THE ASKTATION

Dear Ask Boz,

Why?

RESPONSORIAL

Your question is clearly a cry for help. Happily, you will get no help from us. When you ask "why," you are, of course, asking many questions. Why do we exist? Why are people so cruel? Why peaches and nectarines? Why did daddy like to dress like mommy, and say "everyday is Halloween," even though I didn't get to dress up or ask strangers for candy?

So, one at a time. Why do we exist? Jerk, haven't you seen the Matrix? You know how humans were being used as a power source by the machines? Well, our "lives" are essentially the same to the immortal beings that created us. However, they don't need to feed on life; they feed on our deaths. You see, the one thing an immortal craves is the one thing they can't have: the end of their lives. Since they can't have it for themselves, they create beings with an expiration date, and feed on the moments where the last little bit of life force leaves our bodies. Trust: the dying of our synapses is like crack cocaine to Zeus and Odin. This death fetish reaches to every level of the gods. Our source in the immortal community tells us that Archangel Slappy simply loves to pretend to be a good force, gently whispering to the dying, telling them about all the wonderful things to come in Heaven, while secretly inhaling the intoxicating ambrosia of decay and termination. Then they all -

Hey! Are you crying? Well, this is just tough squirrels, buddy! Once you accept it and start to get your head around it, you kinda realize that, hey, at least I know my purpose in life is the one thing I will absolutely succeed in doing well.

So, why are people so cruel? See the above "God loves Death" paragraph. And then, you know the stereotypical image of an angel and a devil on a person's shoulders, whispering advice into their ears? It's kinda like that. Except, each person either has a devil, an angel, or an in between type, known as a fartlek. So, the really bad people actually have a devil inside of them, endlessly telling them to do bad things. In their heads is a constant monologue: "Upset your mother, break that kitty's leg, set fire to that, isn't that sheep giving you the eye?" Acting on these things is bad enough, but then a person will get worse and worse, doing more and more dangerously foul things, until there is like a freakin' "death-in" of invisible immortal beings that are simply panting in expectation for this doomed soul's spectacularly horrible end. They'll say, like, "Oh, look, he's buying a gun from a thug! Can this get any better?"

Based on that, you'd think you'd want an angel, right? Wrongo! They lead you just as certainly to death as the forces of Satan. You see, the "good" people get so upset about all the bad in the world that they get hypertension and heart plaque. The angel works more in feelings than ideas. It just drops in the right mixture of melancholy, until your general sense is that the world is a basically bleak place, then the angel will light you up with a bloom of optimism, knowing that you eventually will meet some devil-run person and all your hopes will be crushed and you'll be worse off than before. About the third time through that cycle and Apollo and Nike are taking bets about when you are going to do their favorite dance: The heart clutching, surprised look jerk around fall down.

A fartlek makes you do just enough bad things to make you feel alive and keep your blood pressure down, while maintaining a veneer of kindness that allows you to trick yourself into believing that you are a good person. The point here is to actually keep you alive for a very long time. There are some very powerful beings whose taste runs to the end of a long life. We think it's because, like, they've experienced such a long existence, and the idea of gently expiring while surrounded by loved ones would just be a sweet way to advance into the nothingness of the great void.

As far as peaches and nectarines go, the ever-beings are curiously tight-lipped. You here whispers here and there: Jehovah this, Yahweh that, Allah up, Shiva down, Tetragrammaton all around . We think that there may be some real top-notch dudes up there in heaven that are really into fruit death. We also think they love when, like, you pile up a bunch of oranges and light them on fire. Something about the scent being quite heavenly. Listen, we've been trying it, and all kinds of nice things have been happening for us. Such as, now our plumbing just fixes itself. And we can touch fire without getting burned. And girls like us because of our acne. A little warning, though. Save some fruit and veggies for eating, otherwise you'll get the scurvy.

As for your dad, we're thinking he's got one of them-there cross-dressing demons in 'im. They are usually harmless enough, until daddy suddenly finds himself in a tryst with someone named "Madam Adam." He'll be led into an underground world of secret nightclubs run by Transgendered-Americans, and he'll start referring to everyone as "sugar" and affecting a Southern drawl. Needless to say, the march to a CSI type ending is on, and Mars and Hades put on there best blouse/skirt combo to watch the inevitable become evitable.

Well, there it is. You hadda ask, we hadda answer. Our suggestion is to sink into your couch, eat a diet of pure fat, stay drunk and wait to die. It's said that Thor loves that death, and, let's face it, Thor is, like, the coolest god ever.

Stay positive and love your life!

Ask Boz

Home