Subject: Manse Diaries: Iceland Today!

Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 12:21:41 GMT

From: nospamum@radix.net (MegaLiz)

Organization: MotPU: Where Binary Moodswings are ALWAYS on the Menu

Newsgroups: alt.foot.fat-free, alt.slack

We've had a fairly scronky weekend here. As usual, my main mission is

to SURVIVE and strive to reduce the week's sleep deficit. Friday

night, I was hopeful that Bobo would STAY asleep, but not because I

drugged her, just because I'm EVER OPTIMISTIC about stuff like that.

At bedtime, I snuggled down with an article about DAMS. Now I LIKE

dams, but I never heard of all the dam damage this fella was

outlining. He only MENTIONED the salmon problems, for instance, but

went on to give information on hugely complicated dam thievery, and to

offer such tickling tidbits as: the desert state of ARIZONA boasts the

largest number of registered boats per capita of all the fifty states.

Maybe there is LESS wrong with Arizonans than I expected, I thought.

Being overinformed about things like 250 year floods lulled me to

sleep. I haven't found a SINGLE thing that I can read nowadays to read

myself AWAKE, and just for the sake of being redundant all over again,

I'll say that this article was no exception. When I read the same

words over a few times, due to sleepy eyeball spasms, I knew it was

time to roll over and dream of desert cotton fields. So I did.

KKKAAAAAAABBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I simultaneously scrambled out of bed, pulling all the covers with me,

whimpered and woke up convinced that a dam explosion or A GIANT BEAVER

was to blame. Now, I should mention that I am NOT the sort of person

who is bothered by storms, but this, THIS was the kind of thunder that

makes you BELIEVE that it is a PERSONAL ASSAULT in progress. Having

the ABSOLUTE CONVICTION that a tree was going to fly through my

window, I promised the dog that I would never make fun of her low

barometer nerves ever again. The Rev thought that we were hilarious,

but then, he's INSANE, being a foulweatherphile and all that.

I only mention this because it gave me Slack. It gave me Slack to be

scared like a dog with a two-year-old's brain, or at least, like a dog

that ASPIRES to have a two-year-old's brain, in at least ONE form.

I've been vaguely worried, in a soulless sort of way, that I may have

misplaced my soul somewhere. Somehow, being repeatedly awakened by

huge bursts of electricity that X-rayed right through my walls AND my

eyelids did the trick, and a Slackhappy couple of days followed.

In further Slack:

This morning, after miraculously having had ENOUGH sleep, I tuned into

our local WORLD VIEW channel and found a charming program called,

"Iceland Today." The Icelandic host and his pals seemed to find

everything that they said HUGELY entertaining and chuckled as often as

they spoke. The tragically coiffed host and his elderly sidekick were

being regaled by a woman who was evidently explaining some funny

things about a COFFIN on the set. The host leaned over and petted it

regularly, and at least twice, he pushed it with his finger to show me

and the rest of the Icelandic audience how lightweight it was. I

concluded that it was a new kind of STYROFOAM COFFIN, which may be all

they need up there in the winter wonderland. It may be the latest

innovation in ergonomic back protection for the career pallbearer: I'm

sorry to admit that I can't report on the implications with any degree

of accuracy, since Icelanders talk FAR TOO FAST for me. The only word

I understood was "cheap!".

The next segment cannot be translated in any meaningful way. I'm

pretty sure. Let me just say that there was a very lifelike looking

clownman with hopefully fake, badscary teeth SCREAMING at people. I

deduced that it was the Scary Clown on the Street segment.

The NEXT segment was a nicely produced field trip to an office/studio

where people who call themselves Omegans film various people sitting

around a wooden table. The proprietor proudly showed the interviewer

and her cameraperson hundreds of videotapes they had generated of

people sitting at THE TABLE. The word "Tennessee" began to creep into

the interview with increasing frequency until an American

Televangelist appeared, speaking what is generally considered English,

"We're just real proud t'be bringin' Christian Television here to

Iceland. Now some folks thank that television ministers mean scandals

and bad behavior--but you know what?--all sorts of ministers fall from

The Path. It's just that when they do it on TV, ya know, everybody

hears about them a lot more!"

"So would you say that this is God's Country?" queried the lovely

interviewer.

The Televangelist beamed, "If it idint, it will be now!"

This kinda pissed me off, I mean, if ANYBODY doesn't NEED Tennessee's

Jesus, it's the people of ICELAND. They don't need ANYTHING. Or do

they? Maybe they're ALREADY mostly Christian and soon to be mostly

normal. I prefer to think that they're letting the televangelist in

for pure entertainment value and that they'll mercilessly tease him

with their new floating burial-at-sea coffins just for laughs.