Thursday, July 06, 2006

Nope, It's Still Iowa

Every now and again I ruminate on the metaphysical or just plain wax weird and this is one of those nows.

Got to thinking about the concept of heaven this morning, and what actually drove it was remembering the panic I felt about the place when I was a kid. Back then, heaven was a physical place that pretty much, big people, adults in normal speak, went to. I was terrified of dying young and going to a place that was filled and probably outfitted by adults. I envisioned a huge, eternal waiting room. Kind of like a doctor's office where the kid's corner had a coloring book with most of the pages filled in and the rest torn and maybe a toy wooden pull duck with one wheel off center. I could simply not envision eternity amusing myself by pulling this parapalegic water fowl around for amusement. Not when they're making the Boss Hoss Silver Special Mustang as a Hot Wheel down here.

The old man had a beer glass with some undecipherable prattle on it about beer and heaven and so on. It also had a pretty nice graphic of some Bavarian looking types rolling around on clouds in what looked to be a heavenly scene. Get it? There's beer in heaven, you're happy, don't worry you can drink all you want and the men's room is, well...

Now this vision didn't impress me much either since I was pretty much a chocolate milk devotee at the time. So what if there's beer in heaven? It only attracts Bavarians and who needs more of them around? Next thing you know they'll be soaking manna in vinegar overnight the way they do with all their dreadful food down (or over if you want to be mystical about it) here. And one more thing to pull a string of disbelief. Going back to the beer glass graphic, these guys were all in lederhosen and that just killed me right there. Mom and Dad once put me in these testicle eroders and its a wonder I'm interested in women at all. I got sand down them once and sang soprano until the age of fifteen. The point being, if this is heaven, you're not going to be wearing these ball rasps.

A friend of mine once recounted how she mis-spelled Lederhosen (translated loosely: damn these things chafe!) Liederhosen (song pants) only to have a copy editor catch the error and spell it Leiderhosen (unfortunate pants).

A lot of people envision heaven as this cloudy, mystical place where you meet your ancestors and timeless questions are answered. Now, I know the caliber of relative I have here and quite frankly, the lot of them there can go disappear into another fog bank. Although I would like to ask the old man what he was thinking when he broadsided a three foot stack of cinderblocks with the Chevy. That was right after he put motor oil in the radiator. Not one of his better days.

And as to meeting those who have gone before you, forget it. If I go, I'm going to be among those waiting impatiently until Sandra Bullock and Sigourney Weaver get here. Can I have a show of hands? I mean, this is heaven, right?

Now if that doesn't put a song in your pants, nothing will.

Bunny on.

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