Thumbs Up

Canoeing – A few weeks ago, you were made an offer you couldn’t refuse: canoeing on Columbus Day weekend with your friend from the olive oil importation business. So you drive out to the recesses of New England with your trusty canoe duct taped to the roof of your car and go out on an isolated lake. As you paddle through the water, admiring the vibrant foliage along the shore and singing a little Andy Williams to yourself, you realize that this is a great opportunity for the perfect picture: a shot of you paddling toward the shore, looking like an intrepid pioneer exploring uncharted territory under a dark sky. Pulling your phone out of your pocket, you turn around to hand it to your trusted associate in the rear seat. He’s pointing a squirt gun loaded with mayonnaise, your only weakness, at your head. You freeze. “It’s not personal, it’s just business,” he says. “I know it was you. You broke my heart.” “…what?” you say. “You went against the family. You gotta go. It’s the way the boss wanted it.” Realizing what’s going on here, you fling your fly-fishing hat over the side of the boat and begin yelling, “It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says … like dumb … I’m smart and I want respect!” “Smart? Do you even read your own stuff? A whole freaking Thumbs Down thing about vending machines? What the hell was that? Your jokes are getting repetitive and long-winded and you clearly show no signs of improvement.” You look around, confused for a second, before speaking. “Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you—” “Enough of the Godfather quotes,” he interrupts. “Poorly-executed and intentionally unexplained movie references are just another reason you have to sleep with the fishes.” “Can you at least take a picture of me rowing first so I can post it on Instagram and feel the slightest twinge of the validation I so desperately seek?” He pauses and then nods, accepting your outstretched phone. You turn back toward the front and he snaps a picture. In the second after you hear the shutter of the camera app, you spin around, leap into the air, and kick him in the face. Tumbling off the boat, he lands in the water and you manage to snatch your phone out of his hand as he falls. In one swift motion, you apply a tasteful Ludwig filter, add an informative caption, and share the picture. With a triumphant laugh, you paddle away from your former friend as he treads water. “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Thumb Sparrow,” you yell back. “That’s not even from the same genre as The Godfather, you hack,” he screams in outrage. As the sun breaks through the clouds, you sail away toward a future full of ridiculous and overdone TU/TDs.

Thumbs Down

The Necessity of TD – It’s pretty clear that the bulk of things going on here are in that TU. But you can’t just have TU because TD would feel left out. So, like an Archer aiming his bow, we take a deep breath and send a speeding arrow of meaningless sentences to fill up the space down here.

Featured Image by Kelsey McGee / Heights Editor