Mental Masturbation

The Brain Fart at the PO episode last week bothered me, it really did. Not being able to come up with a common word is the first indicator of a major problem in the head, namely blood clots or stroke. I was wondering if my lifestyle choices were beginning to catch up with me.

So I began to analyze the PO episode. I could find my words before I went to the PO and after I came home. If I was stroking out I shouldn't have be able to do either. Then I figured it out...I was zoning...those times when I retreat inside my head to ponder on things.

One end of the zoning spectrum is "Lost in Thought" and the other "Catatonic Stupor." My level of zoning is somewhere between the two, closer out to the catatonic stupor end.

I zone out because inside my head is always much more entertaining than the outside world. I could sit alone in a darkened room for days and never be bored. My family thinks I'm weird. My sister bought me a T-shirt.


Yes, I have little friends inside my head. They keep me company. (WooEeeOoo Twilight Zone music)


Anyway, back to the post office. When a zoning session gets interrupted it's rather like waking from a deep sleep, and I don't wake up well. I'm groggy and disoriented and that's how I was at the PO that day. The inquisitive lady woke me up, kinda sorta, from some sweet dreams.

When I arrived at the post office I did a quick crowd scan and didn't find a single familiar face. Therefore I was not obligated to engage in the usual pre-holiday chit chat. Good. There were probably a dozen or so people ahead of me in line and basically only one clerk to serve them all. The wait was going to be 15-20 minutes at least. I had nothing else better to do, so I checked out and retreated inside my head to play a while.

I settled in for a little session of mental masturbation right there in the post office in front of God and everybody. In my head I laid out the centerfold from the December issue of Paper Engineering Geeks Quarterly and started manipulating the ol' gray matter based on what I saw.

Ummmm....pop-up version of the Taj Mahal...very intricate...hours and hours to complete....yessss....purrrr....

Cut slits there...crease there, there, and there....valley folds here and here....mountain folds there and there.....glue? yes, a spot here and there....

All the blood drained from the verbal areas on the left side of my brain to fuel the pulsing lobes on the creative right side.

Ah, the curvy top part could have a tab there, and the windows could fold down like that....score the paper like that...fold over..crease. Score, fold, crease thataway, then score, fold, crease the other way...score fold crease, score fold crease, cut cut, score fold crease, cut, score fold crease....

I was building up a blue-veined throbber over there in the right cerebral cortex, whacking off the gray matter for all I was worth. The endomorphins were starting to squirt...

scorefoldcreasescorefoldcreasescorefoldcrease..
[visualize appropriate rapid hand movements here]
...scorefoldcreasescorefoldcreasescorefoldcrease YOUNG LADY WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? IS THERE ANYWHERE ELSE TO BUY STAMPS???scorefol....Whaaaaa??? Zirrrrrriiitttttt!!!!

Arrrrggghhhhhh! Whackus Interruptus!

Caught red-handed, as it were, by my mom. Or a stamp-seeking lady who looked a lot like my mom. I woke up from my reverie to find there was no blood whatsoever in the left region of my brain to facilitate an intelligent conversation.

So, brain fart.

In front of God and everybody.

I hate that when it happens.

Sigh.