Comments on: Consumer

By: Rurality

Rurality — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:50:56 +0000

Ooh. Now I want to hear the story of the camera that takes pictures of your dreams. And what happened to the person who invented it.

By: leslee

leslee — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:10:20 +0000

You are so ill. It helps that I’m reading this on April Fool’s Day. You should have saved it. ;-)

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:34:27 +0000

Rebecca – No, not yet. Though some would say I’m permanently in a bit of a dream-state, I suppose.

Larry – Glad you liked. Yeah, Twain had that distinctively American penchant for the tall tale, didn’t he? Which is interesting to me because it’s one tradition that whites, African-Americans and Indians all contributed to.

By: Larry Ayers

Larry Ayers — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:18:20 +0000

Great piece, Dave! Right up my alley — I love to embellish my real-life experiences with a bit of fantasy. The acetylene-torch remark just clinched it. Mark Twain was another writer who had a tendency to embroider…

By: Rebecca Clayton

Rebecca Clayton — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:38:10 +0000

I never imagined it was a true story. Anyone who would give you a birthday present would already know you can’t keep a shrew alive in a box without lots of food. As for cameras in your dreams, I thought you were already doing that.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:44:37 +0000

Venom — good point! Sorry about the lack of pictures. If I could figure out a way to take my camera with me into my dreams, believe me, I would.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:44:16 +0000

Did that shrew venom make your hand feel numb? I tell kids that it probably would… And hey? Where are the photographs for this story??? I wanna see that severed pinkie! Or even better… the saw cutting through the pinkie… Why must you leave so much to our imaginations???

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:21:01 +0000

Lucy – No, it’s in late February, actually. The only sense in which any of this really happened is that I dreamed the first half of it (up through the anxiety about the shrew’s decline).

miguel – Yet another reason to write pieces like this: it forces readers to slow down!

If I could just see a wolverine in the wild, that would be a gift to treasure a lifetime. (I gave my mother coyotes for her 60th birthday. See here.)

Rurality – So maybe for April Fools Day I’ll have to write something that’s true, but which nobody believes.

By: Rurality

Rurality — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:42:20 +0000

Ha! No, that is much too good for an Apr 1 placement, when everybody’s expecting something already.

I really love the way the ha! combines with the ick!

By: miguel

miguel — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:08:02 +0000

Definitely had me going there, Dave! With anyone else it would immediately have been obvious that it was fiction, but you have an uncharacteristic soft spot for wild creatures (which I actually identify with deeply) that would seem to disallow you to allow a creature to come to harm because of you. It wasn’t clear at first that you had actually let the shrew bite off your finger, so when I read about the shrew playing with your finger, I knew something was wrong and had to go back and read the piece again. Phew! You had me sitting here trying to think of alternative choices for you to feed the poor creature! I’m just glad that you weren’t given a wolverine for your birthday! I’d be worried about your head!