THE GREAT GADFLY:

I Got The Death Breath

Holy cow, I'm serious. I think someone slipped a tumor into my cup of cocoa at work, or maybe I had some kind of oral incident (huh-huh, he said...) where a molar cavity was disturbed in mid-sneeze and it knocked some noxious gas from a pocket of decay - IN MY MOUTH!

I wish I was one of those people who toted around a little zip-loc baggie with a toothbrush right now, honest. My breath right now is something nobody deserves. And I can make a long list of people who deserve bad things. Not even the scoundrel at the top of that list deserves a blast of my present death breath.

I brushed this morning, I did! I brush EVERY morning! I used to do the mouthwash thing too, but it got to be a little too much effort for me after a while, and anyway, I bought that really hardcore Rembrandt stuff and it damn near burned my tongue out of my head.

I have horror mouth!

I mean, I'm just sitting here doing my thing at work, and when I yawn or sneeze or cough, I get a blast of my own oral odor and physically recoil from myself. I AM MY OWN PRISON! AND NOT IN A ZEN, "I'VE BEEN TO PARADISE BUT I'VE NEVER BEEN TO ME" KIND OF WAY! PHYSICALLY! LITERALLY!

Oh, I would like to get some breath mints out of the vending machine but I forgot to bring any money to work with me this morning and the ATM at my bank was broken. Chicago, this fucking place, I tell you. Why can't there be more ATMs? Why can't this place just get that ONE stupid thing right?!

My breath smells horrible and it's all the fault of this city. TO HELL WITH THE CITY THAT WORKS! TO HELL WITH THEM ALL!

I'm going to lick everything with my rancid saliva, is what I will do. Then maybe people will see that I am not messing around so much and then they'll install some decent goddamn ATMs in this city. OH:

And you know what ELSE I will lick? I will lick the new vending machine we just got at my job. Get this - they just had a new "meal items" vending machine added to the usual chips'n'candy machine, whereby you can get slightly more committal food items like ice cream bars, big cinnemon rolls, pie, and a variety of MEATS.

That's right, you bastards - MEATS.

They put a damn coin-operated butcher shop in the lunch room. I can't eat none of that! I'M A BALANCE-OBSERVING, PEACE-LOVING, NATURE-RESPECTING VEGETARIAN, YOU ASSHOLES!

Oh, come visit me at my job. It's such a treat. We have a fine array of ice creams and MEATS.

GROSS! GROSS! GROSS!

HATE! HATE! HATE!

- ohhhh - ah - eh?!?!

Sorry.

Overheated a bit there.

Look, I'm just really tired of having sour breath today. It's getting the best of me, and I'm not sure how many more mishaps I can stand today.

HORRORS.