I was sitting. In a chair, staring at the wall. It could have been any wall - they all look the
same when viewed from four inches away - but I'm pretty sure it was my garage wall. I can still
remember how the shadows dripped down from the peeling green paint - how they cast a sort of
demented reflection down from every imperfection in the wall's blank-eyed face. It made me feel
kind of depressed, now that I think about it. It made me feel as if there was no hope left.
Anywhere.
I was thinking simple thoughts. Or trying my best to, anyway. It seems that's the only way
to start out - to determine your goal, what you want to achieve. And only from there can you
branch out towards the final destination you so desperately want to wash ashore upon. Your
paradise.
And as tiny as it seems, my paradise was the perfect joke. It sounds terribly lame, but it's
the terrible truth. I wanted to come up with the perfect joke - with the perfect set-up, the perfect
conflict, and the perfect punch line. Of course, taking on a project of this magnitude required a
singular concentration on it alone. I had to leave my TV, my books, my phone, my friends -
everything. I had to sit down some place quiet, some place filled with nothing that would steal my
attention. It had to be far away, yet still near enough for me not to miss my TV, my books, and my
phone. Even my friends. I didn't want to have to miss my friends. Because once I begin missing
them, I begin thinking about them (and their tiny, numerous problems), and it's hard to go back to
something positive.
So, I selected the garage. It was silent, it smelled okay, and it wasn't too far away for me to
wander back to the kitchen to grab a little food and check my messages. I pulled a wobbly little
chair up to the wall and sat myself down staring directly into the wall's gaping moan. And
instantly, the beginning of the perfect joke came to me.
Two guys are walking down the street.
It's been done before, I know, but that's what makes it perfect. Tons of people have come
up with jokes starting that way before - so it's obvious they were on the right track. Then, I guess
they must have taken the wrong exit - the guys get a haircut, the guys go into a bar, the guys see a
strange sign in a storefront window. That's where the other joke-makers went wrong. They had the
perfect, most pure beginning, but they followed it up with something less than perfect. All I
needed was what they hadn't thought of. Something sly, something bizarre. Dog turd! That would
be it - dog turd! It worked, I didn't know exactly why, but it was the perfect link from perfect
set-up to perfect conflict! Dog turd!
I sat there, wobbling around on the tiny chair, staring at the wall, wondering what would
happen next. Time didn't really seem to pass (luckily I had left my watch in the house, and taken
the clock off the garage wall), but I knew I had to come up with the next part quickly, lest the
joke-trail should grow cold. The next part was up there, in my mind - just waiting. I knew it
would come down soon.
It didn't. I feared this might be the end of my joke, my perfect joke about two guys walking
down the street. It would float away, forever, right up through the rafters in this pale-green garage,
out over the front lawn and into the clouds. The neighbors would watch it through their windows
as it drifted away, never to be heard from again. And I'd still be sitting here, wondering where it
had all gone wrong.
Maybe it was the dog turd. Maybe that was the place where the gold had turned into iron
pyrite. Perhaps I should back track to the beginning, I thought, and start from two guys are-
Suddenly, it hit me like a rocket between the eyes! One of the guys would offer the other a
hundred dollars to eat the turd! Ah-ha! That was it! A bet between the guys! Conflict! Perfection!
Two guys are walking down the street, when all of a sudden they come across some dog turd, and
one of the guys dares the other to eat it! For a hundred bucks! What a perfect, round number - a
hundred!
I was just about to consider changing it to a horse turd when the phone rang. I couldn't
believe it! I had forgotten to unplug the phone - the most distracting, annoying time-bomb ever
invented to destroy serious thought. Oh well, I thought, this won't take long. I stood up and
walked into the house.
Upon picking up the phone, I discovered it was my good friend Stan. He was calling from
the job site where his construction crew was setting up the foundation for a bungalow on Third
Avenue. He said it was starting to rain, though, so his foreman didn't want to pour any concrete
until it cleared up. And since the rest of the building went on top of the concrete, there wasn't
anything else that could be done for the bungalow today - so he asked if I'd like to go grab a coffee
with him. I was about to tell him that I was kind of in the middle of something, but then I realized
I was a little hungry, and I could probably handle a cup of coffee and a sandwich right about now.
I said sure, and hung up.
Stan was waiting at the donut shop on Fifth. We each had two cups of coffee and two
turkey sandwiches, followed by a box of donut-hole type pastries. He told me how his foreman
was starting to get on his nerves and how he had almost told him off right there on the job site
today. But he was glad he hadn't since he really needed the money right now. But next month,
when he sold the car he'd been fixing up - maybe then he'd quit.
I asked him how he was going to put up with the foreman for the next few weeks. Stan put
down his mug and explained his tool-per-day theory: He had been throwing one of the
construction company's tools away each day since the foreman had started hassling him. A
hammer in the trees here, a screwdriver on the roof there. Stan said it was the foreman's
responsibility to make sure the tools come back with the trucks each day, and when he started to
notice them missing, he'd realize it must be one of the disgruntled workers (there were others
besides Stan, he assured me). The foreman would then obviously get the message and start
treating everyone with a little more respect. I laughed, and asked him if he was serious. Stan
nodded, and said he had a brand-new pry-bar picked out for the concrete foundation tomorrow.
We left the donut shop and decided to catch an early movie at the Capitol. I was in the
mood to see something with a lot of action; however, Stan said he wouldn't mind watching
something a little more mellow. I told him there probably weren't any tender coming-of-age films
playing. I also told him none of the Golden Girls had ventured onto the silver screen lately. He
scowled and said an action movie would be fine.
Then, we spotted it. It lay on the sidewalk in a lumpy, steaming pile, no more than ten feet
ahead of us. Dog turd! Fresh and warm, there it was, just waiting for us! I couldn't believe my eyes
as the perfect joke sprung to life right in front of me. The turd looked exactly as it had in my mind
- even the sidewalk, the grass around it - there it was!
I told Stan to stop. He turned and looked at me, wondering if I had gone mad with the sort
of disease that causes its victims to become fixated with canine feces. I looked back at him and
said nothing, answering his query with silence. Yes, I had gone mad! I pulled out my wallet,
removed five twenties, and held them before his face - showing him exactly how mad I had gone.
He knew what I wanted him to do. He stared at the perfect, crisp bills, down at the turd, and back
up at the bills. He started to bend down. I watched closely, wondering how my perfect joke would
end. Oh, I could feel the swelling waves of paradise already warming my heart! I became dizzy as
I waited for the perfect joke to reveal itself completely to my desperately-yearning eyes! Hurry up,
Stan, I almost screamed, hurry up and eat it! Eat the turd and SHOW ME PERFECTION!!!
And then he did the most hideous, disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life. With one
swift motion he lifted his head, straightened up, and pulled his wallet from his pocket. He
removed four fifty-dollar bills and dropped them to the ground. They fell right beside the turd and
stuck onto it as if pulled in by its massive heat. They just sat there, looking up at me and Stan as
we stood there, looking down at them. At them and at the turd, slowly steaming on the sidewalk.

Now I'm lying here in a cozy little bed, in a cozy little room on floor three of City Hospital.
They had to pump my stomach to remove the bacteria and other assorted hangers-on I ingested
yesterday. I guess there are a lot of sick little puppies running around.
It serves me right, I suppose. The thing that bothers me, though, is that Stan actually let
me eat it. He stood there and watched - even paid good money - just for the sheer pleasure of
seeing his best friend eat dog turd. I wonder who's sicker - me for eating it, or him for paying and
watching. Of course, I was fully prepared to let him, but I had a purpose, a reason. I wanted to
observe the perfect joke.
Oh well, I'm sure there'll be other opportunities. I can probably think up a better perfect
joke right here, come to think of it, on this wobbly little hospital bed. There's plenty of time for
pondering now, while I lie here waiting for my stomach to get better. Besides, there are plenty of
blank, vertical walls to stimulate my healthy young imagination. And that's all you really need -
four walls and a little peace and quiet.