I’m an idiot. There’s this thing called, The Keck Line–yes, my own name sake. There’s a reason for that. The reason is, I’m an idiot. A friend of mine and I are always calling each other and relating particular incidents or situations in which we find ourselves; situations resulting from our own stupidity. That’s how we came up with The Keck line. He said, “I just did something real stupid, is the Keck line open?” and it stuck.

   It’s for the many daily, sometimes hourly, mental lapses in cognitive equilibrium that I’m known for. I’m not the only one these things happen to, however, if I do say so myself, I’m the reining champion of broiled brain, brazed in the bountiful beauty of bludgeoning boobery, beleaguered by a boneheaded and belligerent bias bearing boldly beyond the beltway of a blenching blend of blight and blivit bearly (bleeping) beleivable, In other words…I’m an idiot!

   Like the time I took off for the day and left my front door standing wide open–SIX TIMES!

   Or the time I’m looking in my toolbox for my hammer. I removed several tools, holding some of them in my hand as I gaze into the box knowing that it HAS to be here because I always put it back because, well, I’m an idiot. If I don’t put it back, I know I’ll never see it again. As I’m furiously yelling about my hammer not being there, but then that’s impossible because I always put it back, I notice…I’m holding it.

   Or the time when I looked for fifteen minutes for a lid to my plastic container. It was the perfect size for my leftover dinner; a kind of hamburger/goulash/salad/cake/spakling compound dish that I make every now and then. It was still hot in the skillet because I wanted to let it simmer a while to sauté the juices into the meat substitute. I looked, and looked, and looked–plastic bowls, plastic plates, plastic glasses, I pulled every brightly hued thing I could find out of that damn kitchen cabinet. Oh, I had lids, sure, in all shapes, sizes and colors…except the one that fit the container holding my unique and seventy percent edible hambergousalcakeling creation. By the time I was finished, I had malleable and opaque department store products all over the place. It looked like a Tupperware massacre. Where was it? I know I have one for this thing, dammit! Then I saw it! There it was, bottom shelf, alone, hidden, as if dreading capture. I seized the wretched thing and held it high, a scream of triumph poured from my lips as I felt the delicious wave of ecstasy wash over me. Now my six and a half pounds of leftover culinary version of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition will be sealed, locked, entombed in the airtight vacuum of freshness to be enjoyed later without the horrific fear of spoilage.

   So I set the lid, the one and only lid for this particular container, on the counter and proceeded to maneuver the contents of the skillet into said container. It filled the thing to the very top with hardly any room to spare. I then took the skillet to the sink and dropped it in. Upon returning to my task at hand, I noticed something odd. One corner of the lid to my lovely container had somehow taken on the shape of the electric burner that the skillet had been on. And the shape seemed to be changing…rapidly. That’s right. I had set the lid down and apparently knocked it onto the hot burner, and of course, melted about two inches of the corner all over the it. You can’t know the fury that invaded my body. I was a man possessed.

   So there you have it. The Keck Line. It’s these stolen moments that make life worth taking. For me, such things are who I am, what I’m made of, a philosophy plumbing the depths of slip-headedness. And they happen to me ALL THE FILTHY TIME!!!  

   So if you are plagued with this dreaded disease known as, Stupidious Constantanous, don’t worry…The Keck Line is open.

 

   Keck