Collapsing Shack, AZ—In a story stranger than even his own dark twisted mind could imagine, Zombie fiction author Michael D. Griffiths has admitted to being a zombie. This has not only shocked his four loyal fans, but has sky-rocketed his Eternal Aftermath book sales to the point of clearing his advance for the first time ever…mostly.

I caught up with MDG while he was finishing off other patrons’ abandoned drinks inside the Zane Grey Ballroom in Flagstaff, AZ.

AB: “So Mr. Griffiths, when did you first realize you were a zombie?”

MDG: “I had been drinking a lot and wasn’t quiet feeling myself or like a young Bill Murray meets Spaghetti Western Clint Eastwood, which is what I usually feel like (High Brains Drifter joke omitted for space’s sake). Then I was a little broke after trying to buy my way into Zano’s exclusive semiannual Lesbians only theme party…I didn’t have enough cash to get a sloppy burger, so I ate this hippy’s brain. It was good. I ate the rest of him and what I couldn’t finish I took home for sandwiches…manwiches, really.”

AB: “Has being a zombie been rough on you?”

MDG: “Yeah, it’s hard on my love life. I keep trying to eat my wife, but not in the traditional sense. She has told me that she will be staying with her mother, ‘until I grow out of this.’ She thinks it’s a phase.”

AB: “Has becoming a zombie helped you with your writing?”

MDG: “Yes and no. I can connect and channel my villains better, but last week I ate one of my publishers. So it looks like Raiders of the Lost Entrails, won’t be coming out for a while.”

AB: “I think our readers will be upset if I don’t ask you why you think you’re a zombie. For instance, zombies rarely talk, and their fiction is pretty boring. Maybe you’re just a cannibal.”

MDG: “Would I dress like this if I wasn’t a zombie? I mean come on. Old t-shirts and dirty jeans? I’m a ‘professional’ after all. Also, I haven’t bathed for several weeks now…explain that? I must be a zombie. I also have been getting this strange desire to watch Fox News.”

AB: “Oh Fox News…sorry I doubted you. Thanks for the interview and be sure to rush out and grab Mr. Griffiths’ newest zombie novel, Eternal Aftermath. Hey. Let go of my arm. AHhHhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Note: Mr. Bone has not returned to the Discord headquarters since he emailed us this story and is now currently missing and believed eaten (MBE).

In the last couple of months central PA saw two major events: an earthquake and a massive flood. Not to mention the earthquake in Penn State. Each event showed the average American’s lack of intelligence. They all made Mick Zano look like Walter Cronkite and the Ghetto Shaman look like the Dalai friggin’ Lama.

During this little earth shaking event, I immediately realized what was happening. My average American coworker, however—not so much. In fact his exact words were, “Did you just fart?” To this I remained silent, I didn’t want to risk the chance he would fire me. Don’t worry, I remained silent but deadly. Revenge is dish best served warm and wafted.

As my Facebook page was lighting up with messages and posts such as, “What was that?” and “Did Dave just fart?” I left one of my own witty remarks.  We all remember that REM song, The end of the world as we know it? You know, the one that goes: That’s great it started with an earthquake birds and snakes, an airplane, Lenny Bruce is not Afraid? With that song as the basis of my post, I left the following witty remark, “I just saw Lenny Bruce…and, boy, did he look scared.” For this wonderfully intelligent post I received no Likes and only one comment, “Hey did you just feel the ground shake where you live?” To which I just had to reply, “No but I think my boss just farted…..Dumb Ass!”

Two weeks later our whole area was hit by a major flood. I mean a big one, with houses, cars, entire roads, and even a few establishments of worship (you know, bars) went floating down stream. Even my poor friend Terry was swept away, bar stool and all. He did manage to keep his cigarette lit somehow. Pennsylvanians are tough. I’ll give ’em that.

Even places not along rivers were flooded, like where I live, on the side of a sizeable mountain.  Barns, cows, cars, neighbors, neighbors that looked like cows, all could be seen taking water rides.  The water runoff down the mountain road was like a tidal wave.  In fact, even the street sign, Fire Tower Rd., was washed away (which will become an important point in our tale). 

While I was out battening down the hatches and closing up the shutters, a VW bug, up to its hubcaps in water, stopped in front of my house. The driver rolled down the window and a column of pot smoke that looked like the Hiroshima mushroom cloud emerged from the window. When it finally cleared, a man, possibly Willie Nelson, looked out at me through blood shot eyes. He explained he heard the highest ground around was at the top of Fire Tower Road and he wanted to seek an elevated area to pray. I explained to him that Fire Tower Road was a dirt road with a river currently running down it, but gave him directions all the same. Sarcastically I said I think the VW would make it up just fine, maybe it would even float.

And Float the God Damn thing did; he must have made it up about 50 yards. Then over the river and through the woods, towards grandmother’s house he went. Thankfully she moved to Arizona years ago. I’d hate to be singing, “Grandma got run over by a Stoner” for the holidays. About an hour later I took out the 4-wheel drive Chevy to assess the local damage. It was bad, real bad, but better than that pot-smoking preacher. I found him clinging for dear life to the roof of the VW. He was drenched, scared sober, shaking, and sobbing. As I drove by, he said, “All I wanted to do was get up that hill to pray, man!”

As I passed, creating a wake high enough to enter his car, I said, “By the way, Sparky, there ain’t no church on Fire Tower Road.”

Dumbass!

Okay, here goes. You want world peace? Well, I think I may have some answers. I want you to look at the globe, not as a mixture of political boundaries, but a world of people sharing a pastime, or addiction, or religion. Frankly, all of this melting pot stuff is a waste of perfectly good marijuana.

First, let’s take North America. Everything from the Arctic south to Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Idaho will be renamed Hockey, with its Capital designated as Center Iceslip. Let’s put it near where southern Saskatchewan is now, which maybe we could rename Zambonia.

The west coast from Oregon to Mid-California to be renamed Moonbeam, with its Capital being the city of I’mOKyerOK, located near and abouts where California wine country is now. They’re going to need to drink that wine as they go broke.

Colorado would become Little Moonbeam. They have lots of beer, so they should be OK for a time as well.

Meanwhile, Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to be renamed Dry Heat, with its new Capital city of Fartas de Cervesas Y Burrito. Let’s build it in the desert somewhere west of Phoenix. The more open the space the better.

Nevada and Utah would be called Mormon with its Capital of Sixwives constructed somewhere near Provo.

All the central states would become Farmville with its Capital John Deer City.

Louisiana should be sacrificed back to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf. We should probably set up a memorial of a floating Superdome covered in shit with a sign saying, “We will rebuild at some point, promise.”

Mississippi would become Refineri with its Capital of Swetty.

The Great Lakes states would become Nojobshere with its new capital Onthedole.

Now the east coast, from New England down to D.C., would become Joisey, with its Capital of Whatsadatsmell? I think it’s fitting that Joisey should be the first and only city in the world to end in a question mark. Let’s put their capital in the heart of the Meadowlands. This way the foundation of this new metropolis will be truly built upon the people…at least the people the mob whacked.

D.C. south to the border with Florida and west to the Mississippi would become Jesus Christ, with its Capital of Nascarville in central Kentucky.

Central Florida would become New Israel, with its Capital of Bluehair near Orlando.

Southern Florida would become New Rico. No Capital, no one cares. Maybe we should go with Noonecares if anyone mentions it.

Why do the Israelis have to live completely surrounded by people who want them all dead? We need to give them Mexico. First, the Israeli Armed forces will make short work of the drug lords. After 40-years of Islam, those cartels would be like a video game to them. The kind you play all night until you beat. Then, think of what the Jews would do with two long beautiful coastlines! Can you say world’s largest resort? I knew ya could. Being surrounded by enemies and still being one of the world’s most successful economies, think of what they would do without all that pressure and defense spending? Its Capital would be Tel-Amex.

Central and South America would become Brazintina, for those two countries run everything there now anyway. The Capital of Univision would be located in the rainforests of central Brazil…a true “green city”.

The current countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark would be called Coldfish, with its new Capital of Stiffnipple located in an ice cave somewhere in Sweden.

England, Ireland, and Scotland would become Crappweather, with its Capital of Crappfood located in Northern Indigestion.

The Netherlands and Belgium would become Potnbeer, with its capital of Shitfaced.

Austria, Germany and France would be the country of Incharge, as—let’s face it—they are.

Italy, Sardinia, Sicily and Greece would become Buuurp, with its capital of Depilatory.

Russia would become Putin, with its capital of Putin located in central Putingrad. The countries that used to make up the Eastern bloc will be designated as Not Putin, with their collective capital named Keilbasa Farts, near an around where Sarajevo is now.

All of Africa would become Country of the Month, with its Capital moving monthly to wherever that one tribal group is currently holding power. South Africa, being the exception, would become Don’tSailHere.

India would become Helpdesk, Pakistan would become 7-11, China and Southeast Asia would all be WedocheapMart.

The Mideast would all be Sandistan.

And let’s give Indonesia to Japan (Japanesia?). They could use the space and will likely run it better. They might even build some great resorts there as well…in between giant waves.

Which only leaves Australia. Best leave it be…as the world goes broke no one will be able to fly there anyway.

I have recently become extremely obsessed with the ever-expanding glut of TV shows about storage unit auctions, people taking one of a kind items into pawn shops and negotiating high-dollar bargains, and/or people rummaging around in dilapidated barns & garages for treasures that, I’m told, are high-dollar items. An antique vibrator?! $300. Thomas Jefferson’s own personal butt-plug, hewn from Mount Rushmore? $4,000 all-day. A rare acetate demo of John Lennon fisting Yoko Ono with brass-knuckles? Actually, that could be ANY Lennon/Ono composition. But I’d still pay at least $2,000 for the chance to own it. This is my fault. I’m addicted to junk…thus my interest in joining Team Discord.

For the uninitiated, shows like Storage Wars and Auction Hunters have this main premise: every day thousands of unclaimed storage lockers are put up for auction. Bidding is fierce, and rivalries develop instantaneously over storage lockers chock-full of rarities and untold riches. It’s the ultimate in Ponzi* schemes, with the rule being buy-low, sell-high.

*Given our fascination with combining celebrity couple names, I can only conclude that somewhere along the line Potsi Webber & Arthur Fonzarelli had a brief, albeit torrid, sexual affair, thus the term “Ponzi”.

Oh sure, there are storage units that turn out to be a bust. Apparently SOME people in the world don’t feel that a cold, 8’x10′ storage locker, one that you’re sure to forget paying those monthly fees for, is the best place to store their priceless collection of Action Comics #1 or their collection of rare Aztec artifacts. These people are idiots. Climate-controlled bank vaults? Safety deposit boxes? Safes? Actually, safes are okay…as long as you stick the safe itself in the storage unit as well. The rule of thumb here is this: if it has intrinsic value, put it in a glorified carport and lock that shit up with a high-school locker Master lock. Then forget you owe $400 for the past four months rent and lose the bitch altogether.

Many of your garden variety archaeologists have given up scouring the ruins of some long-forgotten city, whose name the average Indiana Jones wanna-be can’t even pronounce correctly (and honestly who can blame them?) spending months at a time in some dense jungle—amidst the constant threat of attack by large primates, bot flies that lay eggs in open wounds, and oppressive “jungle stench”—just doesn’t help morale when you’ve spent four months with a Maybelline rouge brush, carefully and intently brushing the faintest of flecks of dirt, layer by layer, away from a couple of shards of clay pottery. Ask any archaeologist whether or not they were inspired to seek treasures and unlock the mysteries of the past by the Indiana Jones franchise, if they now feel cheated by taking this career path. I’m almost positive the answer will be a resounding fuck yeah!

I’ve been out here in the jungles of Costa Rica for four months now and not ONE Nazi OR crystal fucking skull about. Bullshit. Plus, most of the good treasure has already been looted and sold on the black market, only to end up in an 8’ x 10’ storage shed in default of payment, waiting for some hulking behemoth of a man with head-tattoos and Oakley shades to slowly bid it up to roughly $1200 American. So, in short, to any and all of you potential treasure seekers out there who might be reading this, give up dreams of Custer’s Gold. Put away the maps of Oak Island, and don’t even THINK about going near Fort Knox. Become an Archeostorageunitologist and begin your new career today! Who knows, you may end up with Lincoln’s personal stash of Bukkake porn. Or, you might just end up with a compilation of old Discord posts…but don’t let that deter you.

In retrospect, when I watched the 9/11 ceremonies in Manhattan from my living room (a misnomer), it struck me, there’s a reason singers who had hits in their twenties shouldn’t try to sing them when they’re pushing seventy.  I watched Paul Simon, folk guitar in-hand, completely butcher “The Sounds of Silence.”  You know what would have been more respectful?  Umm, silence?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved the ceremony and I feel that yes, two black granite holes in the ground with water flowing down in the middle like a tub drain is exactly the way I would have done it, fer Sher, but……..What? Too soon for a 9/11 memorial joke? 

When you are sixty six (WNBC), and some well intentioned young person contacts you to please sing that hit you had in the sixties, well, to paraphrase Nancy Reagan, Just Say No. You can no longer reach those highs anymore, so it’s kind of like asking Steven Hawking’s computer to sing an all mid-range rendition of our National Anthem. “…and the VoiceText’s read glare!”

Look, there’s a reason there will never be a Led Zeppelin reunion, besides Bonham’s death.  By the way John’s death was a necessary evil.  If your drummer doesn’t die before your third album, it’s all over.  Def Leppard tried to get away with just one arm and look what happened to them.  Anyway, Robert Plant knows all too damn well that unless we want to hear the line “does anybody remember laughter?” sounding as if it were sung by Richard Sturbin of the Oak Ridge Boys, it’s probably not a good idea. Get over it; it’s never going to happen, aka, the Levee broke, his vocal chords have gone Over the Hills and Far Away so it’s time to Ramble On.

I have noticed there are some older singers who still sound as good as they did when they were young.  Then I realized this was only because they sung rather crappily even back then. Rod Stewart comes to mind.  He always sounded like a 4-pack a day, seventy-year-old vasectomy gone horribly wrong, aka, he’s good to go for a long and productive career.  Tom Petty also comes to mind.  If I can sing like him until I’m 80, I’m reasonably sure he can do so.  Here comes my voice, here comes my voice.

Simon was like “Hello youngness my old friend, I fail to sing like you again.” He looked bloated and tired. Granted, I also look bloated and tired but, remember, I have looked bloated and tired since the Carter Administration…besides, I would have just said no. Oh yeah and, Paul, give up the hat.  We all know you’s bald. You haven’t had any hair since 1977. Nothing says ‘I’m Kool’ better than a suit jacket and a baseball hat.  Are you going to Scarborough Fair?  I hear they have a lot of hats there.

It’s like going to a Stones’ concert.  You go to hear the old songs, knowing full well they’re getting on in years.  But somehow you’re never fully prepared for Mick Jaeggermeister and the Crypt-Keeper Four. Has anyone actually told ‘Keef’ he died years ago?  Will the next tour be ‘The Mausoleum Tour 2012’?  Speaking of 2012, remember the Mayan prophecy?  The Stones opened for them.  At some point, fellas, just stay home.  But, then again, nothing says rock & roll like adult diapers.  Sympathy for the Hamper?

Back to 9/11.  I never thought I would ever feel sorry for a billionaire, but it happened. The cute little old Jewish guy who owned the 99-year leases on the Twin Towers, 86 year old Larry Silverstein, who had just acquired them a month before…  He had been in a car accident when the final papers needed to be filed.  He had his Doctor kill the morphine drip and called his minions to his hospital bedside to get the job done.  He really just should have hit the M button one more time and done the cross-eyed smile.  That’s what I do to get through Zano features.  He admits he is alive only because his nagging Jewish wife made him keep an appointment with his dermatologist.  He would have otherwise been in the Top of the World restaurant on 9/11, having some tenant meetings and then dying.  If you have ever encountered one of these old women, you know you just don’t argue. The payment for that is, to paraphrase Jimmy McMillan, Just Too Damn High.

America’s Napoleon, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, kept the clergy out of the ceremonies, mainly because he needs to feel important to make up for some, er…shall we say shortcomings?

As Rudy Giuliani said when asked, “The microphones won’t melt if the clergy was there.”

He also said there was no room for the Fire and Police personnel. Jeez Bloomers, ease up. You really can’t get re-elected this time, besides, changing the law to suit yourself usually only works once.

In closing, while the Freedom Tower looks to be a beautiful building and all, I preferred this runner-up:

You have to admit this captures both the essence of the War on Terror as well as our New York sensibilities about, well, everything.  Hello Bronx cheer, my old friend…

Have I got the investment for you! Over the years, as we grow older, our needs change. We start life in diapers, go on to tighty whities, and on to boxers, then, well, back to diapers. We start out sleeping all day, then at night, then not even then, then at night again, then all day, just intermittently. Our lives come full circle, but there is one area that has disappeared from the scene. Old people cars…complete with deploying Depends feature.

Always derided, never appreciated, the butt of a century of jokes, old people’s cars have still always been there for us. The day we traded in that old truck, or sports car, for the Buick Lesabre, Chevy Caprice, or Ford Crown Vic, was a day we all hoped would never come…yet it came nevertheless. And the cars were always there, waiting, almost with a grin, saying to us Resistance Is Futile. You get old, you buy a Buick, you drive slower and slower, you get short, and you die, simple as that. Then the nephew you end up leaving the car to just enters it in the next Demolition Derby. Best of all worlds, he even paints your name on the side in day-glow orange rattle can.

Herein lies the conundrum. In order to fulfill our destiny, we are pre-destined by our gene pool for our “last ride” as it were, to be large, quiet, smooth, with 4 doors (preferably no day-glow rattle can sayings yet), kind of like driving a simulator, or better yet, a video game. Only those properties will safely see us off into the netherworld, and we all know we won’t get past the Pearly Gates without one. But here’s the rub…those cars no longer exist. The last Chevy Caprice remained police cars until ’96. The last real full-sized Buick was the Park Avenue in 2004. Today I realized the Crown Vic, the car that started as a cop car, went on to live as a taxi, ending its life as a three room apartment for illegals, will cease production this fall.

Simultaneously, we as a nation are looking at an increase in the number of old people like never  before. We baby boomers are all about to come of age, with retirement monies in hand, and nary a fat-assed car to be seen.   And, if not for us, what about my nephew’s Demolition Derby dream?  Or stock prices for rattle can spray paint?

I realized just how stupid the powers that be in Detroit are. Just as they have fully integrated the “young” into the new automobile, they have left all us walking history lessons sans ride.  Here is where the investment comes in…

In 2007, Russia bought all the tooling for what is arguably the worst car to come out of Detroit in a century, the Chrysler Sebring, and now manufactures it in Siberia somewhere. They’re selling like hotcakes. Russians are not the brightest bulb on the international chandelier, so the Sebring must look like a fucking Bentley compared to what they are used to.

What we need now is for somebody who wants to be THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN, for some 30 million crypt keepers.  Please just step up and leave your money on the table. I want to purchase the rights and tooling for the 2004 Buick Park Avenue. There are some 25 old factories still left in Michigan, and with near 20% unemployment, workers will not be hard to find. The ’04 Park Ave (the last year they were made) was the largest, most fuel efficient, most powerful, roomiest, most durable, safest, most reliable car that ever came out of Detroit (4 doors, 5 body trunk, 25 mpg, big old 3.9 V6 with front wheel drive…and nearly invisible, might I add). Cops never saw them, thieves never wanted them. If you left one in the Bronx with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition overnight, you would return the following day to see a note on the windshield saying “We locked it up for you, keys under the mat, please don’t do that again.”

Time to step forward…come on, who wants to make a killing? It can’t lose. Old people cannot even get into the new cars, physically. The high side bolsters on the seats are like the Matterhorn to an old ass. We want a large flat soft leather seat, like a Barcalounger, where you can almost here Ricardo Montalban saying, “fine Corinthian leather” or even “I’ll chase him ’round the moons of Nibia and ’round the Antares Maelstrom and ’round Perdition’s flames before I give him up!”  Sorry.  Sometimes I Khan help myself.

Don’t forget, low slung bucket-type seats will make the cars seem driverless to oncoming traffic. Rescue workers will need the Jaws of Life to get them out after a nasty accident. We want ass-height seating. We don’t get down into, or up into anything. We sit, period. No low-slung sports cars or high-riding SUV’s for us, oh no. Open door, plant ass, swing in legs. Oh, and I think a feature that shuts off the turn signal after five miles would be an added bonus. 

I plan marketing to be full page ads with large type in: AARP Monthly, Osteoporosis Today, Depends Newsletter, and on TV on Dancing with the Stars, and on re-runs of Marcus Welby M.D., Matlock and Perry Mason. I also plan a tour of Senior Living areas all over the southwest and Florida.

Invest now, at my website www.phatOldRide.com. Be a part of the future and the past at the same time. See the ‘new’ 2013 Cruiseship Sedan.

The CRANK

Hey Universal Pictures, H.P. Lovecraft is not a Goonies movie!  Since we have been a little Cthulhu-heavy lately here at the Discord, we must mention our insane—clawing at our own entrails—disappointment in the decision to cancel Guillermo Del Toro’s version of At the Mountains of Madness.  Universal insisted Del Toro make this 150-million dollar horror extravaganza with a PG-Rating.  Have you ever read any Lovecraft, Mr. Universal dude? You would have better luck making Shaving Ryan’s Privates a bleeping G-Rating!  …which, by the way, was a really important film in its own right.

No doubt, Universal is trying to universally rook more money out of the general populous. And, because of this, I am at the very Mountains of Madness myself right now.  I have conjured up both an Old One and a Deep One in your honor, Mr. Universal dude.  That’s Cthulhu talk for “I fart in your general direction, you sons of a Hollywood person.” 

By the way, the Mountains of Madness do differ slightly from the Cliffs of Insanity, but there is some shared mythical geology somewhere, I’m sure.   I have said for years we need a real Lovecraft movie.  Whereas I have enjoyed some of these cheap low budget extravaganzas, most of them were done not so much with a blue screen as a blue crayon.  Most of these attempts, nay, all of these attempts did not capture the true essence of Lovecraft.  You know, that lichen-covered, ancient ruins of Unknown Kadath all dripping with Old One atmosphere kind of thing.  I want a movie almost exuding with the smell of rotting flesh and rotting vegetation…no, I’m not talking about Spy Kids 4 (although, that should get honorable mention).

Most Lovecraft adaptations have left me feeling like ripping out my own eyeballs…and not in a good way.  Lovecraft is arguably the master of horror, so how did you expect Del Toro to introduce entrail-ripping insanity to the youngens? I realize they have Cthulhu beanie babies, but I still think you’re missing a few steps there, Sunshine.  It’s like Universal is trying to reduce Cthulhu to the God of paper cuts or something. “Oh the darkness, the madness, it’s making me want to poke myself repeatedly with this stapler! Ouch, ouch.  Oh the humanity! Ouch.”  Give me a break. 

This could have been one of the movies of a lifetime, instead of Universal’s attempt to turn it into a Lifetime movie.  But someone still needs to do this.  Either Universal needs to let Del Toro work his R-rated magic or someone else needs to pick up the tentacled torch.  Del Toro could have made this a true movie event, an epic not seen since Frankenhooker (which, by the way, you should consider making a sequel of as well). 

Letting this movie slither by is a monstrously large missed opportunity, pardon the pun.  It’s an insult no one has made a Peter Jackson/Tim Burton type attempt at Lovecraft.  In the age of endless repeats from Adam’s Family VII to Adam’s Family: The Next Generation, I think it’s time to take the plunge into the eschatological mind-fuck that is H.P. Lovecraft.  If done correctly, this movie will leave you feeling like…well, I think this picture sums it up nicely:

If done the way Universal Pictures wanted it done, ummm, I think those Photoshoppers over at the Discord said it best:

Hold the phone…Tom Cruise was supposed to be in it!?  Why wasn’t I told?  How about calling it At the Casting of Madness?  Geesh.  Never mind, perhaps all is for the best. 

I have come to the conclusion that most people who own a pool should not. They have no idea how they work, how to take care of them, or how to keep their kids from floating face-down in them on national TV. Of course, Casey Anthony figured out how to parley her mother’s pool into an acquittal, but the vast majority of the rest are oxygen thieves. We’ll start with the mundane…

Most people who own a pool have no idea how to maintain it. I went to the pool store recently to buy an $84 bucket of calcium hypochlorite and a $13 bottle of water test strips. While perusing the rack of test strip choices (not unlike choosing at a strip bar, but with fewer redheads), I happened to be parked right next to the counter where the employees of the store test the water of the pool-owners—the population incapable of doing it themselves. There were two employees furiously working the line that ran to the back of the store. It was the day after a major thunderstorm, which will totally screw up your chemistry, and the masses were lost.

Some woman came to the desk. The unfortunate employee responsible for servicing her started with an innocuous question, “How does your pool look today?” The fool. The woman responded by saying her pool looked like a glass of milk, and that her husband had been at the store a day or two before and he was told some $42 worth of chemicals would remedy his problem.  He, of course, had refused to buy it because of the cost. Now the woman was there to spend the $42 and clear up the problem, as they were having guests that afternoon. I laughed out loud. This is, sadly, indicative of the intelligence of the typical pool owner. Nothing is going to clear it up in a couple of hours, moron. How long have you had this pool? I can’t imagine this is the first time you converted the water to sludge.

Maintaining a pool requires five things: eighth grade chemistry skills (only to truly understand what’s going on, but optional), fifth grade math skills, third grade reading skills, pre-school color recognition skills, and high school drop-out scoop-and-dump skills.

Note the expert six-year-old hands performing the test

Start with the water test. Buy the strips, dip one in, wait 15 seconds, compare the colors on the strip to the colors on the bottle that the strip came in. Do they match? If so your wife is pregnant…wait, wrong test. This procedure takes about the same ability to open a non-child proof bottle.  Take out a strip and dip it into the water. My eldest daughter opened her first child-proof bottle at about 18 months, and could count to 15 by two years. She could also dip French fries into ketchup (yeah, Heinz dammit; there is no substitute), so I presume she could dip the strip into water. The color matching may be a bit more complex, so let’s summon the skills required for a two-and-a-half-year-old.  l looked back at that long line at the pool store with a snicker.

There are four chemical levels you really need to monitor. The others, regardless of what the pool store that sells that $90/gallon algaecide says, are generally superfluous (we call that a Zano here at the Discord). Anyway, the levels of these chemicals build upon each other. If you try to set them in the wrong order you will fail. You will waste tons of expensive chemicals, and you will have cloudy, or infected, or algae-filled water. Learn the fucking order: 1. total hardness, 2. total alkalinity, 3. Ph, 4. free chlorine. And if you forget, look at the test strip. Coincidentally, they are in the same order on the strip.  Shit, she’s pregnant. 

Total hardness is generally a no-brainer. Depending upon the water coming out of your faucet, you probably won’t have to adjust it, ever. The other three are all handled in the same way: check the back of the bucket of chemicals and find out how much you need to add per volume (gallons) to move the level a particular amount. Generally the numbers are pretty straight forward. If your Ph is at 6.7 and needs to be at 7.0 (again, as told by your test strip) you need to move it by 0.3. If your chemical requires 1 pound per 10,000 gallons to move the Ph by 0.1 then you need 3 pounds per 10,000 gallons to move it 0.3. If you have 15,000 gallons of water in your pool*, then you need 4.5 fucking pounds of the fucking shit to fix your fucking water.

* If you don’t know the volume of your pool, either call a pool service to do everything for you, or call an excavator to come fill the pool in and plant some flowers.

Moving on, pools aren’t free. They aren’t the most expensive things on the planet but I’m sick of hearing people who just had to have that pool then bitch about the maintenance cost. If you’re gonna bitch about the cost of your pool then sell your house or call an excavator to come fill the pool in.  Oh, you should also do this if the pool has upset an Indian burial ground.

People drown in pools. Water is dangerous. You can drown on a tablespoon of water; imagine what 15,000 gallons can do, unless you’re Rosie O’Donnell. You always see people in the news (except on Fox) that were doing things around the house while the kids swim. Then one youngin’ croaks (hopefully the pool owners’ so as to cut off the genetic line). Not only should these people not have a pool, they should not have children. If you’re having a pool party, hire a 15 year old certified lifeguard for three hours. That way you can neglect your children, get loaded, and have some peace of mind to go with your small piece of mind for a lousy $15.

Once upon a time (cue the wavy, blurry screen transition), I was at a friend’s back-yard wedding where they had a pool (nice one too; they have $$$; way overkill on the filtration system though; come on, two filters? Puh-lease). Everyone was running around getting loaded, throwing cake, etc. so no one was watching their kids in the pool. A friend, a fellow pool-owner, and I commented on this and hung out next to the pool while we weren’t standing in line for a drink (the caterer’s service was beyond terrible). At one point some kid got into trouble, serious trouble. Did the other kids help? No, of course not, they’re kids. They bolted for the hills. I kicked off my shoes, jumped in and pulled the poor sap out of the pool. All I got for my efforts was a dirty look as he bolted and joined the pre-bolted kids; a lot of grief from other wedding guests about being soaking wet; and diaper rash from walking around in soaking wet clothes for the rest of the night. No one even noticed that it had even happened, except my friend, who was kind enough to hold my drink through the whole thing. And he didn’t even drink it; I would have drunk his…but I’m a dick.

Anyway, my friend gave me a chuck on the shoulder and an “atta boy” and that was it. Strangely, the pool was empty until sometime later when the bride and groom started chicken fights in there, still in their wedding garb. I wasn’t about to pull any of them out. Anyway, it would have served the parents, and the pool owners right to let the kid sink like that guy in Titanic (well, those 1500 guys in Titanic). I have no patience for stupidity or laziness, which reminds me, “Zano, you’re fired!” It would have been very gratifying to see the notoriety, the litigation, the subsequent deportation to Canada and that country’s refusal to accept them…but, then again, I hate to see a perfectly good pool ruined by a decaying body. It would take two days to clean that mess up. OK,one day.

So, to wrap up what could be a three day rant, if you are a pool owner and are unwilling to take care of it then you are a lazy sack of shit. If you are unable to take care of it, you are a moron. If you complain about paying for it, just shut the fuck up. If you are unwilling to monitor it then you need to be taken out and maimed. If you are any of the above then you should be neutered and your children should be terminated in an effort to chlorinate the gene pool.