Lash Me to the Mast!

[rejectomorph]

The weirdest thing about having fast Internets is that, the computer being connected all the time, I'm constantly tempted to look at it. It's like having one of the Sirens in my room, forever singing. Check your e-mail! Check LJ! Find a video to watch! Look at tens of times as many photos of vanished scenes than you've ever seen in one day before! Post a one-line entry to your journal! (I resisted until moments ago.) Oh, why did no one warn me of the seductive nature of the fast Internets? Until now, with dial-up, I've only licked the bright red skin of the apple. Now I've sunk my teeth into its juicy, crisp flesh! I am doomed! I am damned! I am late!

Comments

Re: Bumper Sticker or T-Shirt First

[rejectomorph]

I'd like to believe that it's quite possible that I made that up, but I must admit that it is also possible that I was channeling the ghost of P.T. Barnum. I've long suspected that, after his death, he second-guessed his reported last words, and ever since then his restless spirit has been trying to change them to something with a bit more punch, conveying his reconsidered last words to various living persons, none of whom have as yet passed those words on.

I've sensed Barnum's presence more than once of late, and I'm bound to say that this particular phrase came to my mind at one of those moments, and its emergence into my consciousness was accompanied by a vision of the ghosts of Tom Thumb and Jumbo hovering over the great showman's freshly-dug grave, pointing—Tom with his thumb, appropriately, and Jumbo with his trunk—at the waiting coffin.

I'd have been willing to lay Barnum's soul to rest at long last by crediting to him these new last words of his, but now I wonder. How do you think attributing the phrase to Barnum would affect the potential for the empire of swag? If it's to my advantage, I'm quite willing to claim the words as being, beyond any doubt, my own. After all, there's a sucker dead every minute, right?