Xenosthesia.com

Rolls

When you were a child, you found the middle of the toilet paper roll fascinating. Maybe you sent a marble through it, or a Hot Wheels car. You might have even taped two tubes together and imagined they were binoculars. It was a simple thing, but it was limitless in your imagination.

Not long after, you upgraded to the paper towel roll. Longer than the t.p. roll, the tube in the center could become a spyglass, a telescope, a periscope, or a longer ride for your toy car.

Then came the day your eyes grew ten sizes bigger than normal. It was the day you saw the tube at the center of a roll of wrapping paper.

Your brain went crazy with ideas. It said to you, “Look at the size of that thing.”

You didn’t care about the wrapping paper that came before, which died at your hands for birthdays or possibly Christmases, when it was ripped and shredded and quickly discarded. What really mattered then was the giant cardboard tube which you discovered hiding in the center of the wrapping paper roll.

Whether you made it into a tunnel for your Littlest Pet Shop toys, or a Lightsaber, or a super long track for Hot Wheels, you knew this was the best present you ever had. It was better than many of the previous presents you unwrapped. And why? Because it fueled your imagination.

Isn’t it funny how some of the best toys were found objects? And wouldn’t it be funny if some smart parent wrapped up the wrapping paper roll tube to give that to you instead of the fancy toy?

Save It For Later

Photo by Katherine Mihailova on Pexels.com

We all could learn something from the woman who takes out a stick of gum and tears it in half. Everyone knows a woman like this. She only chews half and saves the other half for later. She’s amazing. She’s the opposite of the kind of person who eats an entire package of cookies and finds out after the binge that there were 20 servings in the package.

She may or may not care how large a serving size is, but she does know how much she wants. Once she arrives at what she wants, she’s done.

This is a form of intelligence the IQ tests don’t measure. It’s an intelligence higher than is measurable.

She’s the kind who might not have any cookies at all, or she might have only one and then say she’s full. No one can tell her she’s wrong. No one can say she’s lying, because no one even knows how she has such masterful self-control to limit herself to only one cookie. Whether she’s doing it to dazzle you or because she really doesn’t want more is a total mystery.

Higher intelligence is often a mystery. How does she arrive at the smallest portion and find satisfaction? Most people want more, only to find their intelligence lacking. More in one area gives you less in another. So how does the woman who chews half a stick of gum know this? She knew it all along. Where did she gain the knowledge? Was she born with it? Was it passed down genetically? Did her mother have the halving gene? Is the skill one which can be taught? Can another person learn how to save half of everything? If so, how do we get this kind of woman in a teaching career?

We could all learn something from her.

Ten Minutes To Write, Two To Read

Wise writers know when to cut out the fat.

The great thing about shorter posts is that you don’t have to devote a lot of time to read them. The longer ones might go unnoticed because, well, too long. Bigger isn’t better in every case.

Likewise, TLDR is not a prescription for anything. It’s not some medical professional’s initials (not in common use anyway). And it’s not a secret code. It simply means: Too Long, Didn’t Read.

If you find an excessively wordy article out there and you feel obliged to read it, but it simply doesn’t capture your interest, then you might tag it with the TLDR.

There’s another, older acronym which means the same thing, only in a different tone, and that is this: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Professional writers often have a structure within their writing which allows you to “skip to the end” and get the larger idea through a summary. When a summary is available, a wise writer will also include a foreword of sorts to summarize, in case they have readers who don’t want to skim-read the entire article yet still glean something from it.

In case a person has the reading style of “skim ’til you find something juicy,” some writers will employ the Easter Egg Method.

They know their work is too long for anyone except the most devoted students, so they’ll leave a treat somewhere, or multiple treats at varying intervals, in the work.

Amateurs, of course, will do none of the above. Amateurs wax long on words and wane on quality, leaving no treats at the two ends or anywhere in the middle.

So, before this article gets too long for even my short attention span, I’ll end with this nugget: Wisdom is not to make things seem complex, but to make the complex seem simple.

Lost

A short list of things I’ve never lost:

An adult tooth

Furniture

A train

A plane

A meatball

The beat

My bellybutton

A squirrel’s nut cache

A staring contest

Resolve

An invisible cloak

Things I have lost:

Baby teeth

Vacuum attachments

Elevator shoes

A transmission

A whole Volvo

One pineal evocator

Three left socks

An agenda

A spare tire

A pet lizard

My mind

Much Needed Nonsense

If your life gets a bit too serious at times, look no further. I’ll keep you on the weird and wild path. Below are listed and described some funny (and genius) ideas for cell phone apps. When your life starts challenging you with too much responsibility, or too much adulthood, or too much anything really, you can turn on one of these apps and get childish or just find what you really need.

FLUSH “Toilet Finder” This app comes to the rescue for anyone out of their territory who needs to locate the nearest public restroom. One particular review on this one said, “Pure genius.”

LICK THE ICICLE Your finger “licks” by swiping a digital icicle which appears on your phone when you use this app. Definitely designed for moments of extreme boredom.

HONEY HARMONICA Turn your phone into a virtual musical instrument. There are other harmonica apps, but this one has the best reviews I could find. So if you’re looking for a way to play harmonica but don’t happen to have your actual harmonica with you, take out your phone and start playing.

iBEER Also comes with functions that look like milk, champagne, and “chocolate drink”, this app transforms your phone to look as though it’s a glass full of the selected beverage. You tip your phone up by your mouth to complete the illusion of drinking.

INSTANT BUTTONS This app is only an excuse to make fart noises, but I think it is the original, so they get points for being original. The reviews are terrible though, so you should most likely avoid loading it on your phone.

BIG BANG WHIP Like the app above, this one is a way for you to make funny, silly, and even annoying sounds with your phone. Unlike Instant Buttons, though, Big Bang Whip has really good reviews (as of the date of this ‘barchive post).

SQUID SURVIVAL GAME “Chance to become billionaire is on your hand now. So get ready and survive now.” I wouldn’t have even mentioned this app except for that nearly unintelligible marketing description. Ha ha, marketing.

FAKE CALL PRO: PRANK CALL APP And here is the one you need if you’re forever trying to get out of doing something. Set the timer and you can pretend to answer your phone and get away from whatever other business you may be doing at the time.