Snippet from band practice: disposal stories

I know. It's not really a band practice; it's a band rehearsal. But who ever says, "I've got band rehearsal" and maintains any level of cool at all? Nobody. It's fucking band practice and semantics be damned.

Yes, I really wrote that.

And now the snippet.

mouse

Reticula: [The band sits around my dining room table taking a break.] I had a really weird dream last night. It was the middle of the night -- in my dream, I mean -- and I walked into a kitchen, heard scrabbling in the sink, and realized a mouse was trapped in one side of the sink. I was trying to figure out how to get it out of there, and it started jumping, trying to get out. So I thought about getting something to put over the sink so it couldn't jump out and run around the rest of the house pooping everywhere. I thought about getting a big piece of mat board to cover the sink, but then I realized it wouldn't solve the problem to just trap it there. I needed to kill it. So I wondered how I could get it to go into the garbage disposal and .....

Joe: It takes longer than you think.

Chicken Grrrl: Euwwww. You killed a mouse in a garbage disposal?

Joe: No, I didn't say that. I just said it takes longer than you think to kill something with a garbage disposal.

Reticula: I thought it seemed like a humane enough way to dispose of a rodent. How long could it take? They have tiny bones.

Joe: I'm telling you it takes longer than you think. I have experience with killing animals. Remember we had rabbits and I froze one and roasted the other .... I didn't mean to do that.

Reticula: Yeah, but you didn't put them in the garbage disposal did you? Tell me you didn't do that .... 

Joe: No, they were already dead. I didn't need to.

Chicken Grrrl: This is so gross. Just tell us what you killed in a garbage disposal. I hope it wasn't a mammal.

setuptank.com

Joe: It was a plecostomus. 

Chicken Grrrl: What the hell is a plecostomus?

Reticula: It's a sucker fish. It sucks the algae off the sides of an aquarium.

Joe: Yeah, and they get really big. And I think it somehow got rid of all the other fish. It had to die.

Reticula: They get as big as the aquarium size allows, but they don't hurt other fish.

Joe: I don't know about that, but this one got big and it was the last one left. [Pause for a sip of cheap wine.] I think maybe I just got tired of taking care of the aquarium so it had to go. The point is it takes longer than you think.

Reticula: I had one get really big and I just took it to a pet store and they were glad to take it. Some people are looking for bigger fish ....

Joe: Oh. I guess I didn't consider that option. Like I said though, it takes longer than you think.

Reticula: Even when I woke up I couldn't think of a better way to take care of the problem. It had to be the garbage disposal. It would be pretty quick, wouldn't it? I mean the death?

Joe:  I'm telling you, it takes longer than you think.

[Chicken Grrrl: Head on table.]

Reticula: What the hell would you have done with a mouse that was trying to jump out of the sink? You can't just pick up a mouse with your hands. That would be worse than the garbage disposal.

Joe: I'm just saying ....

Reticula: I know. It takes longer than you think.

Joe: Should I tell you about the vicious hamster now?

Chicken Grrrl: That box of wine isn't empty, is it? I need another glass before we start practicing again.

Mmm. Richard Gere.
(source: imdb.com)

Note: Because this is a snippet, I didn't include the discussion we had about how people put gerbils up their poop chutes for sexual pleasure. Or rather about how Dan Savage says nobody really does that before he describe how people would do it if they did do it. Somehow that's worse than putting a live mouse or plecostomus in a garbage disposal. I'll sum it up by saying it takes longer than you think to safely set a gerbil loose in your ass. Safe for you, I mean. The gerbil was never safe once it was destined to travel up in somebody's colon.


(Also, no matter what you've heard. Richard Gere did not put a gerbil in his ass. That is an urban legend.)