The other day I acquired an interesting new piece of hardware.
It happened like this: my cousin Michael was hanging out in a friend's basement when he noticed a fancy pool cue leaning up against the wall. As Michael later related, he was immediately overcome an intense desire for this pool cue, as it was the kind that unscrews into little pool smaller pool cues, for convenient transportation as well as competition in narrow environs. This is a feat that a baseball bat or badminton rackets shall never be never be capable of. Needless to say that Michael's little heart began to race.
Courageously, he asked his friend to give him the pool cue, a rather brazen request considering the lack of preamble. In moments of crisis and epiphany, decisive action like this can be both boon and bane; Michael's friend, however, immediately acquiesced with the stipulation that Michael also take his old Overdoor Tractor Beam. Uncertain what to do with such a complex piece of machinery, Michael gave it to me as a birthday present. This is the most expensive gift he has ever given to me or anybody else.
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I took the Overdoor Tractor Beam home and carefully read the instructions. I soon became aware of the device's subtle artifice. It would take me several hours of concerted tinkering to fully asseble the main chiropractic apparatus. Obscure sizes of hex-wrench had to be acquired via eBay.
After consulting my physician and Met Life, I was at last ready to experiment with the implementation of the Overdoor Tractor Beam. First, I place my head inside a finely-stiched stirrup, fastening it beneath my chin with twin strips of adhesive cloth. Another stirrup wrapped fast around the rear of my neck, where my abundant locks twirled down about my neck. Finally, a translucent vinyl bag was filled with water in order to provide a counterweight equivalent to the tension retained by my spinal column. The instructions stated that "household objects" could also be added to provide extra mass, however the mouth of the bag was approximately equal to the circumference of my pointer finger, obliging me to settle for a purely liquid counterweight. However, since the water was carefully added in tablespoons, its mass was easily calculable at twenty pounds. As you can see in the following photograph, a small portion of this liquid found its way onto my undershirt.
At last, with tentative and furtive hands, I released the bag and felt a sensation come o'er my neck that perhaps I shall never again have the opportunity to savor. Oh, it was a tart and languid pang, an unfurling of a whole boxstring's worth of tiny coils that had hitherto lain dormant in my spine. Indeed, I felt as though Aesculapius himself had placed his fingers upon my center of gravity and massaged away twenty-seven years of crouching and cringing and cramps.
The next 24 hours were a bit of a challenge, but I was able to exploit the primitive pulley system to perform basic tasks.
Thanks to Michael and his inordinate lust for pool accoutrements, I am now 6-foot-4. I intend to use my new coign of vantage to spot taxi cabs over seas of people, here in the great metropolis.
