AcmeShorts

"She did it again!" The look on Ginny's face spelled trouble.

I turned towards the crib and my heart sank. Two kids in a coma was pricy enough, but three was gonna put a serious dent in our vacation budget. Still...

"Now don't get carried away, Honey. It was an accident."

"An accident? She shakes them, Jim."

"Sure, she's a babysitter. She likes playin' with kids. She just gets--"

But Gin had run out of the room. Guess I'd be sore in her shoes, too. It had been real careless of Lissa, no question. Lissa...I couldn't help but smile thinking about her. Deep down she was a good kid.

"Lissie didn't mean to hurt ya, Charlie." I tousled the little guy's hair. Thing was, the nurses were always going on about how chewing the rag with these coma feebs helps 'em wake up. The trick was thinking up something encouraging to say.

"She still got her baby fat, like you. You oughta see her get flushed and ruddy when I'm pumpin' her little pussy. You snap out of it, you'll see what I mean someday."

My heart wasn't in it though. Fact was, trying to shoot the breeze with the little bugger bored the shit out of me. Speaking of which, I had to take a crap something fierce. I hustled upstairs to the throne, taking it two steps at a time.
Date Written: July 30, 2004
Author: Jon Matza
Average Vote: 4
Comments:
08/6/2004 Benny Maniacs (4): I'll give her three and a half. Good premise, horrible yet casual, but didn't garner life affirming laughter.
08/6/2004 qualcomm (4): read it, didn't like it so much. RE-read it, and liked it a whole lot more!
08/6/2004 Will Disney (4): i liked it - 4.5 stars. i think the babysitter-fucking was telegraphed a little bit too much and could've been done with more sublety but this is splitting hairs.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony (4): This works!
08/6/2004 TheBuyer (4):
08/6/2004 John Slocum (4): I'll get on the 4-train.
08/6/2004 Dylan Danko (5): Not one single five for the comaf feebs???
08/6/2004 anonymous: OSS: attack!
08/6/2004 qualcomm: shut the fuck up, danko. you don't know what you're talking about and your weight is a serious health concern.
08/6/2004 anonymous: Never enable a sociopath, even in jest.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Summer comes enabled right out of the box!
08/6/2004 anonymous: Yes, I see your point. Should've said 'prompt', not 'enable'.
08/6/2004 Dylan Danko: Yes, it's like waving a shiny bauble at a retard or a small child...or a small retarded child.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: you all sound like a bunch of smug, Dockered douchebags sipping Riunite in front of a modern beach house.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: (perhaps all of you would be happier at mcsweeney's)
08/6/2004 anonymous: I agree with OSS 100%
08/6/2004 anonymous: me too, homos are smart!
08/6/2004 anonymous: Giving Scoop a handjob during The Manchurian Candidate don't make me no homo.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: yes, retreat into anonymity
08/6/2004 anonymous: I'm scared of you.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Retreating into anonymity indeed! Way to gang up on Summer! Show your faces, cowards! Perhaps if you had retreated into that tired old McSweeney's line, and put some parentheses around it to make it totally fresh and original! Or drag out an all purpose Dockers-related insult, and declare it relevant for the occasion! But no! you had to resort to calling a couple of dudes gay because they happen to not disagree on anything! (Ever!) A curse on ALL your houses! I'll kill and eat all of you! All of you should be killed! And eaten! By me! Yooooo ah wissowt onah!!
08/6/2004 qualcomm: perhaps i did drag out a tired mcsweeney's line, but it, and the dockers line, are in fact relevant. if you can't see that, you're even more of a degenerate than i thought.
08/6/2004 TheBuyer: Wow! Mr. Pony, you should have posted that as a short. 5 stars!
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Walk me through the Modern beach house reference, you clove cigarette smoking Reagan Apologist!
08/6/2004 scoop: I repeat Pony's comment but just have it coming from me and targeted at him about the tired old stunt he just used. Because stepping back and saying any old dickhead anonymous comment is as good as an appropriate insult is just fine. That's like totally ok. Pony you live in an emotionally subjective inner experiential fog so epic that I need to shout realy loud just so you can hear me.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: well see, pony, there are these douchey, dockered wasps sipping riunite in front of a beach house, right? now imagine them speaking the unfunny quips, "Yes, I see your point. Should've said 'prompt', not 'enable'." or "Summer comes enabled right out of the box!" or "Never enable a sociopath, even in jest." see how appropriate those lines are to that setting with those people? now granted, i took some poetic license - i could have placed these wasps at a gala museum opening or something, instead of the beach. but i'm surprised you need this explanation. let me know if there are any other things i can clear up for you!
08/6/2004 scoop (3): As for the short some shinging moments: "She shakes them Jim" and "cheming the rag with these coma feebs" are two particularly choice moments. But I was disappointed in the baby-sitter fucking schtick. 3.5 rounded down for emphasis.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: scoop, was all that so you could drag out that old lerpa/scoop argument that I think that the world is more complicated than you are comfortable with? Does the fact I don't see the world as an unbroken line, with everything in the universe ordered in single file from good to bad make you that uncomfortable? Huh? Because I don't think I said that anonymous comments are equal to their non-anonymous counterparts. I was actually calling them cowards. Strange that you wouldn't jump to get on board with that line of reasoning!
08/6/2004 qualcomm: hey, what about me?
08/6/2004 scoop: "I’m supposed to trust your judgement about my mental stability? I’m supposed to trust your evaluations about the nuances of my sanity? You can’t even tell the difference between a French and a Chinese restaurant!"
08/6/2004 qualcomm: but wait, pony, while i saw that you were in fact calling the anons cowards, you were also saying my comments were equally worthless, if for different reasons.
08/6/2004 scoop: Funny Pony. Every time you call on your powers of relativism its to defend cunts, and to undermine scoop/lerpa like opinions. Never the other way around.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: hey, it's lerpa/scoop. asshole.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: You thought I was trying to insult you with that "out of the box" comment? I sure didn't mean it that way! Boy, do I wish I had, though! (Incidentally, I can also see the below comments being spoken in a WWI trench with explosions all around, with extra fanciness, for comedic effect. Also, by Hekyl and Jekyl.)
08/6/2004 scoop: Hey anon_user_c, you fucking pussy why don't you bring that rapish homoerotic wit out now that both OSS and I are here to enjoy it? By the way, good joke the way you inferred we were gay by suggesting we engaged in manual manipulation of one another's genetalia. Do you have any more funny lines like that, you stupid fucking twat, because I'd love to borrow them and trot them out at the company picnic!
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Actually, my (relatively) relativistic views are usually the subject of an unprovoked attack by scoop/lerpa absolutism. This time, though, I'm on the attack! And I'm finding that it's hard to be on the attack with relativism as a weapon! F U all!
08/6/2004 qualcomm: no, pony, i didn't think you were trying to insult me. i just saw that series of comments as kind of annoyingly urbane. that is all. i think if you're real honest with yourself, you'll see how my spin on them is far more appropriate than a wwi trench conversation. maybe not hekyl and jekyl, since they talk like a couple of urbane douches. but certainly, you must admit that my interpretation is not as out of left field as you initially asserted. thank you.
08/6/2004 scoop: Actually Pony, I have my sights set on the real enemy. Anonc, are you still out there, ypu twittering tittering girl, giggling behind you anonymity every time you hit the refresh button you fucking simpering girly fuck. Come on let's exchange insults about being gay, you gutless, milk-livered poltroon.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Summer, you bus-riding tar-chewer, I wasn't trying to equate one attack with the other; I was just attacking them both. As for your attack, are you saying that the comments such as "...even in jest" weren't the tiniest bit ironic in tone?
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: I know, I started this one. Scoop/lerpa absolutism is on the defensive this day.
08/6/2004 John Slocum: Hey everyone! Now that I don't have any time to spare, the anonymous hijinks and the inter-author insults seem boring and stupid, over and over and over again, day in and day out. Maybe 'ol was right to suggest a limit on the # of comments per person per short (although he often is guilty of being "up in the mix."
08/6/2004 scoop: You seem boring and stupid, Slocum. How's that for an inter-author insult?!
08/6/2004 anonymous: wine is bad
08/6/2004 qualcomm: they're slightly ironic, but so what? they're not ironic enough to undermine their own tepidness. they're all coming from a real centrist place. i'm not saying the people who made those comments are riunite-sipping wasps in real life. just that those particular comments were boring and mcsweeneyish. so i assaulted them as such. what's the big fucking deal here? why must you test me, pony?
08/6/2004 qualcomm: yes slocum, come to my camp. we will slowly amass enough votes to put this idea into practice! you hear me, disney and danko?! i'm coming! cooooommmmmmmiiinnnnggg!
08/6/2004 anonymous: For the record, I was serious both about the (admittedly exaggerated) 'sociopath' comment and that 'prompt' would have been a better word. To clarify pointlessly, OSS deliberately ignored the obvious sarcasm of "attack!" nd chose to take it as license to say something especially nasty under the guise of "I was just playing the role you prompted me to play!" I was admitting this was a miscalculation, not trying to be funny. But whatever makes you feel strong, guy.
08/6/2004 John Slocum: At least I'm not ugly like you, Scoop, you big, ugly, hairy monkey.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Summer: I don't know.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: i don't think what i said was "especially nasty," author. i thought my danko "insult" was so obviously uncalled for and over the top, only a douchetard would take it at all seriously. also, i don't understand how any of this makes me feel "strong". are you serious? or am i being a douchetard. you can't be serious.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: I can't believe you need so badly to feel strong!
08/6/2004 qualcomm: author: "I was admitting this was a miscalculation, not trying to be funny." to quote scoop, "come on! i mean, come on!" if i take you at your word, and accept that you really regretted this terrible miscalculation, i would have to further assume that you took my danko insult seriously, relegating you to the category of douchetard. is that what you want?
08/6/2004 scoop: Dude, why're you wasting your time with that douchetard. It's clear he suffers from some form of incurable douchetardaiton.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Another term carved into the granite of the scoop/lerpa lexicon! Hooray!
08/6/2004 qualcomm: incidentally, i'm going to guess matza on this one.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: Because of the not liking kids thing?
08/6/2004 qualcomm: yes. and something about the author's comments, too.
08/6/2004 anonymous: re "you took my danko insult seriously": it depends what you mean by 'take seriously'. I understand you meant the insult to be in quotes, of course, and assumed most readers would understand that as well. But I still object to/consider it obnoxious, even in that context. But then again, I can't take a joke.
08/6/2004 qualcomm: man. i'll say. not even a joke aimed at someone else. my grandparents' dog used to growl and snap whenever it witnessed a fight, be it fake or real.
08/6/2004 Mr. Pony: "When the remotest of our brothers suffers under the yoke of oppression, not a single one of us is truly free."
08/6/2004 anonymous: RE-read my comments, OSS. Between the two of us, the growling and snapping one is you.
08/8/2005 Dylan Danko: This was a good one. It needs to be revisited. Also the comment thread for this illustrates quite well QC's lack of socialization.