Petty Questions 7: Wonderful Christmastime (Paul McCartney Version)

By Owen Bates on December 25, 2010

WEEKLY ADVICE ABOUT PET PEEVES AND TRIVIAL MATTERS >>>

Happy Christmas everybody! The holidays are a time for sharing and giving and laughing and fun and wow look at the sleigh go whoosh!

I hope you all are having a goodtime feeling. I can only imagine what that's like: I'm actually writing this column before Christmas. "What?" Yes. "Get outta here!" No thanks. "That was a crazy time, I can barely remember it." OK.

Right now I'm on an airplane heading back to the South Sound via Chicago, so I'm having a mixed goodtime/poortime feeling.

Complaining about airplanes is pretty old, though. Here's a picker-upper: airplanes are amazing flying machines! That's really cool! A trip that in pre-Women's Rights times would have taken weeks now takes hours. That's pretty great!

Plus today, women – excuse me, ladies – can vote! Let's say "thanks" this Thanksgiving.

Our only question aujourd'hui comes to us especial ... from the North Pole!

QUESTION: I'm a normal college guy, which is to say that I'm lazy. Unlike other kids, though, I have a secret habit. I love smoking fat doobies or sometimes bongs of pot. My RA would totally get up in my business if she found out, so I need to wash my clothes a lot to get rid of that natural, organic, herb, healthier-than-legal-tobacco, peace smell. My problem? People keep taking my laundry out and putting it on the chair if I'm even two minutes late dealing with it. All my clothes are ruined! What can I do to stop these bozos? I should mention that I'm OCD.

---A Prominent Senator's Son

Easiest answer, APSS? Stop smoking grass. Second easiest answer? Stop doing laundry. But you're not here for easy answers and platitudes. You want something edgy, hardcore, urban – not urbane. You want to take an African safari.

On the darkest continent things can go wrong just by one misstep. Everyone plays by the rules, so that'll gel with your obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the middle of Africa, in the very heart of darkness, there is a machine, a beautiful machine, a powerful machine – a frightening machine. Want to know why Belgium stopped raping the Congo for incredible amounts of rubber? Let's just say that technology works both for and against men.

"Hey Owen," you might be saying. "You can't take an open-air grassland safari in the Congo jungle, get you're story straight!" Well anybody who's been on African safari knows that between when they let you pet the elephants and when they show you the real elephants, they offer you a special option. They ask if you want to go inside a secret hole. Usually people say no. That hole takes you physically to the machine in the Congo, OK? Trust me already why don't you?

Unhinge your jaw and slither into the hole. Belle & Sebastian's new release, Write About Love, starts playing. Want to go Loko? Four Loko Watermelon Aftertaste enters through the IV. Don't get even – go Loko.  Bushmen shake their heads and call you "witchy" as they watch safely from their SUVs. The tunnel is dark but here and there you pass an oil lamp in front of a souvenir shop. With no color vision you guide yourself solely by your nose, following the sweet smell of success. It smells a lot like pot, like some of that real good premium B.C. Taj kush at Jessie's last Wednesday, you know the stuff. So that part should be easy for you. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Cut) is blasting on somebody's sick 5.1. You can follow if you're too straightedge for cough cough illegal marijuana drug.

Just climb the ladder. Now you're here. The machine is a Whirlpool dual washer-dryer combo. You don't even need to move your clothes; it does all the work for you. Plus, you can leave your clothes in here as long as you like. Problem solved. It only takes nickels.

On a serious note, happy holidays. If you celebrate Christmas, merry Christmas! If you recognize New Year's, happy New Year! If you participate in Ascension Day, I have absolutely nothing to say to you. 

Stay warm!

We're getting a transmission ... it ... it couldn't be him ... the Major Spaceman Column. Patch it through.

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