Bookshelf Battle

Yes, noble readers, while most of you think normal thoughts, like, “I think I’d like to put some grape jelly on my toast today,” I, Bookshelf Q. Battler, am cursed to consider more bizarre machinations, such as:

11)  Is it racist that Webster called his adopted mother, “Ma’am?”

12)  Was The Facts of Life a 1980’s version of Little Women that left Louisa May Alcott rolling in her grave?

I lie awake at night thinking about this stuff.  I really do.  Stuff like:

13)  Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?  And is whoever put the ram in the rama lama ding dong still at large?

:::pounds my fist on the interrogation table and shines the hot light on the suspect:::  “TELL ME!  TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BOMP OR I’M GOING TO WALK TO THE NEXT ROOM AND MAKE A DEAL WITH YOUR BUDDY, THE DING DONG!””

14)  Are timelines real?  With every choice you make, no matter how big or small, do you make an infinite number of timelines, reflective of the outcomes of the various choices you could have made?  If so, is there another me who actually puts book reviews on his book blog?

15)  What is the meaning of life?  Does it involve cheese?

16)  In the highly-evolved world of Star Wars, why would anyone use a lightsaber, when laser pistols are so readily available?  In our own less modern world, we stopped using swords once we developed bullets.  In a world where laser guns are available, are people really going to use swords made out of light just because they look badass?

Yes.  Yes they are.

17)  Why don’t I sponsor one of those third world children they keep showing me on TV?  They tell me I could change those kids’ lives for forty cents a day.  I can spare forty cents a day.  It’s not that I don’t have forty cents, it’s just that I’m too damn lazy to fill out the form, go to the website, make the call, or do whatever you have to do to sponsor one of these kids?

Sigh.  Somewhere in a country ruled by a man with a tall hat and a uniform filled with self-awarded medals, there is a hungry kid whose malaria could be cured if I’d just get out of my own way long enough to figure out how to send it to him.

18)  If I were to strap myself to a catapult, shoot myself through the stratosphere, into the cosmos, to the edge of the universe to the point where it all just loops around and I complete a perfect 360 degree journey back to where I started – would I be able to pick up right where I left off, or would there be another me there to contend with?

19)  Why must we grow old?  Why must we get ill and sick before we pass on?  Why can’t we just stay youthful until we’re a hundred and then just fall asleep under a cherry tree?

20)  A man begins a journey in Texas.  He takes a plane to India, and said plane travels at a rate of 80 miles per hour.  A woman begins her journey in Moscow, where she takes a train to Norway, said train traveling at a rate of 72 miles per hour.  Given that the wind speed variables have been taken into consideration, that the Earth is in perfect alignment with Mars, and that neither party has a considerable advantage over the other…what will they eat for dinner?