In Which Eric Hates On Australians

There are times in life when one must take the good with the bad. For example, today, when The World's Greatest Company and Friend to All Mankind sent back my 4th-time's-a-charm repaired gaming console in time for me to fritter away my weekend hours without having to interact with other people. This was good. The bad came when I got home, and found myself on the receiving end of a two-pronged assault by everyone's favorite curly-haired, bulbous-faced robot sympathizer, Eric Walkingshaw.

The opening volley came via e-mail, where Eric gleefully flaunted his capture of Darryl Strawberry, a former fantasy baseball associate of mine who had undertaken a secret espionage mission against my former captor and sworn enemy. My perennially underachieving imaginary baseball team had, a few years back, provided an alibi for Darryl during one of his many run-ins with law enforcement, and by way of paying me back good Mr. Strawberry had agreed to snoop around Eric's home and work for a while and see what he could see. Unfortunately, as Eric's e-mail graphically made clear, things did not go so smoothly.

The e-mail in question was brief; two bravado-filled sentences accompanied by a photograph of Eric's beaming, cartoonishly-proportioned face. Next to his face, held up by one of his assumed-still-human hands, was poor old Darryl--captured, posed, and then somehow turned into either a three-ring binder or giant baseball card (it's hard to tell, given the extreme closeness of the photograph). There was nothing else--no ransom demands, no details on Darryl's health, no potential release dates--just unabashed, childish gloating. He was like a dictator holding aloft the severed head of a dissident, awash in the glow of his own self-satisfaction.

I have to admit I feel at least partially responsible for Darryl's likely demise, as a tall, pock-marked former Major League All-Star is a fairly conspicuous agent of espionage. But irregardless of Darryl's lack of stealth (which he should have enhanced by wearing that Cloak of Concealing I gave him, acquired after much toil under the watchful eye of the High Lord Razelmayne), Eric's cruel treatment of this one-time American hero is downright barbaric. Turning a man into a three-ring binder? What foul robot magicks my adversary must possess!

But before I get too depressed by imagining the details of this horrid transformation (just where did Eric acquire a miniature replica of a 1988 New York Mets uniform, anyway?), I must address Eric's other action against me--updating his blog. After working for nearly a whole hour to catch myself back up with Eric's sporadically-updated web diary, I now have to set fingertip to keypad for yet another foray into mockery? I am not a machine, Walkingshaw! I have my limits!

But in keeping with the theme of taking good with bad, the bright side is Eric's entry today was mercifully brief, and thankfully very bathroom-centric. I am well-versed in bathroom commentary, having honed my skills at the venerable Washington Institute of Juvenile Humor, and I am confident that my turd-riffic ability will have you all urine-ing for more--it is, after all, a highly sought-after commode-ity.

Eric's bathroom complaints center around the plumbing, which unlike my bowel movements is highly irregular. He pooh-poohs the faucet arrangement, noting that they're aligned backwards and control their opposite functions. Normally, I wouldn't give two shits about this kind of insignificant wankery, but one must answer when doody calls.

There is also a complaint about the wiring inside the bathroom, which leads to this wonderful moment of semantic brilliance:

Finally, there are two light switches which control two lights...

Genius! Oscar Wilde, eat your heart out!

And then, just when you thought he'd exhausted his supply of mind-bending comments for one day, he drops the A-bomb:

Maybe our apartment's construction crew was Australian?

I have to admit, even given my inherent disregard for Eric's personality, I was dumbstruck by this closing comment. In this day and age, to revert to such inflammatory and quite frankly bigoted speech is genuinely shocking. After all the torment that Australians have had to go through in this country--being sent to separate schools, forced to talk with a funny accent, dress up in kangaroo outfits and take their children and belongings and go live and work in Australia--Eric has to add accusations of incompetent apartment construction? Why? Is it really necessary to perpetuate the stereotype that Australians are foolish, no-good layabouts, concerned only with waltzing their matildas under their billabong trees and surfing with kookaburras? Uncalled for and unnecessary, in my book. How dare you, sir?

You should be ashamed to derive happenis from such bigotry. There was no need to go that fart.