We Got Cages for Animals Like You

A little existential everything-and-nothing for you today, I think. That's the ticket. Hey, don't walk away!

A long time ago, I spent an entire Saturday hanging out in my apartment with a couple of my friends, watching James Bond movies on TV - the local station had some kind of "James Bond Marathon" going on. We were, as they say, 'Male James Bonding'. Couple of things I remember from that experience...

First off, I often think one movie actor is another movie actor. Even if I know them, even if I've been to their homes, I get them wrong when I see them on TV or in the movies. I don't know why. I mean, I'm watching this James Bond movie, I believe it was "Live and Let Die," and I see this actor, and I suddenly exclaim - "Hey, that's Flip Wilson!"

OK, so it wasn't Flip Wilson. It was Yaphet Kotto. Which my so-called friends proceeded to rub in at 15-minute intervals for the next decade or so. And hey, I'm sorry, Yaphet. If you ever invite me over to your house, I'll apologize in person. Really.

This is Flip Wilson

This is Yaphet Kotto

Anyway, it was a good movie.

And then, this morning...no breakfast 'Hot Pocket' for me. Usually Mrs. Wiggy has one in the freezer and she pops it into my lunch bucket and I nuke that for breakfast once I get to work. But not today. She ran out. Well, that's ok. I just go down to the break room and get myself a vending-machine "Honey Bun". And a bag of peanut M&M's.

On the way back, I decided that I was in a space suit. Yes, I'm in a space suit and I've got a helmet on my head and I'm walking like the astronauts do when they're on the moon - you remember that old grainy footage of the astronauts walking or bounding on the moon, right? Weird. But that's kinda the way I'm walking in my mind. Like there's nearly no gravity. And I'm breathing in an out through some sort of apparatus, like I'm astronaut David Bowman in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Like Darth Vader, but less raspy.

My arms are moving back and forth in some sort of deliberate, swinging motion like I'm trying to get traction in the wading part of a swimming pool - you ever see someone do that? Wave their arms in the air when their legs would not get them any traction? Why do people do that? Do they think they're going to flap their way through the air? Anyway.

So I'm tromping down the hallway and people are walking the other way. I can barely see them through my visor - there's a lot of glare on the glass from the overhead florescent lights. And they're talking to me and waving - I can't hear what they're saying. Just my own breathing. In. Out.

I get back to my cubicle just in time, my oxygen supply was running low. I climb through the hatch, shut and dog it. I flip up the faceplate and take a deep breath of the clean cubicle air...ahhhh! Then sit down with my suit still on, but I have to take the bulky gloves off to type this.

I feel just like Flip Wilson today.

Sock it to me,

Wiggy