How I Spent My Summer Vacation

After a day and a night and half of another day of arduous climbing, we reached the peak of pike. My guide, whose task of assisting my ascent had proven even more difficult given my poor level of fitness and ceaseless torrent of complaints about how difficult it was to smoke cigarettes in the thin mountain air, seemed relieved that we had completed our journey after all.

“There,” he said, gesturing to a small cave at the foot of the summit. “In there you will find the answers that you seek.”

I had come halfway around the world in search of clarity and purpose; in search, finally, of meaning. After hours and days and weeks and years where the burdens of experience had accumulated so heavily on my heart that I felt weighed down by my very being I had decided that it was enough. I needed to know why: Why all this endless suffering, this seeming futility of existence? I read the great texts of the major religions, but they provided little relief. The annals of scientific reasoning likewise brought me no closer to comprehension. And then I heard tell of a great sage who, many years earlier, had renounced all worldly pleasures and confined himself to a barren hold on the top of an ancient dome where he could contemplate the very question that had been troubling his slumbers. Those who were able to make the trek to his retreat returned with a sense of spiritual satisfaction and a new understanding of why we are put upon this earth. With considerably more resolve than I had managed to muster in months, I booked passage upon a freighter and made my way to the mountain. And now, here I stood, ready for revelation.

I moved slowly toward the entrance to the cave. A small, calm voice emerged from within its bowels.

“You have come a very long way,” said the sage.

“I have.”

“Well, then, perhaps it is best that we resolve your question as quickly as possible. What is it that you wish to know?”

The moment of truth having arrived at last, I found myself at a loss for words. I stammered something about the meaning of life and than stood very still, staring at my feet.

The master chuckled.

“You wish to know why we are here,” he laughed.

By now my eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the cave and I could see the man in his fullness. Wizened with age and entirely without hair, he sat cross-legged on a craggy stone with only a thin shawl to protect him from the mountain’s elements. The cave was indeed dark, and yet it seemed as if an otherworldy light shone all around him.

“Yes, master,” I finally responded.

He put a finger to his lips and beckoned me forward. In his hand he held what on closer reflection turned out to be a small, cracked mirror.

“Look within,” he said. “What do you see?”

“I see myself,” I said.

“And what are you?” he asked.

“A man?”

“What sort of man? Think carefully before you answer.”

I did not speak for several minutes. The question seemed impossible.

“Hold up your hands,” said the sage patiently.

I did so.

“Cup your fingers in your palms and point your hands toward your body,” he continued.

I did so.

“I will ask you a question. Your response will tell you all you need to know about everything.”

I nodded, continuing to hold my clenched fists aloft with the two digits at their ends pointing at me as if they were accusatory hooks. I could practically hear the silence.

“What,” said the master, holding the mirror up so that I could see myself, “has two thumbs and likes blowjobs?”

“This guy,” I responded, now lighter than air and gifted with the knowledge of what really matters. Blowjobs. Life is all about blowjobs.

Anyway, I’m back! Did ya miss me? Not as much as I missed you! Love you guys.

[Pic via]