Yes oh yes, the pop culture crackle, come drop a cartoon anvil on my chest. I want to make the same artificial crunch sound produced by a guy with a slide whistle in a backroom studio. I’d love to cave in just like the cleverly placed leaves over the empty grave trap. That’s the pop culture snap, to make me just like the people plugged into my head from the TV signal. I cancelled my cable and they are still getting through. How full of fate!
The giggling cartoon devil is standing on my monitor, and he gets that signal too. His feet are secured with Velcro so he does not fall over if he laughs too hard. Every time that I put my head in my hands to try and forget my momentary frustration, I rest my elbows on the slab of pulped pseudo-wood that passes for a cubicle desk. Those elbows vibrate the slab, shockwaves rock the boogie, and the devil gets down with a disco dancing head jiggle. Are you getting the fever of the flavor?
That devil, he’s working the giggle just for me… just for this pop culture influenced pipe dream I invested my college tuition in. You know the one— where I believed that I could make a difference, that I could add to American society, that even if I didn’t learn physics or algebra very well in school I might just run along something groundbreaking to help save a dying friend or relative from catastrophe. Just like in the movies! All this noise that I call life keeps reminding me that I must certainly not be insignificant amongst the masses. And yet, the devil continues to giggle. He must know something.
That giggle, it’s therapeutic somedays, so much so that I rest my elbows on purpose just to watch. While the devil never tells me anything amongst his snickers, today he decided to toss me some questions.
He asked, “Do you enjoy standing at the face of a dead end? If you don’t, what obstacle will you have to run through to avoid going backwards to escape? A haunted forest? Someone’s new TLC funded dream backyard? A cliff on the side of a mountain? Tell me young man, are you prepared to fall to your death for what you believe in?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, since I didn’t believe in anything, certainly not him or his equal and opposite reaction on the cosmic scale. Well, maybe I believed once, when I didn’t know any better. But those days are a cancelled Saturday morning cartoon, nothing but colorful memories to sprout roots to. I know that the dead end keeps moving in front of me, no matter which way I turn.
So, I lifted my elbows from the slab, and grabbed the devil’s head by the horns and bent it back. It was then that I saw a finely tuned metal spring underneath his head. There never had been a giggle. It was all a pop culture lie, a juicy cherry pie to dip my metaphoric phallus of hope into. It was truth, if there is such a thing.
As I bent the spring out of shape and the devil’s head swung around his body like a lost tetherball, I knew the questions could only have come from myself. And if that was the case, then know that I’m as close as I’ve ever been to making the jump into the deep blue sea.

DISCLAIMER: There are no hidden messages in this dark comedy/satire. No humans, toys, or religious stereotypes were harmed in the making of this blog.