My Metaphoric Quotient (No, I'm Not Sure That's a Thing)

So, here are a couple of exercises that don't directly relate to anything beyond flexing those old creative brain muscles. Enjoy!

TASK:

If there's one thing that I think about when someone asks me about a mindless chore, it's doing laundry. Generally I mentally insert the descriptors "tedious" and "agonizing." Unfortunately, it's something that has to be done on at least a bi-weekly basis if I want clean boxers and plaid shorts. Like most mindless tasks, however, I can take solace in focusing on the basic rhythm: sort, load, wait forty minutes, transfer to dryer, wait an hour, fold, hang up.

Alright, so it's a somewhat staccato rhythm. I suppose I could narrow the main rhythmic part of the experience down to just "folding laundry." Grab, fold vertically, fold horizontally, toss in the basket, etc.

THEATER:

Well, this is an easy one. For one of my previous Thinkertoy exercises I did "Brutethink," where you find a random word and then force relations from it to the subject at hand, and turned up the interesting word "plethora." This is a pretty close descendant of its original Greek 'plethore' (fullness) to plethein (to grow full) in Medieval Latin. At some point this took on a negative connotation, it seems, as plethora was used as a term for a condition wherein the patient had an excess of blood. I don't know how such a condition ever came to pass, come to think of it, since the cure for everything from a stubbed toe to demonic possession back then was blood-letting.

EMPATHY:

Let's see, whose shoes could I walk a mile in. The most recent movie I saw starred Nicholas Cage in some capacity, so let's go with him for the laughs.

Bobby Speck as Nicholas Cage

Suddenly, horrifyingly, I'm reduced to a single emotional output of vaguely goofy blandness. Once I was relatively attractive, but my sedentary lifestyle and the willingness of the studio to airbrush my musculature instead of telling me to get off my butt and work out for my movies has given me unfortunate jowls. On the plus side, I now have more money then I ever could have obtained from a life-time of honest labor. With this money I can move to some remote place, like Siberia, and hide myself away from the world in relative comfort.

Nicholas Cage as Bobby Speck

I'm incredibly but blandly frustrated. Whenever I jab randomly at the keys of a keyboard I don't automagically triangulate the position of buried treasure, and when I make logical leaps of faith that reach far enough to canvas the Grand Canyon I just wind up driving forty miles out of my way and feeling extremely silly. On the plus side, I no longer inspire derision from movie-goers and I have a few years left before junk food completely ruins my manly figure, so that's something I suppose.

... man, Nicholas Cage is really not someone I want to be. Empathy over.