"FINISH HIM!!!"

For several uninteresting reasons, I'm having a difficult time concentrating lately.

Who am I kidding? The reasons are actually incredibly fascinating. Because I'M interesting, mysterious, entertaining, and a whole host of related adjectives.

Seriously. It's undeniable. I keep a blog to make a record of my compelling opinions and intriguing adventures.

This morning I stopped at the Flatrock Cafe for a sausage biscuit. Stoker got a breakfast casserole and Larry, the manager, gave him a large helping. Stoker lamented that he didn't think he'd be able to finish it because he was full already, but he felt bad not finishing it. Then he said in an evil overlord voice, "FINISH HIM!!!!!"

I laughed. Raucously. Sometimes I realize after I've already emitted an obscene laugh like that, that I'm laughing obscenely. And then I want to apologize immediately to let people know that I know that my laughter was inappropriately loud. No one cares at that point, but sometimes it's nice to try to convey that you WANT to be genteel, even if you're not by nature.

The reason my laugh was so loud and obnoxious was due to the reference-humor. Is there such a thing? I'm sure there's a genre or sub-genre of humor that's referential and that's where it gets its power. I don't know the name of it, so I'm calling it reference-humor and in my case, it's based on some weird personal quirk I once told Stoker about.

You know what I'm talking about. Some purely stupid phenomenon you possess and it baffles the heck out of you that you even do it, let alone that you're AWARE of it, but somehow cannot make it stop?

It kills me that Stoker remembers such things. He's got a mind like a steel-trap.

A while ago I told him how it really really bugs me when I think to myself anything relating to the word finish. Like, "I need to finish the vacuuming, then I can play PS3." Or, "Once I finish this sandwich, I'll do the dishes." Or, "Holy crap, I'm NEVER going to finish painting the mudroom."

Inevitably after I think to myself something about finishing anything, my mind always drifts to the next obvious thought: Mortal Kombat. When the evil announcer guy says after you've almost beaten your opponent, "FINISH HIM!!!!!" And the type is all blood-red in an evil, creepy way.

So things like, "I need to finish the vacuuming, then I can play PS3," end up followed by the with the haunting echo, "FINISH HIM!!!!!!" Turning the relatively harmless task of cleaning into an evil slaughter in the living room wherein Liu Kang's spine is ripped from his body and lifted triumphantly over Scorpion's head*--a bloody, grisly trophy.

It's gotten so tiresome, in fact, that I try not to EVER think of finishing tasks ("FINISH HIM!!!!!!"). That way, I never have to experience the transformation of these mundane daily moments into Kombat to the death. It's not that I don't love to finish things ("FINISH HIM!!!!!") and it's not that I don't love video games, it's that I don't LOVE the confusion of reality with video game reality.

But I DO love it when Stoker remembers the things I have said and casually tosses them out in appropriate moments and makes me laugh obscenely.




*Secret finishing-move not guaranteed to belong to Scorpion. I haven't played it recently enough to recall WHOSE finishing move the de-spiner is. It could be any one of the vicious fighters.