Liveblogging an Evening of Nothing

My wife is away on a business trip, the kid is in bed, and I'm watching baseball. Such a momentous event in the history of our democracy deserves a "liveblog," which, if I'm using the term correctly, means that I just puke out whatever I'm thinking at a particular time and presume it's something people would want to read. Here goes!

7:59 p.m.

Ummm ....

8:02 p.m.

(clears throat)

8:05 p.m.

So, what's up with you?

8:09 p.m.

(awkward silence)

8:15 p.m.

OK, clearly, I'm not getting into the spirit of this. Let me try again. Maybe I should try talking about the ballgame.

8:16 p.m.

Oh, Twins. Why are you not winning this game? Clearly, you need to be doing the sorts of things that cause you to win. Scoring runs, for example. And not preventing them. Why can't the Twins manage to score more runs than they prevent through the duration of this game? Morons.

8:20 p.m.

Mike Moustakas' nickname should be "Moose Tacos." I've always felt that way, and I'll be damned if I'm about to change now.

8:22 p.m.

What the hell's that?

8:22:05 p.m.

Oh, it's my foot. Never mind.

8:22:10 p.m.

What the hell's that?

8:22:15 p.m.

Oh, it's my other foot. Hello there, foot! You had me going there!

8:22:20 p.m.

What's that, foot?

8:22:25 p.m.

Wow. That is really inappropriate, foot. No way I'm repeating that in my liveblog.

8:35 p.m.

I just thought of a bumper sticker: "Mormons do it in the missionary position." I'll explain it, which makes it funnier. First level of joke: Mormons are often missionaries, and the missionary position is a way to have sex. Second level: Mormons are not typically the type of people to have bumper stickers with sexual innuendos on them. Third level: It's an ironic commentary on the state of contemporary sexual dialectics vis-a-vis the Platonic ideal of religious expression. Fourth level: You didn't even understand the third level, so there's no way I'm telling you the fourth level. But man, is it funny! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (asphyxiates and dies).

8:37 p.m.

(Descends into Purgatory.)

8:38 p.m.

Hello? Am I dead?

8:39 p.m.

Oh dear. You're a Mormon?

8:40 p.m.

It was completely inappropriate, you're absolutely right, sir. I'm so sorry. It was my foot's fault. Totally his idea.

8:41 p.m.

I understand and completely agree. Joseph Smith was definitely directed by an angel named Moroni to discover some magic tablets that had been buried in western New York by indigenous Americans, who were of course Israelites who spoke "reformed Egyptian" and believed in Jesus several centuries before He was born. And of course Smith used "magic glasses" to interpret these tablets, tablets that no one else could even be allowed to see. The fact that the group of treasure-hunters he had run with (oh yeah -- he had regularly gone treasure hunting to supplement his meager farming income and always come up empty) then turned against him for cheating them out of this alleged treasure, and they ransacked all the hiding places they could think of, finding nothing -- all this only supports Smith's story. I have never heard anything more plausible in my entire life. Consider me converted.

8:42 p.m.

So I can return to the world of the living if I devote the rest of my existence to spreading the word of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints?

8:43 p.m.

You say "yes"?

8:44 p.m.

Because I enjoy repeating everything you say in a stage-y manner like I'm a poor man's Bob Newhart, that's why.

8:45 p.m.

Say, why do you always take exactly one minute to say everything you say?

8:46 p.m.

Oh, that makes perfect sense. Wow.

8:47 p.m.

OK then, I'm ready. Zap me back. Joseph Smith 4-eva!

8:48 p.m.

(Comes back to life)

8:49 p.m.

Whoa. I just had the weirdest dream! I dreamt that Martin Luther King handed me a block of cheese and told me to fart more, and then I had to get to class to take a final but I hadn't been to class all semester, and then Joseph Smith discovered a tablet planted in Western New York by ancient Israelites that only he could read with magic glasses! So weird! Anyway, back to the ballgame.

8:51 p.m.

Well, the Twins are still adamantly refusing to win. Apparently they failed to take my advice. I recommended they win, and they are not doing so. Morons!