PDF

Planet Crabby


by Cat Rambo


On Planet Crabby it goes without saying that everybody's crabby. All the time. 

Let me give you a few examples. On Planet Crabby If a child doesn't color between the lines you point it out to them, kindly but firmly. When somebody pulls up too far at a stoplight, you go two feet out into the intersection outside the white lines and you stop and stand in front of the driver's side shaking your finger for four or five minutes while they and the 23 cars behind them lean on their horns.  And if you have to stand in line you shift your weight backward and forward backward and forward in one continuous uneasy motion. Everyone else in line is doing exactly the same thing. 

On Planet Crabby the stores only sell seconds and remaindered merchandise. Everything has something minor wrong with it. The plates are chipped, the designs noticeably off center, the artificial Xmas trees lopsided or tarnished a nervous bronze. All the lighting is fluorescent, causing a high rate of miscarriages among shoppers. On Planet Crabby every mall is the saddest mall. 

On Planet Crabby a boy met a girl and a girl met a boy but neither couple got anywhere because they dismissed their prospective partner as just plain too crabby. Alternative arrangements were unthinkable. This happened a number of times. 

On Planet Crabby nobody uses dental floss, but it's okay, because the water is flurodated. Everybody drinks a lot of black coffee. People there wear too tight clothing and know how to type perfectly. Organization is more than a virtue on Planet Crabby -- it's a necessity. 

Planet Crabby runs according to type. Everyone's a day late and two cents short. On Planet Crabby the Red Button has been pushed twenty-seven times so far but outside forces anticipated the situation and rewired the circuit so everytime it's pushed, the light in a broom closet in a basement somewhere goes on or off. It is currently dark. 

Planet Crabby is run entirely by suggestion box, but all forms must be submitted in triplicate. You are allowed six suggestions per pay period. 

Despite what you might think, no one walks sideways on Planet Crabby. The sky is generally unchanging. Sometimes there are submarines. 

Another time on Planet Crabby somebody met somebody and they just never got along together very well so they broke up after three weeks. 

On Planet Crabby a rose is a rose is a rose. Wilted by the end of the sentence. 

On Planet Crabby no one is obvious and no one is elliptical. Conversation runs smoothly. The newscasts are remarkably easy to understand. 

On Planet Crabby there's a lot of early morning phone calls. Everyone has a clock. No one has a radio. Microwaves are a hot item among the consumers of Planet Crabby. 

On Planet Crabby everybody calls a spade a shovel. 

The longest lasting romance on Planet Crabby was held by two people for three months and then they shot each other in a restaurant. No one else has lasted that long. As they say on Planet Crabby, "Who'd want to?" 

There are no guidebooks to Planet Crabby. You're there on your own. Sometimes it's better to go with the flow. Other times not. It's up to you. Be honest. I too have had romances on the surface of that world. 
Endcap