DEAR PHILLY: (TIC TOCK MY POOR LITTLE COCK)

DEAR PHILLY: I know it’s something we hear all the time but really, man, why is it you think that time seems to move faster and faster the older we get? Yours truly, TIC TOCK MY POOR LITTLE COCK. 

DEAR TIC TOCK MY POOR LITTLE COCK: Ah yes, time, that old sinkhole of thought. Madhouses must be filled with people who simply made the mistake of contemplating time a bit too much. It takes an incredibly high functioning mind to withstand that kind of thinking, e.g., Albert Einstein, Orson Wells, Virginia Woolf, and let’s not forget those geniuses of children’s morning television, the great Sid and Marty Krofft. Here’s a little known fact- they also produced the Barbara Mandrell And The Mandrell Sisters show (1980-1982). Man, come on, how hot was Barbara back in the day?! One of the most underrated beauties of all time, if you ask me. So it’s a beautiful morning up here in Canadia. Oh, wait, did I forget to mention I’m up here visiting the in-laws once again? Yep, took us nearly 13 hours this time. But, you know, it IS my father-in-law’s 60th. So anyway, a little while ago, I was sitting by the shimmering waters of my father-in-law’s meticulously maintained pool and I looked up at the trees just as the leaves rustled in the wind and I thought to myself, “Ya know, they must love being up there, getting whipped around like that. It must be exciting for them, you know, sort of like a sport.” And then I began to wonder how much we have probably gotten wrong, that perhaps all the laws of science and physics were totally wrong. You know, if you don’t have all the information,... well, you know, I mean, who knows, right? And just then I heard the screen door slam shut and who comes shuffling out of the house but my 31 year old, chain-smoking, ex-con, brother-in-law, Bryce, who had just finished his nightshift at the McDonald’s down the street. I mean, hey, you know, I’m pretty demented myself these days but I’m telling you, I’ve seen healthier looking specimens sleeping on the floor of the Penn Station bathroom. He and his younger brother of 28 I think have been dwelling together in that disgusting basement for years now, with no end in sight. So anyway, he comes and sits down beside me I think to myself, “Hey, who better to ask about the passing of time than someone who’s actually done time?”. So I ask him his thoughts on the matter and he says, “hold on, just a second, buddy,” and he stands back up and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little pipe and tosses it onto the table and then he digs around in his other pocket for some time until he finally pulls out a wrinkled little Ziploc bag of nothing but stems and seeds and then he sits back down and packs the bowl with that dried up shit and then I watch him look around all puzzled for his lighter which is right in front of him on the table and so I nod to it and he smiles and grabs it and he says, “hey, you want some?” and I say, “no, man, no thanks” and then he lights up and sucks the entire thing down in one enormous inhalation. He holds it in for a ridiculous amount of time and then he blows out a big plume of stinking smoke and then his head tilts forward and he looks down to where an army of tiny ants had amassed on the concrete near his feet and we both just sit there in silence for a while, mesmerized by the frantic movements of the ants. Around then is when the following conversation takes place:

ME: So like, what do you think, man? Don’t you think it has more to do with imprinting or something, like when you’re younger, so many things are being absorbed into your mind or something? I mean, to me, that sort of makes the most sense.

BRYCE: Yeah, yeah, maybe. You know, when you have kids, you have like a scale to go by. But you know if you think of ants or sharks for that matter, you know, they’re like perfect specimens. They really are. Oh my God, ants are AWESOME! They’re like at the top of the food chain. Their colonies are known as super organisms because they like, they all perform specific duties. The queen ant asexual reproduces uh, generally female ants and those female ants are sterile and they’re just worker ants and they will never leave the colony. A few produce wings when there’s like a drought or something. They’ll fly great distances and they’ll mate and they’ll reproduce... They’re highly intelligent, working as a super organism. And they represent something like 15-20 percent of ALL biomass in any given area on the planet. The only place they don’t live is Antarctica.

ME: Man, that’s fucking crazy.

BRYCE: Yeah, they’re genetically perfect. They’re so prevalent on the planet. We have no idea how superior an organism they are. Over 100,000 species depend on ants for survival. They’re the backbone of any ecosystem.

ME: Hey, dude, why do think there’s so much cancer? Because we’re like having to adapt so rapidly to our environment? Like, man, I mean, we’re like having to adapt to so much shit these days.   

BRYCE: Oh yeah, no doubt, we’re like an experiment right? Like seeing what works and what doesn’t. Genes mutate randomly and it can be caused by environment, but really, it’s already programmed and it just needs to be triggered. It’s called the Stress Diathesis Model. But you know, there’s more to it than that but generally that’s how mutations occur, but it may or may not be advantageous to the species.

ME: Oh, man, that’s like my theory about cancer being the body sacrificing itself for the genetic stabilization of the species!

BRYCE: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a fair statement. 

ME: But then what were you saying about sharks?

BRYCE: Yeah, ya know, like sharks live for like hundreds of years. Actually, I think some sharks are the oldest living animals on the planet. 

ME: Sharks? Really? Hmmm. Dude, I didn’t think sharks lived that long. Are you sure you’re not talking about turtles? Like a tortious?

BRYCE: Oh, wait, hold on...

ME: (now Googling lifespans of animals) Yeah, man, it says here that the great white shark only lives for like 30 years or something. 

BRYCE: Oh, wait, that’s right, that’s what it was. I was watching this NOVA show on sharks and how they’re totally resistant to bacterial infections and they’ve been doing these experiments where they’re trying to apply some protein from sharks into humans and they’re hypothesizing that if they can get these proteins to work in humans then they think we could live for like three or four hundred years or something. Yeah, that was it, sorry.  

ME: (still Googling) Wait, maybe you’re right. It says here that there’s this Greenland shark that lives to be about 200 years old. Some fish and eels live to be 200.

BRYCE: What does it say about whales?

ME: It says the Bowhead whale lives to about 200. So the oldest tortoise on record is only 152 years. Shit, check this out, “One species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, reverts to a sexually immature stage after reproducing, rather than dying as in other jellyfish. Consequently the species is considered biologically immortal and has no maximum lifespan.

BRYCE: Holy shit! That’s crazy. Oh, man, what time is it?

ME: It’s like 8:30 or 9:00. 

BRYCE: Fuck, man, I gotta go to bed.

ME: Okay. But, hey, man, can we talk about this shit some more when you get up? I want to write a DEAR PHILLY about this.

BRYCE: Yeah, man, sure. I’ll be up before supper.

ME: Cool, thanks!  

Just then, Sarah came storming out. “What are you doing? My grandmother’s waiting. We’ve gotta go!” 

“Oh, shit,” I said and we loaded Henry up in the car and we drove over to pick up her grandmother at the nursing home or whatever it’s called. We took her out for lunch and then afterwords, we drove over to the cemetery to see her grandfather, Bob’s grave. Henry was restless and so I decided to take him over to the empty section that had been set aside for future graves and let him run around. Henry was in heaven. The grass was soft and green and I just let him run wild. You should’ve seen him chasing these little white butterflies around, his little feet shuffling through the grass. He had on the new hat Sarah bought him and he was giggling, “Daddy, Daddy, look at the butterflies. I’m gonna squash ‘em, Daddy!” 

“Don’t squash them!” I laughed. Then I looked back and saw Sarah and her poor grandmother, holding hands as they stood in front of Bob’s grave. Sarah had her sunglasses on and even from that far away, I could tell she was crying. Bob’s name was on one half of the headstone. The other half was blank, waiting to be etched with her grandmother’s name. My throat got dry. I could feel my eyes welling up with tears. Henry was still giggling behind me, chasing those butterflies. “Time,” I thought, “you bastard, nothing but you ever wins.” NEXT!