Death In Them Thar Drawers

 

Part 30 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

We’ve been together this month on an important journey. Me in my incredible wisdom sketching out, probing, the many seamy implications of our imperative toward breeding, pairing off, “being there” for one another, but always with an alternative agenda, selfish in the extreme but still plopped out and used. Then you’re up, washing away the incriminating evidence, refusing to look one another in the eye, all quite sad. Maybe you leave that place only to drift into your own world of terror and careen out of control and crash into a tree. A tree that’s been there solid for a hundred years, yet prepared for your individual fate.

I know the feeling and am compelled to sketch it out one last time -- your last warning before the end -- that There Is (not maybe, not might, not sometime in the distant future) -- There IS Death In Them Thar Drawers! Which might appear in the guise of  a cute little number, a pair of pink frilly panties, always a favorite to the profligate mind. Some stout underwear might've been more serviceable for general wear, the cloth more durable. It might not be quite the same turn-on but it'd be more practical and economically wiser over the long run. It might even be a girdle. Men wear girdles all the time, I hear. I've actually heard a girdle on a man is sexy. It cinches the bottom and makes the rest protrude to the point of being indecorous, yes, but this appears to be quite welcome in the height of the rut.

You’re quite turned on by this, I assume. Which I'll take as a plea for help. Consider it, this is your plea for help. OK? Now that we’ve established and proven that point, we can move on. The mere fact that you didn’t know it before just now admitting it is all the proof we need to demonstrate that your present lifestyle, your present approach to life (and feeling “good”) is innately self-defeating. Naturally -- and I’m proud to say that in my career I was one of the first to suggest that these things aren’t complicated, any idiot can understand them, for which conclusion I was denied tenure -- you have numerous excuses, a rich variety of excuses, such as, “Even Jesse James wasn’t hung like me.” In the end, however, both of you have been up for swinging, Jesse by his neck and you by ...your other neck.

Once you’ve convinced yourself of that -- and here’s where it gets dangerous -- you turn to bolder activities. A little booze in your system, a little fire coursing through your blood, a partner up for the ride, you’re at the cheapest, sleaziest motel in town. It all goes uphill, then downhill fast. Everything you see puts you in a racy mindset. Until you’re down with whatever comes up. Reading between the lines, delving deep into the subject, and reiterating your point with intensity and wild abandon. To and fro. To and fro. Frolicking, frolicking, frolicking, then toys break the monotony, a fitful diversion. To the point of swift repetition, petting, nasty to be sure, but with such bold insistence that the heat of the moment makes it seem OK. Yes, yes! You go on until your mind shuts off and you wake up several hours later, alone.

The next day there’s talk around the office. And you only confess reluctantly, under pressure, admitting two points, 1) You took some comfort there, and 2) Recalling the thesis of this series, Something was decidedly nasty, death in them thar drawers, and with the sad termination of your ecstasy, unfortunately, you are finally spent.

Always Wash Your Hands

 

Part 29 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Getting toward the end of this series, I've covered a lot of territory and saved a lot of lives. But I still have a pretty good teaching to touch on, and once I touch it I'll wash my hands. That in fact is what the teaching is, the importance of washing your hands. And I know what you’re saying, “I already wash my hands. I washed my hands a month ago today.” Hmm, think about what you just said. “A month ago today?” Friend, that’s not good enough. It needs to be done more often.

Then you might say, “I’ve already learned my lesson, that there’s death in them thar drawers,” and you're thinking you've followed the chaste path. Again, I need you to think through some of these issues. Consider this, for every guy who’s given up all semblance of sex, there’s gotta be 99 who hasn’t. So say you go out in public, you’re walking in town, that means -- the statistics are through the roof! -- you may as well be walking in a minefield! Just as the exploding mines would practically scare you to death, the overwhelming numbers of the sexually profligate infesting our cities far outweighs your virtue and mine!

I hope I'm getting your attention. You’ve never been a sleepy guy, a dullard, someone without a clue. So please wake up and see -- open your eyes for a glimpse -- everything you touch in society has been touched by 99 of them for every 1 of us. Drinking fountains, door knobs, everything. If you’re willing to drink from a drinking fountain, you may as well be down by the piers welcoming sailors home on your knees! The button’s filthy, the sides are filthy, and the water coming out is moving across the spigot which has germs. Have you ever seen a guy lift a kid up to the fountain? The kid’s mouth encompasses it! Making it bad for the kid and bad for you; I'd rather be thirsty.

My honest counsel for you, once you’ve discovered your brain, is use it, don’t shut it off, don’t neglect your thoughts. They may call it paranoia, which I suppose it is, but it’s reasoned paranoia; I’m not paranoid about scary things that aren’t true or not likely to be true. I’m not worried about washing my hands because I think I'll meet a space alien in the park and don’t want to encumber him/her/it with earth germs. OK? That’s not a reasonable concern. I’m definitely more afraid of the park just for the friends I might meet.

You run into our circle of friends -- and this is true over everyone else’s friends -- those guys are polluted. They’re not likely to survive the day, and if they do, it’s an absolute fluke. Then what they're carrying will be on you, then it'll be on me. Which, excuse me, I need to wash again.

Touch & Goo All The Way

Part 28 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Do you still think there’s nothing to it, that all sex and its related acts and conditions and consequences are safe? And that somehow there’s not death in them thar drawers? And that anything and everything goes, and that all things should be accepted, and that the more the merrier, and that-- and that-- and that? If so, you've got a greater tolerance than I, and how you ever lived this long without being in league with the devil is the question of the hour.

Look at this private doctor's room. I can barely stand to look at the scene without being sick. Honestly, I’m on my third iPad, having destroyed the first two with a sledge hammer, and only hope I'm able to write the next few paragraphs without going into even more debt. I get sick easily, I’ll admit that much, but certain things send me over the edge, not in a good way, and I simply can’t continue. It’s something from childhood. I was 14 and my mom taught me the facts of life because dad worked nights, and her revulsion as to the details was so overwhelming that her shrieking stuck with me. The house was closed by the proper authorities for a month when they mistakenly thought we’d come down with the plague.

I was very impressionable, as you might've guessed. Because the overwhelming irrefutable lesson I took away from every despicable tenant of the teaching was “There’s death in them thar drawers,” whether a long and prolonged passing (footsy, puppy love, winking) or something more immediate and obviously fatal (slow dancing, parking at lover’s lane, traveling salesmen trying to scrub away the taint with stiff brushes and lye*). Those were the years when they definitely knew what death was: World War I, World War II, Korea, Friendship Rings. We lost some of our best people, virtually an entire generation, because there weren’t the safeguards we’ve come to expect now on the boundaries of a healthy friendship.

Even today, not very many guys are aware of how their bodies function. But the actual facts are that too much of anything can shut off this valve and open up these spigots, and it just happens more or less on its own when overdone. You're driving down a smooth blacktop and you're bouncing in the driver's seat. And repeated abuse simply means you're asking for it. Too much of anything has similar consequences. You eat too much pie, you’re mortgaging the house to buy more. You can get hooked on water. And with bottled water so common, I fear for the next generation, drowning, etc. And then there’s sex. Please, proceed with caution and stop before you turn on someone who refuses to be turned off!

Anything that is haveit-forming is obviously without boundaries after a certain time. Like in finances, if you over-extend yourself, you have have years of consequences, troubles with debts. Pretty soon you’re dealing with loan-sharks. Similarly, depending what the act is, you might need expensive medical care. Whereas you could even now, before it’s too late, simply zip your pants and walk away.

*Don't try it, it's deadly as rabies.

Mona Lisa Saps My Libido

 

Part 27 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Welcome to my office, the inner precincts previously never broached by visitors or curiosity-seekers, till today. And really I’m kind of proud to be welcoming people in for the first time, except for the cleaning lady; she’s been here before. Naturally, I’ve been well-behaved around her, although like everyone, I hear stories of other bosses, bold to say the least. That doesn’t go on here.

Which you can thank my vows of chastity for, since keeping vows to me is just as natural as breathing, actually more wholesome than breathing, since breathing, like sex, is just a lot of in and out, over and over, in and out. The only time you’re chaste breathing is at that tiny pause between the two. Which if I’m not wrong, is mentioned in Asian spirituality, like the Tao Te Ching, a sometimes go-to crutch I’ve consulted over the years, truth that keeps me limping along limply, contentedly.

And not to put too-fine a point on it, but would you rather be limply or empty? Think about it. One is a state of being, the other the end of a process. A state of being, you can merely be in that state, zoned in, zoned out. The whole thing of emptying is a process, and as processes go, it's quite the taskmaster. These are some of the thoughts I have in my desk. Notice I keep my desk pressed up against the wall, taking away space for chasing the cleaning lady or her chasing me. And you see my hands are on the desk, making them otherwise occupied.

The only sexual object I’m allowing is a new addition to the office castle, a gorgeous likeness of the sexiest woman alive, Mona Lisa. You might guess what I had there before, a still-life of a potted plant, and not even that colorful a flower, always worried as I was in those days of temptation. Say it were a red rose; it’d only give me thoughts of a lady called Ramblin’ Rose, and the nights we’d be ramblin’ out for tea, perhaps stronger drinks, then her place, my place, or maybe back to the office to be chased around the desk. And there’s death in them thar drawers...

Mona Lisa actually does me a lot more good. It stands to reason: Leonardo da Vinci painted the original -- what? 5 or 600 years ago? -- no doubt she's gone on to her heavenly reward. To me she's a calming influence. Anytime I get the least bit randy, say I'm performing the Heimlich Maneuver on a choking waitress, I return to the office and take a look at Mona Lisa, dead and decayed, a study in the some somber browns, her smile barely there. Makes me think of my own grandmother, also passed.

Yes, for me, (singing a little), “Life’s a wonderful path of no-sex no-sex no-sex, all the live-long day!”

Bugs, The Dangers Of Breeding

Part 26 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Have you ever given real thought to the process of breeding? Not just what happens in those hot moments of ecstasy but the whole range of the act from flirting to consummation? And at this point I’m not even talking of what we do as human beings -- trying to keep ourselves under control long enough to stretch it out to the full measure of the time we have -- but of bugs, insects, the sects they form for themselves and the sex they’re doing doing doing, all quite unseen in the walls, under the floors, and about as bad, in the basement.

I seriously go to the basement and realize it's another world down there. So, with winter coming on, please be careful in the basement. The bugs, the spiders -- say you fell asleep down there -- might carry you off to their many lairs. The size they have (or lack) and their ability to carry things even very cumbersome, is enough to give anyone pause. A nuclear accident and they’d possess the world, if they don’t already! They’re creepy, they’re crawly, and they're doing it, popping out new bugs everyday as we speak. Just looking for -- I don’t know what! -- your dirty sheets to curl up in, a disposed rag, flakes of skin, blood, bone. Even chicken bones in the waste-can, meaning they've infested the kitchen. There’s no telling what they might do.

The old Hollywood movies we used to be so afraid of only scratched the surface of what’s possible when it comes to a creature not only willing to breed but actually breeding 24/7, up the wazoo and back again, repeat until nauseated. I’m nauseated, and I know this is obscene at some level, but it’s the clearest call to attention you’re going to get this side of a dirty magazine. What kind of example are we setting?

Certainly nothing so clearly says “There’s death in them thar drawers” as creatures bearing thousands with each thrust. And they’re also meticulous about it, guarding their pile of eggs, knowing by foul nature the exact temperature it has to be, the exact arrangement it needs to be, and the precise timing it takes to go from zero to a million, bringing their eggs to full infestation. We're not that smart! But see them stripping a cardboard box down tiny piece by tiny piece. That’s the fluffy bedding they need. See that tangle of human hair apparently walking itself across the floor from the brush to the basement door? Look closer, there's a purpose!

They’re watching you do it -- don’t think they’re not -- and it gives them ideas, which they would've had by nature anyway. We think we’re the lord of our house. But sit very very still. Try this: Take the battery out of the clock. Listen to the silence. Hear the supposed silence falling away subtle decibel by subtle decibel, a kind of low grinding noise in the distance. There they are! Under the rug! Overwhelming! Your masters! In the next minute they're so big, so fearsome! You need to run screaming from your boudoir, never to return, and, yes, never to return to that way of life. Abstinence is now the only way!

Death At A Swinging Nightclub

Part 25 of 30

There's Death In Those Thar Drawers

It had been a long time since I was out to a swinging nightclub. As much as you think me the consummate cosmopolitan know-it-all, I’m actually quite inexperienced and innocent. I have a hard time talking about anything but the weather. So I don't try anymore. On any given night, instead, I'll put moisturizing cream on my face and let it cake, then hit the bed, reading some old Reader’s Digest hardbacks my grandparents left me when they passed. I’m definitely not setting the woods on fire, nor do I think it’s even a good idea.

Occasionally, though, I drive by a nightclub and survey the whole thing. It’s been about a year ago that I was so worked up about the obscenity of society and the things people are willing to do -- and they get away with it, too, ‘til they’re caught or diagnosed. I was thinking of this series and thought I should brush up on my outrage at society’s ways. So out I went! Parking behind a dumpster and walking nonchalantly up the sidewalk and around the building. The windows being draped, there was nothing to see, so I had to walk in. Right away the head waiter saw me and came over with a limp dishtowel over his arm and serving tray. He told me a table wouldn’t be available for an hour. I looked over and saw people strung out, entangled, arm in arm, pants strewn about, dresses unzipped, and coffee getting cold.

It might not look like a good idea, but I did have a good idea what was going on. Which can be summed up in one sweeping indictment: There’s death in them thar drawers! His drawers, her drawers, and all the drawers that drew them together and sketched out that bleak picture of lust once strong and now obscured in lifelessness, limpness, letting it all hang out, not presenting a good picture, nothing I’d like to be caught dead at, spread eagle like some or more demurely curled up and hidden under a table. The light’s never that great in those places.

I know what happens at these places, and that death is never far away from the participants. With the saddest commentary on the situation being, there’s always someone else just old enough and unwise enough to boldly take those people’s place when they’ve passed. Sweep ‘em out, call in the shadiest undertaker you can find, let the evidence be obscured, no one has to know, and the show goes on! Put in brighter lights if it helps the bottom line. Put in dimmer lights if the body count’s out of whack. Close the bathrooms for “cleaning” if the johns are piled up with the johns . Sweep the floor, and for most of those men’s rooms, make sure you mop it! Those drawers are a mess, and death has come for “them thar” people whose turn, unfortunately, it was.

I'm A Girl-Watcher (Or Boy-)

 

Part 24 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

These are things I definitely like: graceful backs, active muscles, and perfect digestion.

All of us have our preferences, our ideals. My own days of keeping in good condition are nearly over, being old and on the downhill slide. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up my ideals of what others should aspire to. Our physical appearance and the fitness of our bodies -- whatever our age -- is a big deal. We don’t want to let ourselves go unnecessarily, and any advantage we’re able to sneak in, regardless of Mother Nature, devils, what have you, is a definite plus.

When it comes to fit young ladies, or fit young men for that matter, it’s not really territory that I’m encroaching upon. But of course as long as my eyes hold out, I'm still able to observe what’s going on with people around. I see a few people walk up the sidewalk, or very often in the road itself, and they’re quickly out of sight. But as they go, I naturally see how fit they are, how scroungy, or whatever. They keep coming and they keep going, and for all I know they fall off the edge of the earth when they’re out of sight.

It’s good to take inventory of your own fitness. Because it is good for yourself, your longevity, your social outlook, etc. The more you’re able to rein yourself in from overdoing it in any area of life, the more options you have for health and the all-important love life. The better things are, the quicker you can get your hooks into someone and have an “in” with them, be they rich, famous, or what have you.

This is true because those who are open to you are themselves taking inventory. And it happens fast. The light in my eyes, just speaking of me personally, is virtually extinguished -- I could cross the rainbow bridge any minute -- but as long as there’s even a flicker of light, yes, I’m window shopping. “Hey, baby, let’s get it on,” I’m muttering under my breath for some of the better inventoried passersby. Then there’s the inevitable others, the descriptions of whom would make me sound a coarse observer. Which isn’t my fault. I was raised to make superficial snap judgments.

Touching on the graphic for a minute, these are things I definitely like: graceful backs, active muscles, and perfect digestion. One of the worst things in the world is to be out with someone and have their digestion off, even slightly. Raising up periodically, you know, especially with the boldness people have these days. Some of these things we were discrete about when I was young. Having active muscles is one of those factors for sure. If only half your muscles are active, that means the rest have gone to pot. Not good. And graceful backs are nice. Especially with strength. At my age, with the challenges I'll soon be having, like falling down, any young ladies who’d go with me will probably want a graceful back to hoist me out when I’ve fallen into the ditch.

It’d certainly be embarrassing if we were out and she just left me there. She might say, “My back isn’t that graceful,” immediately disqualifying her. But I haven’t even mentioned her drawers, with the potential danger that’s in them these days. Which definitely These are things I definitely like: graceful backs, active muscles, and perfect digestion.

Undertaker Schemes

Part 23 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Maybe I should have been an undertaker, known these days as a funeral director. I’m certainly interested enough in it, actually to the point of fascination. I have indeed hung out with a lot of undertakers, breathing in the whole vibe they enjoy, their environment, and their faux sadness and sorrow, all so very superficial, I can definitely say from my in with them.

Which of course is easy enough to understand. They’re not mourners by nature but really technicians, and that includes the time they’ve put on their public display of stolid silence and grief. They’ll be patting someone on the shoulder in rarefied solidarity of grief one minute, then step behind the curtain and flip out the cards the next for a fun game of Pitch. Do they even care? I think they do, but like most technicians they’re personally detached except for doing what it takes to oil or grease the skids to make it through the rest of the proceedings and keep themselves beyond reproach.

I’m not quite as slick as they are, but I'm close to pretty much the same. Making me the perfect candidate to be an undertaker, except I wasn’t interested in it when I was casting about for an occupation that didn’t involve hamburgers. Now I look back and obviously say, Yes, I could’ve gotten in on the ground floor as an assistant to some creepy old man. I would've watched him, observed and emulated him. All the while spiking his beloved coffee with an occasional drop of formaldehyde. Until it was me who at long last was calling the shots, slicing, dicing, then becoming society’s last pillar between the average citizen and their imminent death.

But, alas, when push came to shove, I didn’t think of it. Instead I went the full burger route, till I graduated to delivering pizzas, and wound up my career loading dishwashers, a burying not of men, women, boys, and girls, but food waste, separating meat from the bone, disposing of half-chewed gristle, etc., the same kind of thing without the social perks. I could've made a lot of money. And done it looking so glum, so sad, like society's firm foundation when life gives way in every living creature. With the whole parlor overtaken with pallor and I’m the pal or best friend for the bereaved who may not believe, despite our common mortality, that it’s happened to them.

Then you have the economy of the whole thing. And the unpleasant fact that with modern medicine people can deprive the undertaker another day, week, year, or decade. Not good. We need to get out our Kama Sutras and realize there’s death in them thar drawers, and get people wantonly doing the deed with insistence, like they expect something from it, like it’s going to do some good this time, like it’s going to take hold and yield a blessed event. Which can be taken either way, the blessed event of a baby or the blessed event of someone saying bye-bye. For some folks, that’s also good news.

The 7 Couples Forum

Part 22 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

I put out a casting call for models for this graphic -- and I don't put out very often -- wanting only the happiest couples to apply. And I sort of got the happiest couples, but it’s in this sense, they were the happiest I could find. Next, my goal was to get the honest pictures of them down. And some of them need about a hundred shots and this is the best I got. Some of these almost didn’t make the cut, but I had to have something, with the money I forked out (1), and my deadline looming for the blog.

To make an example of them, I deleted couple 7. In complete fairness, they didn’t look much worse than the others, but I was so upset and had to make an example of someone. For one, the man didn’t like me and I didn’t like him. Also, the woman rolled her eyes once too often, they argued between takes, and they threatened to “walk out that door,” so finally I physically kicked the woman out, and with the good help of Garfunkel from couple 5, we had 7’s man’s arm behind his back, with him crying “Uncle! in a very nasty way. I kicked him unceremoniously out of the room, and I believe he fell down the elevator shaft because the elevator's out for repair.

Note, though, what all I went through and how hard it is to find genuinely happy people. I even kept telling myself, the world’s literally full of halfwits, you’d think they'd be happy, a big stupid grin on their face all the time, oblivious to what people with functioning brains are dealing with, money issues, health issues, avoidance of sex, which is usually followed by another round of money issues.

I remember Garfunkel’s partner melodically ruminated on the faces of people, which is a real coincidence, because the man from No. 3 actually is a spy. He looked at me with a quizzical look on his face, that look of “I think I know you.” I recognized him right away but didn’t show any sign of it. I tried to avoid him as best I could and certainly the wife. One affirmation that we’d met before and it’d blow up in my face. I’ve been chaste a long time, friends, and I’m not going back. Certainly not by the tug of an unclean passing friendship (not even that!), which may have seemed like the top of the world long ago but now it’s only sordid, tawdry. I was happy when he left.

It definitely made me think again of my mantra, and I frankly repeated it a dozen times (mentally and under my breath), “There’s death in them thar drawers...” Yes, he’s aged nicely. And I’m not doing terribly myself. Avoidance, chastity, washing my hands, eating the the dullest, drabbest vegetables I can find, it all helps.

Anyway, I kept a smile on my face most of the time with these dear souls -- mostly lost souls -- knowing I definitely had it over them with my personal progress, and that’s what's important. Everyone else may be hopelessly lost in them thar drawers, but at least I’m safe.

Don't Let Grandma Down

Part 21 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

It’s unfortunate that we haven’t found a way to bring more people onboard without succumbing to the ways of the flesh. Cloning has limited value because of the randomness of the families they draw. So there's still a ways to go. Seeming to reinforce the old adage, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, six of damned one, half a dozen of damned other.” We're stymied, because we want friends and family and they have to come from somewhere. Yet we know there’s death in them thar drawers, and it'd be great to be principled and consistent in our convictions.

The fact is very few of us are as good as we want to be. Even a sweetheart like Grandma and every traditional grandma I’ve ever heard of. There’s a whole new breed of grandmas, consisting of younger ladies. I question their legitimacy. But getting back to our traditional grandmas, I believe they came by their children as a necessity, mostly to repopulate the farms when the other farm hands were away at war.

So there’s some circumstances where sex has a positive side, very rarely. If your goal is something righteous -- repopulating the farm -- it appears to put aside some of the pain and guilt, the death in them thar drawers. But there's always a terrible nagging sense that you’ve let someone down. Which was clearly painful for Grandma, always torn by the issue. One side of her loved us dearly, and the other, naturally, resented bitterly our very birth; I for one never aspired to be a farm hand, so that was another mark against me.

Thankfully, she kept a lot of her bitterness to herself. In a passive-aggressive way she went about her sewing, her legs demurely covered with a blanket for warmth. It also helped her fight any natural aggression against us before we learned the rules of a decent society in regards to nature’s so-called “ways.” They drilled it into me, and I’ve never forgotten the lessons. I can still recite it: “Sex makes farm hands in case of war!” Which was strangely contradicted by the fact that we had lots of other people around. Cousins, aunts, grandpas, in addition to the dominant class of society, far and away the majority of the population, unemployed farm hands. Frankly, we could use a good old-fashioned war to use up some of them!

I myself vow to keep my chastity. With Grandma long gone now, it's less an issue to her here on earth, but I know somewhere up there she’s looking down, and I fear to let her down by foolishly siring a few unemployed farm hands of my own. So far, then, there’s no death in mine har drawers, unlike the drawers of others in which thar is lots of death in them.

Ma & Pa's Gettin' Down

Part 20 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

A hundred and some years ago society was a lot different. The roles of women and men were different, but the basic nature of what they did, functioning for reproduction as the obvious example being pretty much the same. The stork had been replaced and that was final. I'll try not to be sociological because it'd bore us all. Suffice to say, they were "getting it on" in ways that would still be a turn-on to us, depending which parts of the act they minimized (billing and cooing) and which parts they went fuller force on (getting down).

You probably know that birth control was more rudimentary, consisting of prophylactics and willpower. If you’ve ever checked out your family tree and find that it had many more limbs -- households with 12-15 kids ranging from newborn to college-aged -- that’s why. The old man, if they were in a town to small or uptight to stock proper protection in the general store, was left with his willpower. Which may have been enhanced, to give credit where credit is due, by five or six kids under seven bawling their heads off while he tried to concentrate.

Without getting too graphic about the other solutions, let’s just throw this out there in the nicest way I can. Say it was mid-afternoon and the old man and the old lady were preparing a nice time later that night -- once most of the kids were asleep and only the newest newborns were squalling -- he might choose to take the edge off, blow a little premature steam, allowing him to embark upon a later excursion in which they could patiently enjoy the extent of it, being longer. He wouldn’t be as red in the face, his eyes would not be rolled as far back in his head, he’d be present in the moment for the moment itself. And she with corollary feelings, coordinated in such a way to meet him halfway, wherever it led.

Naturally the buddy system would be a thing in this, maybe a little assistance, clearing some of the crying newborns out of the master bedroom, taking them down the hall with the older newborns, giving him time and psycho-physical space to stretch forth and allow the plumbing -- the system of pipes and tubes and sac containers -- a wider berth for its natural exertions. It’s a good lady -- dear Mama -- who can understand and perhaps pitch in when the going gets tough. Little Petey down the hall bawling his eyes red, a fever pitch, would be such a situation.

“Your love buddy’s on her way,” Mama might call out to Dad, “Keep up that head of steam, dearest, and know I’m near!” Then she gives the baby a little more care.

[This post is not meant to give the readers any ideas that sexual things are normal or allowed today, especially if you aren’t married with those years of experience in how a relationship should function. Any encroachment prematurely on these sacred implements and sanctuaries -- and that includes even thinking of it -- is liable to raise up nature’s own judgment, death and/or deformity and/or disease, for, yes, there’s death in them thar drawers!]

Alone, Do Not Disturb

 Part 19 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Who's the real men among us? Is it the foolish man always looking for a “night on the town” and experiences of the flesh up the yin-yang to the point of settling for sloppy seconds, thirds, fourths, perhaps twelfths (!) -- anything over 10 indicates a disturbance -- or the wise man going demurely to his room alone, declaring proudly that he’d rather not be disturbed?

I know the one I resonate with, Mr. Clean Living, Honest Abe, Ole Fraidy Cat, Everyone’s Friend, Nobody’s Sucka, Proudly Abstinent, Johnny Nothingseed, Chas Tity, For whom even cable TV’s a country mile too racy. Who needs something not quite as strong as the mint on the pillow. Who orders white milk and says “Make mine a double.” Who long ago forgot the only dirty joke he ever knew. Who wouldn’t know a boy from a girl without the dress or pants. Who climbs the walls just to keep in practice. Who double-locks doors against the temptations of others, not himself. Who orders vanilla pizza. And who when he craves a tight one means a chastity device.

If you want to be like me -- and there’s no one happier -- you start with the very common sense affirmation: “There’s death in them thar drawers!” Everything follows from that. Then you develop (cold turkey, so develop isn’t the right word) the ability for zero physical contact with any partner. And if you can manage that, it’s downhill from there. You’re a happy social outcast, no one wants to talk to you, etc. But there’s lot worse things. Take it from there and every temptation will be your sweetest enemy.

But of course you've got the power, you’re a sitting duck. 1) The power to resist, obviously; and, 2) the power to substitute joy for sorrow, turning your sorrow into joy, just like the Boy with the Midas Touch did with everything he touched, turning it into gold, giving him a whole new way of doing good, making gold and giving it to charity. For you now, when it’s the foolish "pride" of other guys to spring for a night on the town, then waste their night and their substance, you’re well refreshed, giving a pillow "the what-for," let’s say, while keeping your mind as pure as mother's milk.

Play your cards right and they’ll all be saying: “There’s death in them thar drawers, but that guy’s the first guy I’ve seen in like-forever whose drawers are a wonderful life all their own, no death, not a trace of death to his name, not even the barest whiff of sulfur. In fact, he walks by and smells like a garden from mythology, where everyone holds their heads high and greets one another with a smile and a hardy "How-de-do!"

The Town Painted Red

Part 18 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

By now we’re sharing at the heart level, you and I, as we've joined forces against an overly-sexualized society. I know I’m completely worked up, my boldness enlarged, beet red, engorged by the confidence I have in your alliance, you with me. And how many of you I’ve heard from, so willing -- bending over backwards -- to join in intimately, whether it's whetting knives, swords, blades of every form; then rallying men, women, loved ones, hated ones in common cause; then to charge forward with a battle cry for the ages, the rancor in our bones, the rancor in our marrow; all of us as one by now so stoved up that to merely lance the thing is to make it spew.

Let me put before you another reminder of the outrage around us being perpetrated on a daily basis. Right there it is in full view, such profligacy, such wild abandon, the shamelessness of it all! It gives me pause. Let us take it in and clear our heads. Lean out the window and catch our breath and try to comprehend what horrible force has been loosed, what this reckless swinging from building to building means, people with paintbrush in hand, buckets of red paint, and fearlessness, a unknown boldness that drives wanton men and women to expose themselves in every way. This is nothing to mess with.

“Painting the Town Red.” Of course I’ve heard that phrase a few times, but in my sheltered life I never really thought it through. Somehow we’ve all absorbed the phrase without fully taking it within ourselves as serious. Red’s a nice color, we might think. Honestly it’s one of my favorite colors. Red, green, blue, yellow … just some of the colors I can list off the top of my head. Dig a little deeper and there’s purple, lavender, chartreuse, caucasian, afro, blonde, black, curly, straight, cheese, toast, in a nutshell the entire rainbow and more.

Red, though, is the color where none is the number. Denoting that all restraints, all limitations are exceeded or surpassed. The number none means no boundary is sacrosanct, no consequences are worth considering in surpassing or bypassing them. The man, at least symbolically, swings from landmark to landmark in the Big City, his paint brush a’wash with red in thick coat, obscuring or replacing the tamer colors of tamer society. Meaning the most carnal behavior is now the norm. And, yes, There Is Death In Them Thar Drawers and, you know what? Only few of us care. That guy doesn’t care, he’s simply pissed away all concern, and as the red flows freely, prepares himself (society itself) to bring society and the whole social pact down.

Well, I for one do object. Is there anyone, just one witness, to agree with my lone voice of revulsion and shame? Hearing none, we're done for the day.

Dies Of STDs, Returns

Part 17 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

This is a true story -- it is truly a story -- of a guy I once knew. Many of the details are fiction or close to fiction to drive home various points. Plus, I’m trying not to be so explicitly accurate that he thinks he's entitled to compensation, and of course I don't want him suing me for damages.

That's the way stories go, too. They’re either so boring you can’t do much with it. Or so interesting that they want a piece of the action. To which I say, if they wanted a piece of the action they should’ve stayed in the relationship, freely letting it all hang out and getting it on, instead of demurely withdrawing and then bragging to me about their experiences sexually and now with their abstinence, as though I haven’t got enough problems of my own. If it makes you feel good, take the whole thing with a grain of salt. And if it does you any good, that’s my joy.

Anyway, my friend’s experiences, the sex stuff, was so foolhardy, so completely demented, and for a guy with a high denial IQ so lascivious, that he literally died from pleasure (1) mixed with (2) the diseases attendant on certain unapproved, unwise practices. To get any more explicit than that would make me physically ill, and I’ve already had the dry heaves three times just with the intro.

But to literally die, that does something to me, going really the whole gamut, from physical sickness to spiritual euphoria. It’s either completely true about the afterlife (which is what I hope for) or the disease he contracted gives that illusion (six of one, half dozen of another). The last time I checked on the guy, and I occasionally see him at the pharmacy getting his various pills, he was still having all the symptoms, afterlife tales and the more cautionary stuff of back alleys. Still chasing that high and that low.

What would that be like? I often wonder, to be supine in the tomb, then to be ascending to heaven? All because you’re too much a horn-dog to forego a little bit of pleasure? One thing’s for sure, with my fear (which is my native saving grace), I’ll never know, unless it hits me the way I hope it hits me, when I die. The sensation of alpha jerk that Hendrix may have had. (Google “alpha jerk” and you’ll see the link.) In short, there’s two sockets/holes, death and life. In the experience of being there, in this surmise of Hendrix, he may have said, “I wonder if I can die.” So he supposedly tried it, the alpha jerk came on him and he 'slipped on out.'

My friend has apparently already been to the afterlife, but he keeps coming back, getting it on with various people, and maybe catching another virus or disease and going to the grave, over and over, world without end. Someday I’ll tell him goodbye and that’ll be it. But I’ll never know it’s it till he quits coming back. And if he keeps coming back I'll have to reassess.

The Secrets Of Abstinence

 

Part 16 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

What are the secrets of abstinence, something more dependable than welding your zipper? That's a great question, thank you to Joey from New Orleans, the self-confessed young former horndog who sent it in. And he's right, welding's no good as long as we can still, by hook or crook, cut our pants off with a simple pair of scissors. What would work? When you’re young it sounds practically impossible. You’re so hopped up on temptations, then hormones -- stimulated or out of whack -- and of course you want to be cool with the In Crowd. But just to ask the question, like Joey did, is a giant step in the right direction!

The secrets of abstinence aren’t secrets in the same sense that you tell your friends secrets, like “I went out with Becky this last weekend and oo-la-la! Don’t tell my mom or anyone, cross your heart and hope to die.” Those are secrets you just don’t want anyone to know, although, to be honest, they're are also the hardest secrets to keep. Because your friends are just dying to tell someone, then that person will tell someone, and quickly even your mother knows, your grandmother, all the way up to the oldest grandmother in town. Joey did what?! Is Becky pregnant? You think so, with triplets!?

These are a different kind of secret, something virtually unknown because it takes discipline and determination. With some intermediary steps that are key, as unbelievable as they sound. More about that later. If you can get it together, though, it'll be great. But you have a ways to go!

The secrets of abstinence don’t primarily have anything to do with chemicals in test tubes. Although I’m sure, say, you’re in a foreign military elite corps they might fix you chemically, zapping you once and for all, then following up the original fix with progressively stronger doses to kill any last traces of virility or libido, until you’re not only limp as a noodle but cloistered and with the sexual appeal of wallpaper, But let’s say you don’t want anything that strong. You might want to save your sexuality in the possible event that you might want children someday. Farfetched but possible.

The actual secrets of abstinence are a matter of conditioning your mind and having the killer instinct to say “No! No! Hell no!” Then, in metaphorical terms, to run fleeing out the door, making your escape across hill and dale toward the horizon, kind of like what you used to see at the end of cartoons. In short, you don’t give in. You take a strong pose, you have a scowl on your face, your will is iron, you plant your feet, you’re a brick wall, impervious, impenetrable, and additionally not willing to penetrate anyone else.

In any conditioning you need to go over it again and again. Until they're about ready to throw you in the loony bin. The key is not to assume you've made it when you've lost your libido for a short time, say a month. But to make it rock solid, wearing a sign on your neck, "Stand back, 99% abstinent." Not only that but you want to condition others to want to stay away from you. So make sure you talk about your revulsion to sex with everyone you meet. As far as they know, that's all you can talk about. You accomplish two things, 1) You make the point clearly; 2) No one wants to be within a mile of you.

Then, by now you're a complete pariah with no friends and no chances for action. With no one being near you or wanting to be near you, you disappear into the wilderness, perhaps going as far north as possible. You'll be in good company, because up north, Minnesota, Canada, everyone's naturally frigid because of the weather. Even if you were to briefly lose your mind and pull down your zipper, they'd only laugh at you. Before long, they'd take pity and have it professionally welded shut. All temptation would quickly vanish.

But if you still haven't sealed the deal in your own mind, there actually are chemicals. I only mention it in a wink-wink way, never actually endorsing them. No, no, no, never! Anyway, there's this guy. An alley in a particular town, a former doctor, non-certified, and you can buy the stuff by the case, if you know the password. The password is "Grandma Slump." You didn't get it from me, OK?

Sex? Harumph!

Part 15 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Any one of us, were we to come near a live wire surging electricity, 100,000 volts, capable of powering a city for a year, would keep a wise distance. I can see myself to be the first to discover such a thing in my path. Then I'm standing there wondering what to do. “Do I run for help and leave it exposed for others to touch? Do I wait for help, someone who could run for help or would stand and watch the wire and warn others away? Do I cover it with a bushel basket and post a sign saying "Danger"? Right there I’d be fearful, maybe it’d spark, the basket would catch fire, the fire would blow into a park (on an autumn day) and next thing the city would be ablaze.

You can see the dilemma. A live wire's nothing to mess with unless the times, the hour, the moment has somehow chosen you. And that’s basically how life happens to me. Everyone else has missed the danger or urgency of any particular moment. You’d think just in terms of statistics that some other poor soul would be the first, but, no, it’s always me. As an example, I was hiking near some tectonic plates one day. I put down a blanket to have a picnic. When suddenly my basket was 10 feet in one direction and my plate 10 feet in the other. An earthquake.

As the meal went on the whole kit and caboodle spread over a small acreage. I’d sat my phone down and now had to run a mile to find it to call the geological survey or whoever. They said, “Thanks for reporting it. We’ve been monitoring it shifting for the last day.” Then the big one happened. Everything went to hell and I was flung back home to the Midwest, unharmed but mentally shaken, even more than usual.

The sprite in the picture is the sprite in all of us, right at the center of everything as it happens. In this case it’s the dawn of sexual understanding, naming it and touching its power. And while I cannot say I was a deep thinker in those days, unlike in the graphic, I was definitely a willing student, a willing learner of the magical forces, the tides rising, the tides falling, the oceanic feelings of [clearing my throat] bliss, my eyes rolled back in my head. The magazines not only promised such a rush but delivered it, until the pages were worn thin and the model’s had all packed up their bags and retired. Leading to bolder, more explicit pictures of hideous detail, open like a garage.

The sprite has it right to puncture the pretensions, the power of those perceived-mystical forces, wisely upon examination reducing it to the mere mechanics of it. Its power with this naming, this reduction, is minimized and now within control, domesticated. "You are nothing more than a phallic symbol. A snake standing for something else. Slither your sorry ass out of here, go haunt someone else. Because now I know -- and I raise my washed hand to swear to it -- There’s Death in Them Thar Drawers. Neutralized, tamed, defanged.

May the same be said for all of us, harumph.

Hands Up! No Sex!

No. 14 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Once you’ve made up your mind that, indeed, Thar’s Death in Them Thar Drawers, you’re well on your way to foregoing everything of an unpleasant sexual nature. See that, I’m just putting it on the line, a kind of test. Of my assertion and your discipline. Obviously we’re not messing around here but shunning entirely all drawers and their contents!

It is, of course, less harmful to picture in your mind the perfect arrangement within drawers, all pristine and certifiably so, according to the best standards and the closest most trustworthy presentation. But, then, if  you're not careful, that's the exact point when your fantasy life takes on a whole new layer of fantasy to deal with. You’ve taken a step in the right direction, starting with the fantasy, but the real challenge is to avoid the reality. You might choose right.

As for myself, I know the comfort is pretty good, certainly in the beginning. Let me encourage you, step back! Practice makes perfect, they say, but your lack of practice will make it very challenging. If you don't stand back, I can't be responsible. It's like the old clergyman said, "If you practice to fail you fail to practice (abstinence, cold turkey eschewing, the heroic stance with a difference)." Again, I encourage you. You want to be perfect, pure. Any morals entirely ignored are eventually forgotten. Consider the monks and nuns in religious orders who've taken a vow to a higher love. They've done it. They’ve cast off chastity belts, other devices, and even the buddy system, and are at long last perfect. Nothing shakes their resolve!

I have to say, as to myself I’m not quite there, but almost. I’m definitely not tempted by every sweet young thang. Being older, I look like a gnarly battered potato, so they’re able to run away without me even getting a good temptation on. Take it from me, the worse you look, the easier it is. Which brings up a good point of advice. If you look good, you're probably doomed. You should quit bathing, changing clothes, and even combing your hair. No one’s forcing you -- that’s my disclaimer if you object, but it’s your ideal, realizing at long last the truth I'm putting forth: There is death in them thar drawers. And you, just like me, don’t want to cross the line where death will get you!

If you are still influenced by the police, that’s good. If you’re the kind of person that hates crime and adores law enforcement -- this is the way I live -- you can picture in your mind the police watching your home day and night. (They're not really, but you’re picturing them!) You go outside, you walk up the block, minding your business. You know the police are watching so you don’t vary in your behavior, you're strictly good all the way. Then you walk home the same way. Day after day the same thing, till even the imaginary police assume you’re good enough to ignore, and very soon even the imaginary car is gone, never to be seen!

Now widen your scope to include any and all sexual temptations. Think of the worst criminals you can. Lee Harvey Oswald, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, The Penguin. Now bring your fondest temptations to the fore. You see they're hideous, like things done by criminals as sick as crap. You don’t want anything to do with them! The police are gone and you’ve still got your integrity. A job well done, they won’t be running you in for encroaching. You, my friend, are a winner!

Upside, Downside of Passion

Part 13 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

Now there’s a ripping hot scene I can identify with, scorching, scalding, a nice flicker of red flames and a lot of dancing, like the Old West when a particularly phallic-suggestive cowboy gets you dancing to a banging gun -- dance or die -- topped off, in spite of your dancing, by one of the worst deaths, immolation.

A scene like that -- are you with me, brothers in arm? -- has to put you in mind of fairly common experiences over the years. Burning with lust, burning with passion, red hot afire in the loins, the flicker of flames kissing, licking everything in sight. I really see it here, with a lot of basic whooping and shared glee, outright happiness with clasping hands, tossed hats, and getting that big look of wild contentment and celebration of the moment. And to think they each have a wife sitting at home, by now in full mudpack to the hairline, hair in curlers and checking her watch: “Where's that son of a bitch!? Why’s he so late!? If that scoundrel comes in smelling like the campfire with char on his shoes, I’ll know why!”

But I don’t actually say any of this to celebrate this kind of wanton behavior. Because now I already know how crazy it is. Pairing off with his buddy and jumping the flames of passion with a hotfoot isn’t where either of them should be. Because, 1) There’s death in them thar drawers, which should go without saying; 2) That ball and chain with the rolling pin waiting at the door, each one made vows to his respective ball and chain, and there’s more honor and value in keeping those vows than can be found in all the campfires and all the burning with lust and passion get-togethers and frolics you can find, even with male friends.

The upside of passion, though, is something to touch on. That there even IS an upside might come as news to you, because we’re so used to being out there, and everyone leaping about, then the massive communal ‘ending’ to it, and everyone slinks off feeling a little guilty to their respective mudpacks. So let’s touch on the downside. The downside is that you need this upside. Instead of finding the contentment within. Some guys find it, some don’t. Or they find it when it’s easier to find, when they’re too old to cut the mustard. Then they just morph into it and live happily ever after, assuming the death in them thar drawers didn't take them prematurely from the world.

I think the real joy of the thing is when you’re able to set it down at the height of your powers. Because upside and downside leads to no side. It’s simply a negation, not that hard to shun, swear off of, dispose of, relegate to the trash heap of other experiences with friends, and finally surpass. You see your old buddy in a meeting somewhere, you’re strangers when you meet! Or, who knows what, you fall back into the same trap. He asks “How they hangin’?” And one thing leads to another…

Remember, stop! Because for sure there is death in them thar drawers!

Underwear Models Gettin' Down

Part 12 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

I’m feeling conflicted with this one. I know underwear models (supposedly) perform a legitimate service for society. It’s all arguable, of course, and I may give some of the arguments pro and con, I don’t know yet. Just let me say, though, I hope the graphic isn’t too explicit or out of bounds for you. I really debated whether to obscure the racier parts, then didn’t. And I also almost separated the models by gender to individual posts, but thought it better not to stir up your passions in feverishly waiting for the next day to see what the next underwear shot would be. Better to just put them out there together and get it over with, if they’re presented at all.

Let me say, just as a matter of personal privilege, and to offer what I hope is an exculpatory note, we know what’s going on here and these images are not intended to rouse any feelings, urges, longings, or temptations to get down and get off, now or in the future. In fact, just the opposite. You should look at these wicked people and their open-to-the-world underwear as illustrating the overall cautionary theme we've had this month: There’s Death in Them Thar Drawers! If you take the theme as expressing a bitter outcome, then you'll see in the picture wise caution, certainly nothing to long for but something to shun. Let me say with all the solemnity I can muster: If I can save one person from the death due to them thar drawers, I'm happy. On the other hand, if I find out this explicit post actually led to a hundred, a thousand, or even a million deaths, I’ll be sorry.

OK, we have Dad over here in the orange union suit. He stands proudly, displaying his underwear as if called to sell it, copies of it. He has all the vigor you want in a dad, apparently a non-smoker, a man about town, friends with the guys at the coffee shop, and probably volunteers with the Scouts, Little League, and the church youth group. Just wait, though, till the youth group gets a glimpse of that reinforced triangle on his drawers! I pray that doesn’t happen.

Next to Dad there’s the shrimpy son, although for being shrimpy he seems good and stout. The muscles on him suggests someone who works out. And his look of vigor suggests someone who’s had the personal self-control to forego touching himself or worse. Instead, he’s channeled whatever libido he claims into building appropriate muscle-mass. The look of his biceps says he’s made active use of his arms, again, all very appropriate, which I’d imagine would be from playing the piano or carrying a bass fiddle home to and from school, the thing taller than himself!

The daughter, she looks almost too frisky for comfort, posed in relation to the mom like someone competing for affections, and even possibly plotting to take over the family, whether that’s simply the kink of her mind or an actual nefarious plan, maybe to abscond with the family’s financial cushion and make her way out of town with a high-spending mustachioed, tattooed ex-serviceman (dishonorably discharged) on his motorcycle, springing for the gas.

Leaving us with the mom, who looks like a halfway decent mom, certainly no one I’d kick out of bed for eating crackers. She know how to get right down to the real nitty gritty, MEOW! She’s Mrs. Crocker with meals, but some relation to Joe Cocker when it comes to putting on a show and getting down. I don’t think I should describe any of my other feelings, except to merely hint at them by saying, in my book she’d be Mother of the Year … every year!

If any of that strikes you in the least bit lascivious, please make note, nothing’s changed, there is now and ever shall be death in them thar drawers.

Married With Renewed Virginity

Part 11 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

In these days of boldness, of people putting it right out there, even in your face, and daring you to object, we have to tread wisely. “Forgive them,” we might earnestly implore the forces above, putting ourselves in some pretty holy company with words like that, “Forgive them for humping everything in sight, be it consenting, be it nonconsenting, be it alive, inert, a hole in a tree, or some filthy device found secondhand in a used devices store.

I know the media isn’t helping. Yes, I’m paying attention to the media. And I can sum things up pretty well. An image forms in my head and I mull it over. I don’t write it down. And before you know it, it’s taken on a life of its own, with a mind of its own. I rise up, it exposes itself to the light of day. It forges ahead, dodging and weaving, making its own path, forcing its way with insistence against all obstacles, unaware of the meaning of Stop Stop or Don’t Stop, Don’t Stop num num num. And I have pretty good control, respecting all boundaries. But here I’m speaking not just of my moral self, but the forces of existence that take our fellow beings over the line and to the moral woodshed. They can be restrained, they can be helped, even if it takes manacles.

Did your parents sleep together? With an emphasis on the word ‘sleep’? Ooo la la, some of you are saying. Of course they did. They weren’t perfect. Their restraint was like the restraint of most people, feeling fairly well entitled and not having real discipline. To the extent that I was aware of anything, I can say that mine had the superficial basics down. But they didn’t want anyone to know. This became an issue when I filled out a survey -- called Card/Pack -- that brought down the wrath of my dad upon me. “Did it have a question that said, ‘Do your parents sleep together?’" I couldn’t remember but I thought so. Well, from that point on, they didn’t. Meaning I had to file an amended return and only then escaped trouble with Dad.

If they were like the proud couple I’m thinking of today, who sleeps outside to let all the world know they’ve got the innocence it takes to have the happiest life, it wouldn’t be an issue. And perhaps it wasn’t anyway, because from that time on that’s all the kids they had. I have to think they knew something about the authorities and the scare of being socially exposed, because, indeed, There's Death in Them Thar Drawers. Meaning, the less school children were discussing it and exposing it to the all-seeing eye of the government, which you'd think would be more interested in aggregate numbers than specific hanky panky, the more they could continue their activities, but now with more discretion. Which is still no excuse.

Chemistry & The Horn-Borgs

Part 10 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

I know I’ve been hard on sex all month, and that’s a good way to be, seeing there’s so many moving parts and so many things that could go wrong. Exacerbated by people’s sense of urgency to “get it on,” often regardless whether they’re fit candidates for the deed, some diseases spread on contact. Others are merely iffy but still dangerous, while others, like me, are disease-free but thoroughly skeptical of everyone else. You take the healthy out of the overall pool, you're left with a cesspool, naturally with death in them thar drawers.

Here’s where science could make a positive difference, and I’m sure sexual scientists are always busy with one thing or another. Some are chemists in the perfume industry, coming up with scents, fragrances, creams and so forth, to stir interest and get us to overcome our natural reticence. Other chemists could be associated with sociologists/investors, stirring up wanton desires merely to fill motel chains. Then there’s all the associated restaurants, gas stations, the fly-by-night marriage industry, etc., more or less parasites. The way I see it, everyone’s on the take.

Still, for the most part -- despite the poor track record of science in a few sectors -- our assumption is that it makes a difference for good. From which I also could hope to profit, merely from the many ideas I've had in this blog series. They could work with my reticence and help tailor solutions, knowing if they could satisfy me with their progress, it’d have to be progress indeed! And really I wouldn’t be that hard to please, as long as others were the guinea pigs when it came to testing. I’d actually be happy behind a control window, fidgeting with dials and experimenting independently with combinations. My whims are often just as good as decisions based on scientific principles.

My teachings about "Death in Them Thar Drawers" have already exploded in popularity. People are asking me, "Is the Horn-Borg near? Is the anti-Horn-Borg serum close?" I got in on the ground-floor of that, the head honcho being a guy at my church. Then he partnered with rhino farmers, scientists, and me as the propaganda guy -- preaching "Them Thar Drawers’ for three weeks, which helped empty pharmacy shelves for three straight days, guys hoarding the stuff, etc., making me the guy filthy rich. He's so rich he hasn't answered my calls for the last two days.

Meanwhile, back in the lab: The technicians are regulating temperatures, which have to be just right. Say it’s a nice 89 degrees, they then procure all the containers needed to hold the stuff. It's a precision-tuned operation with three basic demands: temperature, temperature, temperature. A mutual friend of mine and the conglomerate, who needed a job, watches the gauges 24-hours-a-day. It's a deal with multiple good benefits, not just for a world looking to get it on in a good-natured way but for the my home community when associated family friends calls on merchants to pump the money back into the economy

Everyone loves sex, everyone hates death. The combination of the two in the Horn-Borg Affair is already a major part of my teachings. I throw in a little Freud, enough to flavor it, and people are throwing their money away, giving themselves up to looseness, simply because they think there’s some psychological justification for it. They're also making money with the skeptical, principally through my “Death in Them Thar Drawers” teachings.

I'll be downtown with placards tomorrow morning; if your car's outfitted with a horn, give me a toot! Then there's mothers who are socking it to the local PTAs based on my warnings. But, alas, with the younger generation resenting their mothers and digging in deeper, the Horn-Borgs could make a resurgence. But they don't yet show up on the newer census forms, if we can trust their answers: "Check your personal identification: A) Human Being; B) Horn-Borg."

The new perfect world is dawning, its light.

No More Public Bathrooms

No. 9 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

That’s a pretty good kink right there, a big strong woman sitting on our hero, a scrawny helpless dude looking disconcerted, with her strong display in a sweet pink dress, delightful gold high heels, tough-guy arms, and look of revulsion that’s downright nassssty. We could stop right there and say it’s goooood, but I implore you to look away, walk away, because it’s true of this chick as much as it’s true of anyone, There’s Death In Them Thar Drawers!

And how about her quote, "No more public bathrooms for you!" Comes across as a sweet deal. Punishment and denial, her edict reinforced with her soft, fulsome tush. No deal’s quite as sweet as that, those strong thighs, the aforementioned fulsome tush, and that (playful?) look of probably unfeigned disdain. If her face freezes that way she'll mercilessly flay you alive, crush and beat you to a pulp. Death indeed is in her whole demeanor, the drawers and everything she’s got going on, top to bottom, she's mean, very mean, but we still hope somewhat playful. But maybe not ... what a way to die.

And the guy -- a very bad boy -- obviously deserves the worse she can dish out. He’s done something that, at least in my mind is unforgivable, although I’ve heard of guys -- idiots -- doing it, which has to do with public bathrooms. Pardon me while I get sick! To me nothing's more unappealing than to be pealing off your clothes or someone else’s in a public bathroom. And I’m not faking here, not trying to be difficult in order to to spark a kink of my own. Because it’s not there, just the truest, strictest revulsion, which I will loudly proclaim and never withdraw! This is a point I make, a point I insist on, Katie Bar the Door, Goodnight Miss Unabashed Wherever You Are. Six of one, half dozen of another, red 30, 5 aces, I just dealt and drew a straight roulette!

It takes love in my opinion to even care about the bespectacled frowning idiot at this point. And he’s not my type. Frankly I wouldn’t give him another chance. It’s unforgivable. He’s on his own. “X” marks the spot, sex mars the pot, for sure, if I were his partner this would be his last bit of overreach, say he reached in and dangled it over the public pot, a flow’er or one already empty. Spent.

On the other hand we could’ve come to the scene just a little bit late, without the information required that would’ve set us straight. Whereby if it is simply kink, a playacting game that lovers do -- her and him -- with no reality behind it, then I believe we’d still be cooking with gas. It’s kosher that way, but no sir to the other. Keep it light, keep it imaginary, and I’m in or on, whichever would be most appropriate. At the first sight of reality, however, it’s hands off, you’re on your own, don’t call, don’t write, I wouldn’t touch the paper you wrote it on anyway. In times like those, yes, There is death in them thar drawers, ‘nough said!

Sad History of Horny Dudes

 Part 8 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

You probably picked it up in some of your history classes over the years, that things in the old days were different from today. Way back then they had to regulate society much tighter than today for the very simple reason that society was under many more immediate threats, outbreaks of disease, the plague, the croup, dizziness, etc. Even getting too close to someone then with your bad breath -- say you had pneumonia a month ago -- was a concern, and this would be equally true if the infection arose from ordinary breathing, dog breath, Italian breath, or what have you, which sometimes are never cured -- it killed entire cities right now, on a dime.

Still, obviously, you had horny guys. Who by and large were just as crazy as guys now, ever eager to get it on with anyone they could find, ranging from a hole in the wall (think construction sites) all the way down to ... I can’t even say it. But you know those Frankenstein movies where they're always digging up the recently deceased; did you ever notice how practiced they seemed to be at lifting bodies out of the ground? Whereas today we wouldn’t have the slightest clue or even the inclination to carry things that far.

Another thing, those were the days right at the ragtag end of huge leprosy outbreaks. Meaning they were used to social restrictions on such things, with the bitterly afflicted having to remain isolated, sometimes on their own islands, who could only come to town after having swam a mile, the water cleansing them enough to allow them to enter the market for a few minutes. Interesting, isn’t it?, that back then there were such horrible deaths in them thar drawers! With the whole leprosy thing necessarily carrying over for other conditions, mild or severe, and guys causing a genuine panic wherever they went.

Even now, if you know where to look, in some of our better antique stores you can find these “horny horns” that horny guys without wives or access to wooden mannequins with knotholes had to blow when they were on the desperate prowl. I’m actually old enough I was sort on the edge of the time when this was happening. Anyway, I remember clearly that Grandma and Grandpa would cross themselves and seek divine mercy if they heard so much as a random car horn passing the house. And they never -- not once, the trauma was too great -- went to a band concert in the park, they were so paranoid. They didn’t like any horn, and I mean everything from the shofar to the alp-horn to the Wagner tuba! Harmonicas were borderline OK.

We’ve come a long way, baby, with what all's allowed today! But we should still be concerned, and it’s a big mistake that we’re not taking precautions. Because it’s just as true now as it was then, horny guys are still in fast pursuit of one another -- maybe even someone in your family! -- and can just as easily spread death and destruction from their wanton desires. For my part, I hear someone with even the sniffles and, sure, I'm still aroused, but I know something’s going ‘round and take quick cover.

The Wreckers Are Coming!

 Part 7 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

We’re looking here at imminent destruction. I wake up and survey the situation on a daily basis. And with authority I can report that it's not just imminent, it’s already here and well underway. Of course being a prophet these days is unprofitable. But it's in my bones, warn the bastards!

In times like these we need a beacon, in times like these a clarion call. I'm very sure, I'm very sure, don't put me off, it could be the death of us all. I might give a signal, say, on the top of the highest building. Or in an airplane flying through the air, maybe already airborne, trailing a message behind that all could see. And nothing would drive the message home any better than “The Wreckers Are Not Just Coming, They’re Here!” If it weren’t for the public panic I’d rent the plane myself. An expense that would break me.

But if there’s a headline, a commentary on this sad state of affairs, it has to be that. The Wreckers Are Coming. With the onslaught coming simultaneously from two different perspectives, the old double-pronged sword, threatening to cleave asunder both meat and bone, straight to the marrow, gettin' right down to the real nitty gritty.

In times like these. What a refrain! In times like these all of us must be patriots to our way of life, keeping sex only within narrow well-defined socially-proscribed boundaries. It's gonna be hard, and that's the problem. Calling all of us who be patriots to our reaffirm our values, the things passed down to us as a once-rich legacy from the preceding generations, grandma and grandpa, who themselves knew no better but believed it anyway.

But I’ve got to take a break before I can stem the tide. And take a knee, bowing in solemnity to their memory. Their sex led to a mother and several siblings, who -- whether they knew it or not -- believed just as I believe. I didn’t make this up. Their marrow is my marrow, their 'morrow is my 'morrow, we're basically related by DNA, the shared connection of grandparent to grandparent, etc., etc. Get us together and we could beat this dead horse all day.

It's still important, though, so let's get to it: THE WRECKERS ARE COMING. Pulling down the walls that held society up, as well as the walls that held back the vain libido of men and women alike from over-mixing, bringing into play everything from the bone right up her maiden voyage, bon voyage; on that front the ship's left the station.

Today, then, right now, as people breach those barriers, we’re seeing them come together, flesh of the flesh -- yours, mine, and ours -- with all drawers forever flappin’ in the wind, once removed -- and all things exposed to the light of day and the darkness of the hour. Indeed, there's death in them thar drawers! God help us as they bust through.

Forebears & Lawn Mowers

Part 6 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

There’s a lot of my fellow men around, along with the other major segment of the population, their womenfolk, who have been careless, to put it mildly, with what they’re packing. I actually know some of the temptation of plopping out what's packed in your drawers, but fortunately I also know the benefits of forbearance without being a forebear myself.

Yes, that’s right. I made my mind up a long time ago that the older generation knew what they were talking about: “There’s death in them thar drawers.” And it was obviously true, because people were getting old and dying all the time. Including my great-grandparents, some of whom I knew! They looked at me like they didn't know who I was, that's how wasted they were. Their sins had prematurely aged them; they were already old when I was born. Then my regular grandmas and grandpas. The weird thing is this was the time of the world wars, so I beat the odds by being born at all. They were being mowed down by the grim reaper. A few more would pop up and the reaper would mow them down. But somehow my immediate people were missed.

Those were lessons I heard growing up. The street where we lived, a lot of people went to war and never came back. Which had an interesting effect on the yards up the street. Their lawns were completely neglected, one of our constant complaints. “Every time you let your lawn go, it gets weeds and thistles, and the spores and seeds come floating over to our place and we get ‘em too!” It was by thistles, weeds, etc., that Grandpa taught me the facts of life. All the way up to human beings and the conclusion, that, clearly, “There’s death in them thar drawers!” So I learned that man has children, they start a war, Man goes to war to kill the children. Then thistles take over and we need a new lawn mower.

It’s sad to put it out there like that, I know. But we can learn the lessons and be positive by dropping out of the whole scheme. Instead of having sex (death in them thar drawers) we can keep our purity. One obvious benefit of purity is not enough people to start a war. But without a war, man is thwarted in his desire to go to war to kill the children. Leaving less time for thistles to take over -- giving the survivors better lawns, but without children more or less condemning lawn mower factories. Who themselves might start a war, or encourage sex merely from a selfish profit motive, selling more mowers.

Messing With My Toot Toot

Part 5 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

I’m not the kind of guy that likes to give people orders. As an example, “Don’t mess with my toot toot” has been an uncomfortable thing. Even though that’s what I’d secretly have to say, it violates the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than explosives. Honey attracts, explosives repel. So I go to a lot of  extra work -- people assume I have all the time in the world to waste when actually I’m getting fairly old -- of saying such roundabout things as, “Please make every effort to keep your hands and other relevant body parts, stationery or moving appendages, from contact with my sacred toot toot.” As nice as that is, it leads to problems. It sounds negotiable.

But also, just like I said, I’m getting fairly old and now the demand for my toot toot isn't what it was when I was 25 and cute, regardless of how monstrously virile I still am. But privately. It doesn’t bother me so much, a toot toot like this, but I’ve seen other guys -- not as cool and mild-mannered as me -- rubbing theirs, exposing theirs, and thrusting their hips in inappropriate ways and places. Lunch lines, movie lines, church. “Oh, did I bump you? I’ve had vertigo since I turned 90.” Definitely, if you’ve turned 90 and you’re still thrusting your toot toot recklessly enough to bump someone, with the likely shrinkage, it’s probably not vertigo! But if it is, from your point of view, Vive le vertige!

Actually I’m a private guy and realistic. Even if they were lined up around the block to mess with my toot toot, I’d rather they didn’t. I’ve always had that  kind of reticence even when the pickins’ was easy. I'm thankful for a paranoia that’s never left my side for a minute, and if it did I'd be helpless. I remember when I was about 13 and had no idea about anything. Then, like creation out of nothing, everything big-banged into place, a tiny bit of guidance from relatives and friends. I also learned about things that could be wrong physically, diseases. And then quickly sketched out my first insights having to do with "There’s Death in Them Thar Drawers!" It bummed me out at first, but I soon invested heavily in the mission of Health Over Carnality Everytime!

Meaning Free Love was never temptation. Don’t mess with my toot toot! Rock Festivals weren’t a temptation. Don’t mess with my toot toot! Even Hitchhiking wasn’t a temptation. Don’t mess with my toot toot, and no I won’t go to a motel with you. Midlife crises weren’t any temptation, of course. My toot toot and I will be retiring early this evening, thanks for nothing. Discipline is the whole thing, along, again, with a very helpful bent from the lifesaving combination of paranoia, contemplation, and willpower. So to this day, whoever you are, Hollywood star or dude in the gutter ... Don’t mess with my toot toot.