Burn Your Socks Right Now

            (I counted thirteen good names for a rock band in this post. See how many you can find!)

            There’s nothing more unsettling than finding something in your possession that you don’t remember acquiring. Well, that’s not actually true; it’s far more unsettling to wake up from a deep sleep to find yourself suspended over a vat of boiling laundry detergent, but that’s been an infrequent occurrence as of late, so I’m going with “inexplicable knick-knack” as my greatest fear for the moment, narrowly edging out “graphite”.

            I have in my possession an object, an object whose purpose, origins, and basic construction eludes me. I certainly do not recall purchasing it, and as such can only presume that it was placed here by some antagonist in a rather redundant attempt to drive me insane. While that thought isn’t entirely comforting, this is a welcome shift in tactics from previous efforts. The scorpions in particular were beginning to become troublesome; one can only eat so many stews.

            Arachnid broths aside, the purpose of this object can only be to annoy me. Now, I say that about many things, from circuit boards to cirrus clouds, so I’ll have to elaborate a bit. The object itself consists only of a square frame with a cloth stretched over it, on which is printed an image of a butterfly. This object has no conceivable purpose. I’ve been using it to train spiders to fear butterflies, but that initiative may be failing, due to the fact that I’m just squishing them. (In no way will this deter me from my plan, however; I plan on using this information to once and for all prove that spider-ghosts can experience fear. And that spider-ghosts exist, I suppose.)

            Whomever is doing this obviously knows how my mind works, the ins and outs of my thinking, particularly that twelve meter drop a short ways in. They obviously know that I cannot abide useless objects; I even trained my slinky to deliver packages around my house (Note to self: He seems to be spending an awful amount of time at the bottom of the stairs. Dock his wages when he gets back up here.) They knew that the presence of a functionless doohickey would send me into a screaming, primal rage, forcing me to resolve the issue by quietly typing five hundred words about it, much as our forefathers settled their disputes, only with fewer duels and invasions of France.

            But who exactly is doing this? Well, remember what I’ve said about the object and it will become clear. Square frames? They’ve got bigger game than me; they’re plotting to take over the world. Butterflies? They already have. Neither of these factions have anything to gain from this temporary alliance.

            The unseen antagonist here? Stretched cloth. I’m calling for a mass campaign here, one person who is following my blog. First, switch to stone clothing. Second, if you see any cloth that looks like it is being stretched, or might become stretched sometime in the future, contact the authorities.

Waiting for the Apocalypse: Fighting against fibrous materials and their misdeeds since 1896!