Three More Stupid Things I Love

1. The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

This is the version I got--the books-on-CD edition. It features a reproduction of the original cover, complete with the classic White Slavery/Yellow Peril color scheme.

It's really marvelously stupid. I mean, check out this peerless prose:

"I want to hear that knocking!" he rapped.

In case you weren't in my fifth grade English class, that, my friends, is a Tom Swifty. Now, if that Tom Swifty had been included deliberately, it would be the lowest possible form of humor. But I don't think Rohmer knew he had come up with one. And that, of course, makes it much funnier.

So far I've only described the idiotic writing. It's very bad, but combine the writing with the completely over-the-top racial stereotypes, and I'm ... speechless. Gobsmacked. I'm amused, bemused and confused.

I can't decide whether it's more terrible or more hilarious, but it's unbelievably stupid. And then, when it's a book on CD read by someone not very good? It adds a whole new level of stupid.

In short, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu deserves a total Mystification (a la MST3K) ... but since I mostly listen to it at the gym, and lumbering along on a treadmill, wearing my iPod, making sarcastic quips and cracking myself up isn't the route to universal popularity (which is my goal, or I wouldn't try so hard to keep you amused, Internet) I'll skip it.

But it's definitely stupid cubed.

2. My gym

Yeah, it's one of those big-box joints that Badger abhors. And for a while it was full of women who looked like personal trainers on The Biggest Loser, so while I didn't abhor it, it kind of got on my nerves. I think I was the only person who went there who actually needed to work out.

But now, there are lots of chubbs there. I even see really fat people.

This morning, I walked out of the room full of toilet stalls to wash my hands (because I am a good, hygienic person, and if you don't believe me, come over and lick my keyboard) and heading into the room with the toilet stalls, there was a woman who looked exactly like Jabba the Hutt. If Jabba was stark naked.

Which left me feeling just like Carrie Fischer. When she was young and looked hot in a bikini.


I am not and do not. But yay, stupid gym for making me feel that I am and do.

2. My minivan



When the construction workers take over her house, a girl moves into her car. And lives there for seven weeks. And counting.

Luckily for me, my car has room for my gym bag, my overstuffed purse, my office-in-a-bag containing all the construction information, my iPod, my cell phone, my commuter cup of tea, a few umbrellas, snacks, hand wipers, my children, their backpacks, a cello, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, etc., etc., etc.

In short, I love it.

(Even though it looks like Jabba the Hutt. And makes the Passat feel like Carrie Fisher.)