from PIAOR’s Book of Quotations, page 73
by Lincoln Sedlacek
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because you got laid.”
–Dr. Seuss
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“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because you got laid.”
–Dr. Seuss
10 – Purely banality
As boring as watching beige paint dry on a smooth wall in a completely silent room, where you are completely paralyzed and are capable of doing nothing but watching. A person who ranks at a 10 on the WPD Scale would require an extinction-level event to wake them from their stupor, after which they would have just enough time to be thankful for the sweet, peaceful oblivion that is death.
9 – Mind-numbingly mundane
Like watching taupe paint dry on a wall with a single irregularity, which provides enough drama to maintain neural activity, but too little drama to stop someone from wishing a porcupine would crawl down their throat just to spice things up a bit.
8 – Lifelessly monotonous
Akin to watching brown-, sand-, or gray-colored paint dry on a wall with one or two cracks running through it. Perhaps the most terrible place to fall on the WPD Scale, as one retains the capacity for human thought well enough to understand how miserable their situation is. A task this boring, while not quelling cranial functions, is still dull enough to make the world’s most talented meditator dissolve into tears.
7 – Tedious
For example, watching paint of any non-vibrant color (like maroon or puce) dry while the muffled sounds of a movie come from the next room. The movie sounds like it could be interesting, but it’s impossible to tell. All that is known is that in another room, people are interested in something, and all you have to occupy yourself is puce.
6 – Slightly unsettlingly boring
Like watching paint dry in an apartment that is slightly less than completely furnished. The TV isn’t working and your phone is dead, and you feel like you should be able to find something interesting to do, but you can’t think of anything that seems worth doing. People ranking at a 6 on the WPD Scale will continue in this way for hours, but will eventually occupy themselves by spending a half-hour deciding where to get take-out from.
5 – Uninteresting
As boring as watching paint dry where the paint also happens to include the text of the technical details for the Maytag Centennial 7.0-Cubic-Foot Gas Dryer. It is possible that a person might find a task ranking at a 5 on the WPD scale to be interesting, but only under very specific circumstances.
4 – Fleetingly engaging
Similar to watching paint dry as a single drop accumulates and dribbles down the wall while an ant desperately crawls away from it, avoiding being trapped within its soon-to-dry liquid mass. It does provide some level of intrigue, but within a minute the ant dies. After a few minutes of considering the fragility of life, the task becomes fully uninteresting once again.
3 – Provocative
A task ranking at a 3 is like watching a paint Rorschach test dry. What was a powerful panther becomes your scolding parents, before they become two French porcupines making love in your refrigerator. This paint would score between 60% and 70% on Rotten Tomatoes as it dries. Still, a viewer would certainly be aware that they could be watching more interesting things, like a live feed of echidnas from French Guiana having sex in a microwave.
2 – Intensely suspenseful
Like watching scarlet paint dry, only the coat that has been applied to the wall is too thick, and now the paint is starting to slowly – glacially, really – dribble down the wall toward the pure-white floor molding. You are powerless to do anything to stop the paint, but you know that Jacob will divorce you if the molding is stained with red in any way. He told you to cover it in painter’s tape, but you didn’t listen to him. Now you can only watch the paint dry – and wonder if your relationship will survive the journey.
1 – Enthralling, miraculous
Comparable to watching paint start to dry, but instead become alive. The paint has its own energy, its own sentience. Within its existence lie infinite possibilities – exotic creatures, human-level intelligence, art, wars, love, hatred, laughter, beauty, and a new path of the history of the universe. All that, and it’s got a cool polka-dot pattern, too.
0 – Awe-inspiring divinity
You’re watching paint dry, but the experience is being narrated by Morgan Freeman.
“Be yourself. Beyoncé is already taken.”
–Beyoncé
Please, have a seat. As a second grade teacher, I deal with a lot of behavioral issues and, needless to say, this is not my first parent/teacher conference of the year. I’ve seen kids stealing each other’s backpacks, cursing at teachers, putting garbage in cubbies, throwing toys, pulling hair, and even once peeing on the playground. But never in my thirty some odd years of teaching have I met a kid quite as shitty as yours.
It’s not that he acts out or gets into fights. It’s more just that the other kids find it difficult to listen to his stupid voice for five seconds straight. And you know what? If I weren’t legally obligated to care for your child, I wouldn’t go near him. But since I’m not allowed to kick him out of my classroom for being himself, I spend story time every day telling the class about a stupid, ugly monster named Tommy until they make the connection on their own.
This must be upsetting to hear, but I doubt it comes as a complete surprise. I mean, you guys have to see him drag his gross body around and listen to him talk about shit every single day. At least I get to go blow off steam after work by gossiping about him with other teachers and sending the kids photoshopped images of Tommy slithering out of an elephant’s butt covered in poop.
I have a few ideas for potential solutions. The simplest one is probably to get him to be completely silent and wear a paper bag over his head during school so that the students and I can pretend he’s not there. That way they can learn without being so preoccupied with their disdain for his entire being. Admittedly, even knowing that he’s in the room will make their and my skin crawl, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
Of course, my ideal solution would be to have you remove him from my classroom permanently so I never, ever have to hear his noxious, chirpy little voice or see his idiot, assclown-y face again. But, like I say to my students every day before they go home, “You don’t always get what you want even if you try your hardest. Sometimes you’re stuck with a piece of shit like Tommy.”
Despite its name, there are many purposes that so-called “all-purpose flour” can’t fulfill, like improving at-risk student test scores, capturing rogue velociraptors, and acting as Secretary of Commerce.
“You’ve got a chip on your shoulder.”
A saying expressing that someone has a lot of food – so much, they do not even bother to put the potato chip that fell on their shoulder into a plastic baggie to save for later.
“I’m burning the midnight oil.”
A statement used to convey how hard one is working. Its historical origins date back to a time when rich oil tycoons hired people to burn excess oil they didn’t know what to do with. Particularly ambitious laborers would brag to their co-workers about how they stayed up burning oil until midnight.
“What a cock and bull story.”
This figure of speech is used to describe a TV show that is an instant hit. The phrase originated in 1977, after the incredible success of The Adventures of Cock and Bull – a buddy cop show about a rough-’n’-tumble, loose-cannon rooster and a by-the-book bull who brought down the most dangerous drug ring in New York City.
“I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
An idiom signifying that a person heard something from a reputable source. This expression dates back to the early 1800s, when horses were widely considered the most reliable fount of scientific knowledge. Horses lost their scientific credibility in the early 1930s when people realized that, no, horses really couldn’t talk, but the phrase has regained popularity recently, as people have begun to recognize that they still tend to report the news more honestly than the current media.
“They went the whole nine yards.”
Used to say that someone went as far as possible or did as much as they possibly could: a measure that, for normal humans, is apparently comparable to traveling 36 feet. People sometimes add a clarifying exclamation before the phrase, like, “I can’t believe it!” or, “Amazing!” in order to reemphasize how completely fantastic it is that someone managed to transport their body a whole 432 inches from their original starting point – a feat of effort and willpower that most people can’t manage under normal circumstances.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
A phrase used to express the idea that, while one may think it’s bad for two birds to have formed a makeshift nest in their pubic hair, it’s really just as bad to have to hold a bird in your hand all the time due to pure inconvenience.
Hey Melissa,
I forgot your email address so I can’t write you a normal letter. Please send it to me so this doesn’t happen again.
I hope you have my information because, since this is an open letter and anyone can read it, I don’t want to write it here. If not, just write something called “An Open Letter to Jordy Greenblatt” and I’m sure it will find its way to me eventually.
Jordy
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean I’m not out to get you.
(1) Before you can sneak the body out of the studio, you’re going to have to sneak in. To do this, you’ll need a disguise. Normally, you can get in anywhere if you’re (a) wearing a business suit and holding a clipboard, or (b) wearing an orange jumpsuit and holding a tape measure. However, for a children’s television studio, it will be better to disguise yourself as something more along the lines of a monkey, a tree, or an anthropomorphic sun wearing sunglasses.
(2) Locate the body. If the seating area is a bleacher-like set-up, it’s probably best to start by checking under the seats. After all, if a child looks under the bleachers for a dropped M&M, finds the body before you, and starts screaming, removing it unnoticed is going to be almost impossible – no matter how much Larry Lemur insists nothing is impossible. After you check under the seats, look in the prop room, the changing room, and the utility closet, in that order.
(3) Disguise the body so that it can be moved inconspicuously. For this, you’ll need to hide the body in whatever human-sized container is available: almost certainly a large, brightly-colored animal costume. If there are multiple costumes available, choose a red one – that way, if the corpse is bleeding, it will be harder to see any bloodstains.
Note: If you disguised yourself as a tree and are able to find a trash bag, it may be possible for you to throw the body in the trash bag, walk out with it, and say something about the importance of recycling if anyone stops you and asks what you’re doing.
(4) At this point, you may realize the person isn’t actually dead yet. If the room is silent, tell them to be quiet, and that you’re there to help them. Keep this act up until the children begin to laugh loudly at a fart joke, at which point you should put your hands over their mouth and nose and press down, hard, until they stop moving. Check their pulse. Put the animal costume on the corpse, if you haven’t already.
(6) At last, it’s time to sneak the body out of the studio. Throw the costumed corpse’s arm over your shoulder and try to make it look like you’re helping an injured person walk out. Try not to attract the attention of any of the children. If you do, and they begin asking what’s wrong with the animal you’re helping out of the studio, it may be necessary to double down by performing an elaborate two-person song and dance number. This is a definite go if you know ventriloquism, but it’s still a solid maneuver otherwise. The kids will love it, and the guy playing Larry Lemur will just assume an actor passed out from drinking too much; he’ll try to usher you out of the studio with as few questions as possible, which is an ideal scenario for you.
(7) Once you’ve left the studio, you’re basically home clear – just get to your vehicle, put the body in the trunk, take it into the woods, and bury it at least six feet below the ground. Later, watch the newest episode of Larry Lemur’s Fun, Friendly Forest to make sure nothing that can be connected to you was caught on film.
We hope this guide helps you sneak your dead body out of the studio without attracting unwanted attention. If you are discovered – which, of course, happens to the best of us – you can always read one of our other PIAOR Hows, like, “So You Want to Eliminate the Witnesses,” or “So You Want to Burn a Children’s Television Studio to the Ground.”
PUT IT ALL ON RED 