holes need to be a little more crumbly than they are.

I’m bumbling and grumbling and fumbling and it’s humbling and i’m jumbling things in my head and tumbling and mumbling and my innards are rumbling and i’m stumbling, but by God I’m not crumbling, not yet.

Ever see a bridge crumble? Just sort of melts into the river.

Ever see a structure crumble, whether infra or outfra? The outlines go soft. The thing draws scorn. Fresh scorn. You can’t fix it. Got to tear it down.

I knew a Mongolian kid named Jumble. Never checked the spelling. In English I mean.

Finally, the good news: A crumble is a dish of British origin that can be made in a sweet or savoury version, although the sweet version is much more common. A sweet variety usually contains stewed fruit topped with a crumbly mixture of fat, flour, and sugar. (Wikipedia)

But a crumble doesn’t crumble when it gets old. It petrifies.

Domesticating the Squirrel

I always wanted a pet squirrel. I was insistent. My parents couldn’t say no. Hence, they were both grievously injured.

I mean, I wanted a tame squirrel. You’d have to be a fool to bring a black-market wild squirrel into the house. Just the sound of it in the birthday gift box was frightening. You could hear those talons working. I had my folks open the box. Hence their grievous wounds.

But a tame squirrel is not to be found on Amazon, nor even in a lab. I expected my parents to initiate a breeding program (not of themselves haha).

I knew it would take generations, many, many generations of the little rodents before their genes could be changed.

But there are promising signs at the gitgo. Have you ever seen squirrel poop? No? That could be a very good sign. Maybe they don’t poop, or maybe they hide it away where you can’t find it. Either way is a win.

Another good sign is you won’t have to put their things away. All they have is nuts and they bury those.

You need to breed out:

• The impulse to bite and claw
• The impulse to climb the drapes
• The impulse to chitter too damn much
• The impulse to squirrel away anything but nuts
• The impulse to reproduce on a rodent’s timescale, lest you be up to your neck in squirrels

Once you get a tame one, keep it outside. You might have missed a gene or two! The rapacious gene can be hard to find. Although come to think of it, you can always regift.

Radioactive Home Remedies

Learn Fun Facts recently posted a blog entry I wrote on the subject of radioactive nostrums.

Thanks, Edmark!