File type: Text File (.txt) [Download]
-----------------------------------------
Do You NEED This?!? - ©2022 by (((Trevor Patrick)))


Younger-years-memory
of one of those
early-evening
TV staples:

One of those 'nothing else to watch'
that turns your brain to mush
like what you shovel into your face
from the TV Tray table --

one of those
big-hair & Tammy Faye cosmetics
Eighties shows
for Consumers

Yeah, maybe the paleontological
larval form
of all those Mommy-Blogs written
with expertise
from the University of Google --

It was a December wrap-up
of what the hosts deemed
the "worst toys
of the year".

still, even to a kid,
I thought the criticism fair:
The first dozen or so
were pretty much
(exactly as they appeared//
exactly what Momma feared)

-- but towards the end,
high-cheekboned,
rouge-accentuated
big, poofy blonde-haired
pre-blog-pre-google
Mommy-on-the-left

she, who bragged of her role
as an extra-on-Miami Vice
(playing the role of "Yacht Girl")
her rushed-together words
having the exact same heft --

-- unveiled the so-called
"Ghostbuster's Toilet"
with the theatrical,
Bolivian Flake sniffle
of gum-cracking disdain
(& clearly under protest)

-- red-taloned hands
dropped it on the table
(as if she'd just been involved
in the futile exercise
of tryin' ta pick up
a turd by the clean end) --

-- and that plastic toilet was on wheels,
and she seemed to suppress a shudder
as across the tabletop,
she set it to roll,

and a gooey, green
chiclet-toothed ghost
lifted up the lid
and popped into and out of the bowl,

and instead of any sort of:
Zip when it moved,
or Bop when it stopped,

it went
up-down-up-down
up-down-up-down...

*groooooan*...


And her disgusted shudder//sneer
of: "Do you NEED this?!?"

And I hear Little Johnny laughing
"Yeah, I DO need that!"
from the unbridled ID
somewhere in my head,  

and Ma looks at Little Johnny
like she'd look at a fat, crawling maggot
or a cockroach underneath the bag,
when she changes the kitchen trash,

or a big, hairy spider
crawling up the waterspout.
Or, perhaps the very Serpent,
of Pashhhhhhh-UN!

And she scoffs:
"Are you serious?
You think you NEED that?!?"

"Yeah, actually, I DO
It's frickin' FUNNY."

"No,
that is NOT funny!
Shouldn't you be mature enough
to know better than that
by now?!?"

And he said:
"Yeah, Ma,
maybe ye'r right.
I mean: how DARE
that Slimer ghost
not leave the
toilet seat DOWN!