Baked Potato Marmelade

Hey everybody I'm back. In case anyone noticed, I was writing a story about Slim Pickens and his strange adventures.

Well, I finished it on my plane ride over to Colorado and all I have to say about it is this:

You ever write something so bad it makes you afraid to be a parent?! You read over the words and you think, this is what I can create?! If I put this much work into a child it would probably have a misshapen head, habitually try to snort Parmesan cheese, and be in eternal danger of having a cartoonishly large grand piano falling on top of it. But it's even worse than that, because I would be the one to accidentally drop said grand piano on my child's head. But it's even worse than that. Because I would then act like nothing was wrong, invite all my friends over for tea and goose-meat which we had over the smashed piano. The baby parts would still be seeping out from underneath the wreckage, the carpet would stain and start to smell. My soon-to-be-ex-friends would be like, 'what happened in here?' and I would say, 'I was just trying to nurture my child's love of the fine arts! Get off my back you damn dirty apes and finish your goose-meat croissant!'

That's the kind of story I wrote. If you'd like a little summary of it, the rest of the story proceeds as follows:

Slim Pickens and Poodonkis fall up a hole in the ceiling for many hours before they're whisked away to be successful and luxurious pineapple farmers. Slim Pickens realizes that he must stop the Butt that Controls the Weather however, and is able to fly back to the city using the helicopter lessons he receives from a magical pineapple plant that tells him of his "fatestiny."

He reaches the structure on the building, meets the bad guy. The bad guy tells him to give up. He says, "okay." Then he leaves, comes back and says, "No." He learns about...believing in your own perception of the world or something...and then makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the self-destruct button. The whole complex is destroyed, the bad guy is defeated and apparently upset over it and then Slim Pickens jumps down into a parade of cybernetic unicorns and twins named Jennifer from around the world.

The End. That's it.

This is probably the best ending the story could have received.

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Anyway, enough of that fictional hulabaloo. This is the story of the time I went hiking in Colorado. The thing I love about hiking is that it makes for a terrible story. All of the best things about hiking are pitiful and sad after the experience.

I could be like, "Hey, everybody within earshot! I went hiking today."

And someone could say, "Oh, what did you see?"

"Well, I saw some bear droppings. So, that's exciting."

"You saw some poo. Where you were trying to walk."

"Yeah! Right on the trail. And the thing that made the poo could have torn me limb from limb because she thought I was a threat to her cubs."

"So you saw an ominous fecal death-threat and you came back to society and thought that was okay to tell people about?"

"Well...I mean, I saw other stuff. I saw some cliffs. And I saw the water flowing down the canyon that had been carved out over millions of years. Creating the beautiful landscape which I witnessed."

And then they'd say, "So you saw some rocks. And some water. And some wet rocks that were touching the water?"

"But it helps you think about the power of nature! And the awesome force of time. The hugeness of it all allows you to see a grander scale that has been lost in our modern world. I reconnected with the power of the sublime."

"Oh yeah, I just saw a Youtube video of two guys passing a balloon back and forth with the wind generated from their farts and it's already been seen by thirty three million people! It was posted yesterday! You wanna talk to me about a grander scale?"

"Well, I climbed up 3000 feet. All told I was sitting on a rock at 9000 feet above sea level. That's something."

"On your plane ride over there you were sitting in a chair at 36,000 feet! You know what reaches 36,000 feet in nature? Nothing! Mount Everest was over a mile below you! And you were watching an episode of Parks and Recreation!"


"But..but...but you could hear the rushing sound of the crystal clear water flowing down the canyon. Everything was at peace but alive with energy all at once.

"Have you heard dubstep, my misguided woodsmen?! Who wants to listen to a watery racket when I can listen to an accurate recreation of two or more computers bump n' grind with each other while simultaneously fighting off a horde of cyber-goblins in a hurricane. Try not to be blinded by the brilliance of my future!"


"Well, when I got to the top of the trail I felt so free that I took my clothes off and brushed my teeth."

"Oh, that's what's up. Gimme a high-five man, that's living the dream."

Sorry, Nature. You hang in there. I'll walk around you sometime again when I get the chance.

Until then, SLAY THOSE GOBLINS, COMPUTER WARRIORS!