YSaC, Vol. 1614: Cringe is right.
2013 October 16
Free cringe- no matress
Free crib- all parts, but no crib. Cal ###-###-####
It’s a crib. But no crib. It has all the parts, but is nonetheless not a crib. In other words, the crib is *greater* than the sum of its parts. It cannot simply be appreciated as a collection of crap stuffed into someone’s basement. No – you must appreciate it, in proper Wittgensteinien fashion, for its entire quality of cribness. Except you can’t, because there is no crib. Just parts of a crib. So you can’t appreciate the whole crib, but Kant could probably appreciate the parts of the crib.
My brain hurts.
Thanks for the post, Kenneth!
Concur, I wish to set the full-body shudder this evokes loose.
Yet, I still fear whole-body dislocation ere I did.
Run Away!
Run Away!
(watch for the broken step there on the basement stairs, just past the bin of rusty scrap metal; the bags of broken glass, and all those jugs of, ‘fluids’ . . . )
Nothing makes me cringe like death free death trap cribs! And people think I’m the crazy one for sleeping with my babies in my bed. Sure, let me put my precious bundle of joy into this hastily assembled, basement mildew covered, missing hardware cage. But hey, it was free! *
*sorry, not so much snark this morning, just plain old ire…
Looks to me like someone’s crib is in dire need of “pimping”. But then, that’s why we’re free to cringe.
At least there are no clowns in this basement.
*Don’t turn around*
*Don’t turn around*
*Don’t turn around*
*Don’t turn around*
They’re watching you!
Craigslist without a paywall
“Does this pile of parts have crib nature?” “Mu.”
It’s clearly a homeopathic crib. The less actual crib, the more cribby it is.
“All parts, but no crib”
Every part is from a different crib and all the necessary parts are present. But they cannot be assembled into one functioning crib.
Cribs slant sideways and Furnaces stand straight.
So we won’t let you take this Not.a.Crate.
Free Crib met Furnace in the basement one night.
The air was calm and was musty all right.
He grabbed her in his bars and then he felt that hot singe.
Now all he does is lean there and cringe.
Cribs slant sideways and Furnaces stand straight.
So we won’t let you take this Not.a.Crate.
When is a crib not a crib? [Now that this piece is written out, I feel I owe YSaCers an apology for its length – the words just kept coming and sentient crib’s world just kept evolving.]
When enough basement mold grows on it for it to become sentient and it realizes it has been disassembled and the one piece that most describes its “cribness” has been discarded like so many diapers soiled by the consumers of its service, its structure, its very “soul” (for what is a sentient piece of furniture without something it considers a soul?), such realization triggering one of the absolute most rare events in the sentient furniture world, an existential crisis.
While exploring said existential crisis, said sentient crib is forced to wander alone the very sparsely populated world of sentient furniture, forced to ask itself questions like “what am I really?” “Am I merely the sum of my parts, or are my parts each individually me?” “Why is it I’m sentient but babby stroller nearby is not?” “Did its unibody construction, its oneness, provide it a completeness I no longer know?” While aimlessly wandering and thoughtfully pondering, sentient crib stumbled upon a basic truth – capital “T” Truth, you might say, of the sentient furniture world – that one is what one identifies itself to be. With this simultaneously exhilarating and sobering thought, sentient crib sought a purveyor of a service of which it was previously unaware, but became desperate to find – that of sentient furniture tattoo.
Finally, in a twilight that seemed first dark and desperate and later revealed itself to be the precursor of a glorious dawn to a new life, sentient crib found a sentient furniture tattoo shop in the basement of a garage of a shuttered factory. While gazing at the astounding options for sentient furniture, ranging from stitching that says “It’s PROVINCIAL, motherfucker!” to the word “BEESTUNG” welded over a long-faded logo on a truck tailgate to “finally iceberg-proof” emblazoned on copper plates adorning boat bodies filled in with dirt and growing all manner of plants, sentient crib found – though if you ask, sentient crib will say the word found the crib – a single word on a photo lightly covered with sawdust and singed by searing-hot shards of metal cast around by an industrial grinder.
Once sentient crib’s turn in the hot seat came, it giddily described its heart’s desire to the tattooist. If it had lungs to breathe it would’ve gasped in pain when the smoking-hot woodburner came in contact. Scorched by the sap of each customer, the woodburner both left a scar on and took a scar from sentient crib. The artwork seemed to take forever in sentient crib’s mind. The pain seemed to double, even triple each time the woodburner approached a knot in sentient crib’s body. Smoke from the scorching of its own flesh would’ve burned in sentient crib’s eyes and lungs, but instead only added a slight aroma of oak to the dank atmosphere of the sentient furniture tattoo shop.
The work finally done, sentient crib gloated over its new identity. Seven slash marks, in a group of four vertical lines crossed by a diagonal line beside two more upright lines, counted the people sentient crib had watched over, had cared for during the first few years of life. Four paw prints, each unique from its neighbor in size and shape, marked the different animal lives in which sentient crib had also taken part. Finally, between the human lives and the animal lives, sentient crib’s new identity – its new name, if you will – stood in black letters etched into a tan oak background. The word with which sentient crib would describe itself, with which it hoped the world would describe it, “Cringe”, was now sentient crib’s most prominent feature.
That, my friends, is when a crib is not a crib.
But, in the end, did it finally understand what the petunias meant when they said “Oh no, not this again?”
Or, is that waiting upon Earth III?
*smug look*
-A. Dent
All the while, creepily in the background, the other sentient furniture was chanting:
“Be our guest, be our guest,
our tattoos are the best!
We can’t promise you won’t cringe,
this one’s going to singe!
Be our guest, be our guest…”
WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wall of text!
Free poem- all parts, but no poem.
There once was a crib without mattress
Was put in the Basement of Madness
The crib came undone
And won’t see the sun
Unless you can find the darn address
Yay! I got a free poem!
And worth every penny!
To crib, or not to crib? That is the cringe-worthy question.
Whether tis noble to suffer the mattresses and slats of outrageous cribs,
Or to take sheets against a pile of parts;
And by denying them to sleep standing up.
To the Cribbage, to the Cribbage!
Or wall it up with our English cots!
In basement, nothing so behooves a man but
Cautious steps amid the debris and sharps,
But, in time of Sell, to take on the mien
Of a Not.A.Lion and screw one’s courage
To the mattress which is not there.
Disguise fair nature and cringe,
Not before the wrack and refuse
Of hard-floor’d Basement!
I’d write a poem about this, but I have to go make my bed. Now, where did I leave the hammer?
Bravo, Windy!…and all this time I thought pulling up and smoothing the bedspread was enough…Live and learn!!!!
I assume Sparky is cringing because his free-range matress escaped. The crib parts now cannot be assembled into a complete crib. Rather than make the effort to correct the situation or figure out a Section 1250 recapture of the matress, Sparky is dumping the parts and hoping the IRS won’t audit his basement. Blame Obama.
Mudsy, it’s both a pleasure and a privilege to have you in the box for two days. Punchity Punch Punch!
Good Morning, Crib Noters.
Thank God it’s……(wait.for.it)……………..FRIDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not.A.Bear! You suck at eBay:
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=151143233047
I know a koala isn’t a bear, but that’s what I was searching when this gem came up. *
*Apparently I type breast much more often than bear, since autocorrect keeps suggesting it instead of our furry friends. **
** Also amusing, ever since I chose KKK over MLK the other day, it keeps coming up tops in my suggestions.
M2N2 my school computer won’t let me see your link…comes up “not acceptable use”….now I’ll have to wait until I get home….wish I had a fast house!!!!
No eBaying in class!