Author: The Captive Lion

Do me a favor. Take out your driver’s license. Flip it over. Does it read “Organ Donor?” If yes, give yourself a high-five and congratulate yourself for not being a completely selfish organ hoarder. If it doesn’t identify you as organ donor, go to your local church, steal the biggest, most elaborate pipe organ you can fit in your hatchback and donate it right away. Maybe then, God will forgive you.

Of course, being the saintly guy that I am, I have gladly taken it a step further. I am proclaiming right now that I don’t need to wait for death to come knocking on my door in order to turn the good deed. I am hereby willing to donate any and all of my vestigial organs to any who need them… on one condition, however. Your need for my vestigial organs must be life-threatening. That’s it.

So if your appendix is over it’s 10-year, 100,000 mile warranty and you want a new one, prove to me you couldn’t live without mine and viola, it’s yours. Same goes for your nipple. What do I need my nipples for? I’ve been looking at these same little nipples for a long time anyway so feel free to give them a test drive and see if you want an upgrade. I could use a blank slate at the moment.

There, I’ve done it. Wow. Some intense emotions are building up in me right now. I’ll tell you, there is nothing as satisfying as giving the gift of life. It’s better than that packet of anklet socks I got for Christmas even. They say giving is better than receiving but I always thought that was a crock of bull, but now I’m seeing things differently. I’d say they are about even in my mind now (note: condition only applies when life is on the line).

So I guess I’ll be starting a list, but I don’t want to compete with that “other” list so I’m not going to publicize it too much. Plus, the media might make me out to be a hero or something and that is not what I’m after. (A few press clippings for my scrapbook wouldn’t hurt though.)

I’m sensing there might be some questions regarding my gracious offer, so fire away. And no, I don’t consider my charming good looks or my “junk” vestigial organs no matter how little they are being used right now.

Take hold of something solid, stand under a doorway, or crawl into your bomb-shelter because I’m about to send some shock-waves through suburbia. Right here, right now, I’m going to drop the first negative review on Zillionaire. Bizzomb. Cue the explosion noise. Light the pyro. Slap on the warning labels.

You might be asking yourself, “What has got this Zillionaire so keyed up?” Well, in the immediate sense that would be the two whiskies I had on my lunch break today. In the long run though, it is places like Costco that are driving me insane and I normally have a high tolerance level for sanity.

First off, the “members only” concept is a little too PGA, pre-Tiger Woods for me. Exclusivity is fine for some things like art and Beanie Babies (Hoot the Owl is retired, folks!), but I’m not going to plunk down a membership fee to get 40 hot dog buns in one bag. In fact, if I ever need 40 hot dog buns in one bag I would hope that I would be too poor to buy them all at once or that I was too rich to even shop for myself. (In case you are playing along at home, I’d take the extreme in either direction, it’s just that middle ground where I need 40 buns in one bag that I don’t want.)

You know, I don’t just mention hot dogs casually here when talking about Costco and membership fees. Hot dog sales are the dirty secret the Costco executives don’t want you to know about. Seriously, they must be laced with something, right? How else can you explain the scenario I saw last time I visited Costco… I literally walked by a table with four women over 70 years old, all wearing semi-fancy older lady apparel with that gaudy gold jewelry that only elderly women pull off, chowing down on some foot-longs or something. It was like I was in the Twilight Zone. These women had obviously been drugged or misled to think they were eating something from Olive Garden judging from the way they smiled and chatted about false teeth. Wake up, America! Where else but Costco do people pay membership dues to eat a lackluster boiled hot dog in a warehouse? Not the usual recipe for success in my opinion. Sounds more like prison to me and last I remember, I chose to let my membership at Folsom expire!

But, alas, I’m a Zillionaire so I appreciate and value a place that strives to provide the right ambiance. And Costco’s is nothing but wrong. Let’s start with deli area. The interior designers at Costco sure did find a cushy job. “Heap some boxes there. Stacks some videos over here. No, these tables in the deli area certainly won’t do. Wait, put some umbrellas on them and they’ll be perfect!” Why are there umbrellas on the tables in the deli area! We are indoors. It will never rain, never will a gust of wind need to be diverted, never will a flake of snow wreak havoc on our heads! Are they shading us from the roof lighting? I guess it does feel nice to get out of the glow of halogen once in awhile, but I think people are so hopped up on tainted dog juice that they actually come to believe they are on a tropical island somewhere eating bar-b-q and sipping a Mai Tai.

So lastly, I’ve come to the whole concept of warehouse shopping. Costco saves a little money on the construction of a nice retail outlet, the story goes, so that they can pass on the savings to us consumers. So how come I see the same prices next door at Office-MaxCityDepot? My local Costco is such a dumpy yurt of a place I should be walking out of there with my hands full having only spent the change that builds up in my car’s cup-holder! They stopped passing on the savings a long time ago and now they just pass gas and tell you it’s air-freshener. I, for one, already make what some consider a bulk amount of air-freshener and don’t fall for the Costco sham any longer. I suggest you do the same.

Update: As this piece has morphed (via the comments section) into a discussion of the milestones in my life that have included hot dogs, I’ve decided to post an actual picture that appeared in the Western campus newspaper months ago. Apparently, it was a slow news day. Solo, check the gear!

Top 5 Pieces of Office Furniture/Supplies I Didn’t Miss While On Vacation:

1. My Stapler.  Used only three times in the two years I’ve had it, I didn’t miss this puppy one bit while I was out.  I don’t think it missed me either.  We spend a lot of time together but it still seems like we are strangers.  Hopefully in 2005, my stapler will open up a bit and we can start trusting each other with details of our respective personal lives.
2. The Big Desk.  Believe it or not, I didn’t miss being surrounded by 270 degrees of work for one second while on vacation.  True, the Formica Fortress (as I’m now calling it) is new and nice but at home I prefer furniture that isn’t so large that it needs to be cordoned off into geographic areas such as a peninsula.
3. My Fairhaven College Mug.  While I’m not under the fog of work, I actually despise drinking from ceramic mugs.  I put up with the mug while at work because I’m so numb to pain while working that I’ll drink from anything as long as I get to get up from the Fortress and take a little break.  Plus, this mug is so small it takes about 45 refills to get the daily allotment of water I need which means the breaks come quick and come often.  By my calculations, that also means I get to say hello to Heidi (who sits by the sink) 45 times a day which is a bit repetitive but fun nonetheless.
4. The Plastic Floor Mat.  I like being home while on vacation because at my house there isn’t a single plastic floor mat.  Aren’t plastic floor mats one of the signs of the apocalypse according to the Book of Revelations in the Bible? If not, they are in the King David version. But then again, the King David version has various X-men characters as the apostles. The Book of Wolverine 4:33 reads,

   “And the Lord Jesus did deliver a mighty blow to Judas. And thus swoopeth in Wolverine who finished him off with his Blades of Adamantium which glistened in the light with divine vengeance.”

5. My Chair.  Some of the bone is finally starting to heal where the doctor separated me from my chair before I left on vacation.  I had what is known as Spinal Chair Bone Fusion but I’m doing better now. Keep me in your prayers please and if you can help financially, I’ve set up some donation jars at various supermarkets and liquor stores around town.

Woke up this morning and realized for the first time why people say you shouldn’t eat in bed. On a related note, cracker crumbs make for alright pillows.

My mailbox at my apartment might as well be a recycle bin. Everyday I get a new eight page “newspaper” filled with nothing but advertisements for glistening slabs of beef and windshield replacements. Now if these products were somehow combined into a new form of transparent beef that would replace my chipped windshield I might be tempted to purchase but as it stands they just infuriate me. But the other day, tucked inside one of these mailers, I saw a package that made all the forest clearcuts worthwhile. By the way, my feelings are not meant to disparage the postal service. They are in a tough spot. What if someone had to hand deliver all the spam email that arrives in your inbox? What if they had to lug it over their shoulder while hoofing it up and down to every house on the block? In my mind, that is what a mail carrier’s job is and I can understand how one might get a little disgruntled now and then.

Of course the package at hand contained a new cd by the one and only Jon Solo. Simply put, this is great music. For those following Jon Solo’s career, this cd is sort of a throwback to his roots but it’s also a glimpse into a new direction. Aptly titled, Piano showcases Solo on the instrument his mind and fingers have been fused to since infancy. The cd contains inspired covers of great songs that I had never heard before and one original Solo composition which you will all hear on the radio some day. (I should note I am not a piano aficianado however, so I’m looking forward to using this cd as a stepping stone to a greater understanding of the music.)

Flat out, Solo knows what he is doing on the keys. The music is dripping with emotion and the original tune called Dreamer is possibly the most engaging of them all. It is an interesting amalgamation of all the places Solo has been in his musical journey through the worlds of classical, jazz, and R&B wrapped up in a haunting, hopeful song. And yet it’s simple, within the grasp of non-musicians, something only few have the talent to deliver.

So do what I did and buy this cd. Support a real musician. I’m getting two because they make excellent gifts and stocking stuffers.

The album can be purchased online through a cool independent label called Premier Cru Music.