Supple Towel Cuddle

The Hungry, Lazy Koala

Today, a hungry grumpy koala-shaped man came into the country club poolside lounge where I work. The lounge is a men's only affair, so I thought it strange that a marsupial so obviously trying to impersonate a human had found its way into a seat at one of the tables. This is not fiction.

The koala man-bear ordered a Tanqueray and diet tonic, which I promptly provided. At one point, he wanted some popcorn. I was actually busy popping a new batch. He lumbered over--clearly uncomfortable on his hind legs--and demanded some just before I started salting the corn. "Now!" he sputtered adorably and asked "What am I, chopped liver?" as though he were trying out for a role in some seventies daytime TV show. So I got nervous and a little excited at the prospect of animal-to-human communication and I accidentally knuckle-punched the piping hot corn kettle and dropped the salt. To my knuckle's chagrin, the kettle was more than prepared to counter the blow. The burn didn't hurt the few moments after it happened, though. I was distracted, anyway, just trying to translate the bear's manlike pragmatics and apologize for dropping the salt at the same time. But then after he had returned fuzzily to his seat, and I had returned to my spot behind the bar, I was granted a few minutes of private pain realization.

My inner dialogue was interesting: "Ffffffffuhhhh-huhhhhh-kin cattle nuts. Okay, maybe I should find something sharp and pop this impending blister. No. Wait. Cutting could just hurt more! Pinch it. But wait. No. What if THAT hurts more than just poking it open? What's there to poke with around here? Steak knives. They have steak knives. Fuck. No. Not knives. I'd get in trouble if I was caught. Or something. I'll just pop it. Here, think of something else, brain, while I---oghhh ungodly fuck rape! Hey, sweet. It SQUIRTS. It's like a pussy party-favor water gun! Mega!"

And it *was* mega. We don't often get cool wounds to play with, so I savored my opportunity tonight. Once you get past the pain, there's an undeniable glee in fiddling with dying tissue.

But my gaze wandered back to the koala man-bear after awhile. I wondered if he had ever just looked into a picture of himself among his human friends and thought: "Gosh I sure look... I don't know. Maybe I'm just too familiar with my own face." You follow me? Haven't you ever looked at a photo of your face or maybe a parent's among his/her/your peers and realized you see theirs/yours in a completely different way? It's a hard difference to explain, something selfish with the way we see the shapes in them/us. We seem to compare others to us, as if we and our family're the base forms. And why not?

But this homo sapien marsupial--or homarsupien, if you will--does he just think we were all skinny and hairless? Just cause we're skinnier and less hairy than him? And what of our hands? Our straaaaange hands, you know, compared to his.

I hate reading the word "comfortable" aloud. "CUMPH-turble" is how you WANT to say it. But when one is actually faced with the written form, it's hard to deny that extra O. Honestly, I really think I sound smarter if I say, "CUM-furtible." These are two different Danas that I waffle between... the one who says cumph-turble in conversation and, when he gets a moment to think about it, thinks "man the dana who says cum-furtible is a tool;" and the one who says cum-furtible when reading and, when he gets a moment to think about it, thinks "man the dana who says cumph-turble is an ass." I don't think it's abnormal to feel like we have these polarities, but I think it is abnormal to be a fucking koala.

He looks like a FUCKING koala.

But do you think he knows it? Can you be an asshole and a koala at the same time? Cause this guy managed it. And I didn't think that was possible. "So maybe it isn't possible," I got to thinking. "Maybe he isn't an asshole, because, as I've always believed, koalas are not and cannot be assholes." So I started trying to relate to him. And I accidentally did. Isn't it intimidating or daunting or anything how you can relate to anybody if you try hard enough? And by daunting I mean... doesn't it sometimes make you feel obligated to relate to *every*-body just, you know, when you can get around to it? I call this numb state of mind The Lament. But like with the cumph-turble thing, I'm not always in the mood. So sometimes I just truly don't give a shit about relating to the people around me, and I think, when i get the chance to think about it, that "Man, Lamenting dana is a foolhardy sell-out." But then Lamenting dana thinks that particular dana is an anti-social sellout. It's a pickle, we're in, this being "individuals" gig.

Gig. Listen to me. I called something a "gig" that had nothing to do with actual gigs. That fucking seventies daytime TV show language must've rubbed off on me. Probably cause of the trauma that my subconscious attributes to it--the knuckle-scorching, I mean. God that fucking hurt, but thank god it at least squirted pus really far.

Posted by suppletowelcuddle at July 14, 2007 12:52 AM