Tub of Acid.com - Legend of Hong Kong

The following case studies are here for your examination, and careful study. Make no mistake about it, they are entirely accurate depictions of a modern-day human’s life-experiences, and reflect certain significant themes throughout the collection of them. One recurring element in each of the cases presented below is that notion of the “absurdity of life,” which is detailed in each of the stories in a disturbing yet realistic manner. Even when men or women are held accountable for their actions, which does not necessarily mean that the consequences resulting from those actions will be just. And while a great deal of what happens to us in life is not induced by other people’s will, or intent, that may very well be the point, in that, indeed nothing is just. When we begin to look at the mundane, we begin to see that indeed, stories about “nothing,” as Jerry Seinfeld would put it, are indeed full of something. Life stories, on the surface, are mostly ordinary, with bubbles of the extraordinary fighting for a chance to come to the surface. We are going to look at these bubbles, but not the extraordinary ones. We are going to look at the bubbles which don’t make it to the top. The bubbles which we would like to anchor to the bottom of the sea, the bubbles which seem to shout, “Life is chaos.”

The one level common cases presented below, when looked at in context, may read as just that, simple stories, but with a different lens being passed beneath a careful observer’s eye, which has been done for you in the narration of these stories, we begin to see that most of life’s anecdotes and consequences don’t seem to follow logically from any one pool of justice, or fairness, and instead seem to flow from an ocean of incomprehensiveness.

Case 1, My Dawn

Redness. What was this expanse of red fluid jamming the outer-light of my newfound world? Was there something out there…something similar to me? Another blob of flesh? Maybe just red tubs of goo. Regardless, my vision was blurred to near blindness. I wish I knew what I was doing here. I wish I knew why I was resting in the fetal position, and I wish I had something better to play with than my life-cable. No.

Something is moving out there. Some sort of light! Eureka! Praise be to Buddha! I am no longer blind. Here I am! You have found me! Wait, what are you doing with my cable? Why am I hanging upside down? Why are you spanking me? The pain! The horror!

Now I’m cramped, my interpersonal jumper cable is gone, and I can still hardly see. I need some release! My arms and legs haven’t been exercised at all today. I wouldn’t mind a few laps around the hospital to build my baby muscles. Those cigars they are smoking downstairs in my honor smell pretty good. I think I’d like one of those too. Are those Cuban or Dominican?

Definitely Cuban. But unfortunately, the mountains of white lab-coats and jumpsuits before me seem to find reason to keep me from enjoying the downstairs contraband. That is to say, I must have done something incorrectly. Perhaps I shouldn’t have cried as the man-mountain slapped my baby butt—as I am now being held against my will. The powers that be have imprisoned me within a plastic cage preventing my clever, gastropodic getaway. With nothing left for me to do, I yelp and I yelp well.

No one answers; not a doctor, not a nurse, not a parent, not even another brother or sister. It’s all very quiet and confusing. I just wish I knew what I was doing here. I’m not upset at anyone, but it’s thoroughly frightening. I mean, bringing me into this world is one thing, but hacking away my momma-pipe is just downright evil. And now, as my mind and vision all begin to fade, and with nothing to amuse myself with, no rattle, no pacifier, I find myself drifting into deep peaceful slumber. There was a lot of drool everywhere, and it was all a very big mess.

Case 2, My Discontent

“Ryan, I’m going to work now. Bye!” my mother yells.

“…Oh, school” I mumble, wishing there were a few z’s left in my bowl of sleep soup to consume.

Waking up in the morning just plain sucks. Essentially, you get up in a state of a sleepwalking zombie, like those guys in the Michael Jackson video, "Thriller," roaming around aimlessly and bumping into things. I lose all sense of awareness and continuously forget which foot of mine will propel me forward as I aim toward the bathroom, which almost always results in a collision with my head and the wall. I am a walking camera-less robot, like a blind driver rocketing into a gas station. Boom!

And as my head begins to heal itself, I begin to gather my wayward thoughts. What day is it? My mental calendar, which at first had been sending mixed-signals was now sorting itself out, and realizing that today was, in fact, a school day. I looked down at my sparkly watch and began to panic. I only had two minutes remaining before the bell of my first class would ring with that ever-ominous chime.

I leaped into the steamy-hot shower, my eyes barely open, and gave myself the abridged version of a normal morning’s routine. The school’s demand of my presence at this hour is absurd. Most people aren’t even awake yet (including my teacher) at this ridiculously early hour of the day. 6:00 A.M. on a Monday. Crikes! Have we all gone mad?

Wiping both sleep, and hot water away from my eyes, I began focusing on the tasks necessary in order to get me to school. Task One: Drying. I desperately reach for a towel in the upper cabinet, which as my luck would have it, happened to be locked with a rusty copper padlock. I now remember my mother developing a terrible fear of burglars stealing her linens, and so recently placed them all under lock and key. Armed with a semi-clean washcloth I picked up off the ground, I dried most of what I could and then took a cue from my pet dog, Rex, and began shaking myself violently.

Soon enough, I was out the door, running throughicy air, munching on a still-frozen pop-tart and drinking a boxed fruit punch drink which had no straw, but which I had managed to open with my teeth. And no matter how fast I ran, school remained a ¼ of a mile away. It was as if I were running on a treadmill, although ultimately, I did win out. Realizing that that I already had four absences in my first class, with the fifth absence being cause for a detention day, I saying to myself, “I can’t be late! I can’t be late!”

I gripped the cold steel door handle and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. School was never locked this early. What was this? This was like a nightmare! Where was everyone? Why was it so quiet? Where were all the cars? And as I was attempting to find reasons for all of these questions, my mother pulled up in a vacant parking space near the school… I knew I was in deep trouble.

“Ryan what are you doing here? Today is a teacher workday.”

“Huh?” I said to the teacher up near the blackboard.

I must have spaced out after listeningto another dull lecture. It’s not my fault, sentence diagramming is perhaps the most loathsome activity on the face of the planet.

“What is the main idea of the chapter you read last night, Ryan?”

With no knowledge of the chapter, I was unable to synthesize any response. That in mind, I figured that a harmless guess would relax the teacher’s inquiry. Maybe I could devise a good general question which would throw her off track. Of course, I had waited entirely too wrong for that, and she knew well ahead of time that in fact, I had no idea of what was going on.

“I think I read the wrong chapter last night” I said quickly.

“All right. Betsy, do you know what the main idea was?”

“I think, that by comparing the main character to everyday life, I can honestly say that he knew better than to do what he had done wrong before, if what he did was indeed wrong, that is, if there is such a thing.”

“Betsy, very close… But I’ll take that as a correct answer.”

Now I am angry. My disdain for Betsy has increased three-fold with her pathetic overly-generalized response. A monkey could have repeated an answer like that and earned a banana flavored cookie (he would count that as an A). I wish I were a monkey. I feel dumber than a monkey. Perhaps Betsy really did read the book, and that was the best response she could come up with. I mean, we’re only in the fifth grade.

I still believe differently. When the teacher told everyone to take out their reading books; Betsey looked around with a worried look. She didn’t even have her backpack with her today in class. She reeks of idiocy. I knew I had this girl where I wanted her when the teacher said: “Take out a sheet of paper, let’s take a pop quiz.”

Betsy’s cute looks rewarded her with a pen and sheet of paper from one of the drooling school boys at a nearby desk. Two weeks later, the teacher passed back the papers. I was in the front row, and got a nice stack to sort through. I couldn’t wait to see what Betsy received. As it turns out, Betsey’s C was sitting right on top of my paper, and through which I could just make out a red letter F.

Well, that makes just about as much sense as it doesn’t.

Case 3, My Glee

My friends, Justin & Matt, and I head out to Long John Silvers in a Jeep Cherokee with my mother driving. We tell silly jokes, appropriate behavior for 12 year-old boys. Matt delivers an exceptionally funny joke in the midst of all that, although it is of no real relevance.

“What do you call a horse with no neck?” he asked. We stared at his face waiting for his answer, “Necklace!”

Then there was a shatter.

My mother could have not done a thing in order to avoid the wreck between her Jeep and the careless driver’s generic, wood-paneled station wagon. The Jeep’s back door was in complete ruin: metal tangled together between the Jeep and the station wagon like seaweed wrapped around a boat’s propeller. Craters in the bumper lined both deep and shallow. Mom clearly made a turn under a green arrow, from what I could view, and a driver on the opposing side of the street rammed into the backside of the vehicle. Three weeks later: court. The judge hit his little wooden hammer against the table, and that was it. We lost. We had to pay. It wasn’t our fault. It was the other driver, but judge hit the table with his hammer, and that was it.

Case 1: I wish I had a hammer; then I could have broken out.

Case 2: I wish I had a hammer; then I could have broken in.

Case 3: I wish I had a hammer; then we could have won.

To be continued...