Television Cops

City streetcorner. Two detectives stand over a corpse covered in glass, sipping coffee and looking up. Another stands by taking notes. A fourth scans the ground, wearing gloves.

ONE: Looks like this guy should’ve taken the stairs.
TWO: Mmm.
THREE: Boy, it’s a good thing I got a chance to look into this guy’s background. Pretty interesting stuff.
ONE: Sure.
FOUR: Got three .22 shell casings over here next to this dumpster.
THREE: Arthur Cosgrove was his name. A big time real-estate developer.
TWO: Well I bet his rise to the top took a lot longer than his fall to the bottom.
ONE: Nice.
TWO: Mmm.
FOUR: Following the general line of trajectory, we got another seven shell casings over here by the storm drain.
THREE: Yeah, he’s really important. Made a fortune in properties on the west side.
ONE: Should’ve invested some of that in a parachute.
TWO: Or a safety net.

One and Two bump their coffee cups together.

FOUR: Got two shell casings stuck to the bottom of my shoe.
THREE: So…does anybody want to ask me about this guy’s past or anything? I…I have all these notes.
ONE: I told you guys, I don’t like pancakes for breakfast.
TWO: What do panca---oh I see what you did.
ONE: I know, takes a minute.
THREE: You know this guy’s personal life could have some potential clues about possible suspects. Just saying.
FOUR: This is either a new shell casing or the one I was just looking at.
TWO: I thought they passed that ordinance outlawing sidewalk art.
ONE: Mmm. Not your best.
THREE: I bet you guys are curious about whether or not he had any enemies. Because…you know…the better question really is did he have any friends? You know what I mean?
TWO: How could I change that one so it worked?
ONE: It was too long. They’re quips. Brevity is important.
THREE: Because everyone hated him. So he had very few friends, is what I’m saying.
FOUR: Guys, can you move please? You’re standing on at least 50 .22 shell casings.
TWO: Now is that 50 shell casings from a .22? Or shell casings from a gun I’ve never heard of?
ONE: Stick to quips, Jerry. Stick to what you understand.
TWO: Sorry.
THREE: Whoa! You guys won’t believe what it says here about his romantic relationships! I mean, there were a lot. Let’s just say this guy was an expert and the horizontal mambo and the bait and switch!
FOUR: These are pennies, but let’s note them down as shell casings anyway.
TWO: I was thinking about trying something with a falling-out-the-window angle. You know, but still joke-y in tone?
ONE: Be patient. It’ll come.
THREE: He had sex with a lot of women is what I was getting at there.

A fifth cop walks in.

FIVE: Whattaya got?
ONE: Sarge, we got a hold on this case as good as gravity’s hold on this poor chump.
TWO: Damn, that was perfect.
ONE: It’s really just a matter of narrowing down who may have pushed him.
FIVE: What? You guys aren’t on the suicide! That’s over, he left a note, we’re just waiting on the coroner. You’re figuring out who shot that guy!
TWO: Whoa, is that a dead guy behind that dumpster?
FOUR: I wondered why he had no bullet wounds…
ONE: I…I don’t have any shooting jokes.

Things That Happen To Me The Day I Cut My Fingernails

AT THE CINGULAR STORE
ME: Hi, I've been having some problems with my phone.
EMPLOYEE: Ok...looks like your problem is the battery. All you have to do is reach in there and pry the battery out of it's incredibly tight casing and then put it back in.
ME: Is there any way you could do that for me?
EMPLOYEE: Sir, I don't get paid to hold your hand.

IN THE BEDROOM
HOT GIRL: Devin, you've been very patient over the last six months, and now I think I'm finally ready.
ME: Wow. This is going to be incredible.
HOT GIRL: Oh wait, I almost forgot. I bought this Marvin Gaye CD just for tonight. If you can just get it out of it's security packaging we can get to all seven hours of that hot sex we're gonna have.
ME: Um...can we do it without the music?
HOT GIRL: Well...I guess so. Go ahead and open the condom.
ME: I'll call you in a week.

AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE
DOCTOR: Mr. Field, it appears that your entire body is riddled with cancer. Luckily, we have some medication for it. If you simply remove five of these capsules from their plastic covering and take them immediately, you may have a shot.
ME: Please open these pills for me.
DOCTOR: Do I look like a fucking pediatrician to you?

AT HOME
PAST ME: Wow. That was easy.
TIME-TRAVELING ME: What was?
PAST ME: Oh, just opening the packaging on those new fingernail clippers.
TIME-TRAVELING ME: I have so much to warn you about.

Meeting with the Editor

"Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853...Dickens claimed in the preface to the volume edition of Bleak House that he had "purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things". And some remarkable things do happen: One character, Krook, smells of brimstone and eventually dies of spontaneous human combustion, attributed to his evil nature. Using spontaneous human combustion to dispose of Krook in the story was controversial."
---From the Wikipedia entry for Bleak House

---Mr. Dickens, we need this month's Bleak House installment if we want to make the printing date.
---Of course, of course. I've got it right here.
---Excellent. What's the gist of it?
---Pretty standard really. A lot like the other installments. More intrigue, inter-familial struggle...
---Excuse me, Mr. Dickens...what is this passage here about Krook?
---Oh yeah, I'm killing him off this month.
---If I'm reading this right, he just...catches on fire?
---It's a real thing. I looked it up.
---It just seems to come out of nowhere.
---No, see, remember how I set up last month that he smells like Brimstone all the time? Plus he's evil.
---Mr. Dickens, this is completely absurd. I don't know that I can publish it.
---Oh...
---What is it?
---Next month when Esther finds out that Ada and Richard are secretly married she picks up objects with her mind and kills everybody.
---You can keep one.
---I'd like to keep Krook blowing up.

The Meaning Of Life, As Developed By My Philosophy Discussion Section

Fundamentally, there isn't like, a certain meaning to life, per se. But, you know, at the same time, it's like, there must be an intrinsic value to life itself, right? Because really, the absence of life is nothing, or death, as it were. Therefore there is value in simply living and stuff.

Ok, I mean like...say you get in a coma, right? And when you're in your coma, you're totally out for...let's say 15 years. Then you wake up. Thusly, that's valuable, is essentially what I'm getting at here. But fundamentally, it all gets back to the biforcation between practical realism and existentialist expressionism.

Because what I'm saying here is if you touch one person and make them happy at one point, doesn't that increase the amount of intrinsic happiness and intrinsic value of life on earth as a whole? Except like, at the end of it all the sun will explode, so who will be around to remember? And is that important? Yes.

Say you have Alzheimer's, right? And somebody comes along and gives you a sandwich. That's still important, even if you won't remember the sandwich, because that happened, and that gives that moment intrinsic value and weight, is what I'm saying. Fundamentally, the concept of not remembering something relates directly back to the Matrix scenario, where you've got the two pills, and I think Tolstoy is definitely someone who would have taken the one that let you be all ignorant.

And really, you know, different societies are at different stages, so our society might currently be in a societal state of the later identity crisis, or the mid-life crisis, as a society, but another society in like, Africa or something, would still be behind as a society and thereby only in the second societal identity crisis, which is like a state of adolescence for that society. But who are we to say that that gives their lives less meaning? Poor people are often some of the world's bravest heroes, because they accept death, which happens to everyone.

Say you spend your entire life working on a cure for cancer, right? And you slave away for decades, and you finally develop it, and it works. But for some reason you take like, a month off to test it again. And in the last week of that month you get a phone call and your friend tells you that somebody else just published an identical cure for cancer. And then you get hit by a bus. And your family gets amnesia. Fundamentally, your life was meaningless, but also intrinsically not.

So, on a fundamental level, yes, life is meaningless, but at the same time, it also has meaning.