Please oh pleasie please please, don't ever, EVER ask Mojo again the question, "Would you like to hear this poem someone sent me?"

The resounding response deep in Mojo's heart, rest assured, is an immediate and strenuous "NO!!! Dear lord in heaven NO!!! I already KNOW from your BRIMMING STUPIDITY that any poetry you find worthy of sharing is going to be DREADFUL. Like, Hallmark card REJECT dreadful. Like some internet wag's lame attempt to channel Dr. Seuss dreadful. It's going to be AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL, and I REFUSE to subject my mind and body to such utter DRIVEL!!!!"

However, being the polite person that Mojo is, there's really not a polite way out of this question, is there? Not without totally hurting or turning the asker against you for an eternity. Mojo has nothing against poetry, believe me. I have nothing against any form of creative expression. I also have nothing really against sex, but that doesn't mean I really want you to drop down and start DOING IT IN FRONT OF ME right this second. Ditto the poetry. Keep it to yourself. Make it that special "me" time, with no Mojo involved whatsoever. Believe me, both of us will be much happier.

So I found myself stuck one day with the Most Tediously Stupid Person Who Ever Existed, and since Mojo was showing no interest whatsoever in all previous topics of discussion--perfume (Mojo's anosmic, as we all know), some reality television show (the bane of Mojo's existence no matter how wonderful you think the stupid thing is) and/or Cute Baby Animal Pictures (Mojo has nothing against baby animals, mind you, but c'mon--when AREN'T they cute? I wish I had a tape recorder to carry around so when someone asks me to see a Cute Baby Animal picture I can just hit a button and they can hear me say "Awwwww--isn't that CUTE?" without me exhausting my voice. But I digress.)

So anyway, there's no getting around this particular question, so Mojo feigns interest and says "Of course!" and prays it's some short greeting card couplet. And of course it's NOT. It's some wretched half-hour of free verse that appears to be some schmaltz-vendor's version of Childhood Nostalgia Regarding Halloween. And not a SINGLE REFERENCE to razor blades in the apples. No, only Autumn Leaves and Crisp Moonlit Air and Bubbling Joy and Excitement. In other words, a cheap sugar high, both the memory and the resulting poetry--although I guess the poetry is better described as a sugar CRASH.

Just when you think it can't get any more painful for Mojo, it does. Because while my stupid acquaintance desires to share this little literary gem with me, they are genetically unable to read more than two words without including an "uhhhh" or an "ummmmm" to punctuate the recitation. I don't like to be read to in the first place--it's about all I can do not to grab the paper from the person and just scan it myself--but if you ever wondered WHY Mojo does not like to be read to I point you now at a stupid person, reading dreadfully bad chain-email poetry interspersed with "uuum"s and "uhhhhh"s as they struggle valiantly with what should be their native tongue.

I understand now why so many poets have such bleak outlooks and yearn for the sweet, sweet release of death. I started rooting for it myself about ten minutes into it....

Mojo