Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Mother’s Day 2013.

Since my mother passed away decades ago, Mother’s Day is just a reminder of what I’ve lost. I typically try to spend the entire 24 hours that comprise Mother’s Day asleep, so that it can pass me by. It’s actually quite difficult to sleep for 24 hours straight without having sustained some type of injury – and while I am accident prone, there’s no way to rely on an accident of appropriate severity occurring at just the right time. Sleeping pills are another solution, but it can be difficult to find the right balance between too few and too many.

That’s why this year I decided to try something new. For a reasonable fee I hired Truc, my neighbor’s dula, a Vietnamese woman willing to play the role of my mother for the day. I gave her a tablecloth I’d sewed into an old woman’s dress, and a powdered wig to make her appear older than me.

First, we went to my father’s grave, just like my mother and I used to do. Because he’s buried right next to my real mother, I had to block her grave out of my peripheral vision with my hand to keep from ruining the illusion that she was still alive.

Next we had lunch together, right along with all the other children and mothers in the restaurant. It was just like I was one of them! That is until we awkwardly ran into Truc’s real-life mother. At first I thought maybe it was a woman Truc had hired to play her mother, or my grandmother, or something. I didn’t know how to introduce myself, so I said, “I’m Ted and your daughter is my mother. Happy Mother’s Day!”

Things became very awkward and I began feeling very uncomfortable, so I took some sleeping pills and waited in the car.

Trying to put lunch behind me, I took my mother to pedal a swan boat through Boston Common, just like we always did since I was a child. Everything was going well until Truc accidentally fell overboard and drowned. I couldn’t believe that I had to see my mother die the same way twice. A pigeon flew off with the powdered wig as I watched and cried.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Kool-Aid Man.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing yawning.

Yawning is when your mouth forces itself open regardless of where you are and what you’re doing with it. A yawn can leave your mouth and throat vulnerable to any number of airborne threats, from moths to paper airplanes, or even a popped balloon falling to earth. The only time it may be in your favor to yawn is during a food fight, when your mouth could become the recipient of a Twinkie or other tasty treat.

For whatever reasons, bugs seem particularly attracted to my mouth, whether I’m yawning or not. I once woke up with ants all over my face. (It was because I’d fallen asleep with a mouth full of chocolate.) Because of this, I’m very reluctant to yawn.

I’ve been waiting years for someone to invent a yawn guard. My attempt failed and I almost choked to death. A yawn guard would basically be a thin mesh that attaches to the upper and lower teeth. When the wearer yawns, the net springs open, prohibiting entry to the mouth. This could also double as a kissing guard, for people who prefer not to French kiss. This would keep tongues both in and out of the mouth. It may impede speech, but true love doesn’t need words (or tongues).

Until this is invented, I’ve just been drinking as many energy drinks as I can, to try to prevent myself from getting tired enough to yawn. A lot of people have suggested that I simply cover my mouth with my hand when I yawn. I do this whenever possible, but there are any number of scenarios when this is impractical, such as while 1) boxing; 2) trapezing; 3) saving someone falling off a cliff; 4) tying both of your shoes at once; 5) being handcuffed by police. These are the times when a yawn-guard would be most needed.

Some people mistake yawning for being a sign of disinterest. Others – mostly perverts – mistake it as an invitation for fellatio.

Yawning doesn’t have to be all bad though. It can provide curious dentists with an opportunity to quickly assess a person’ dental health. If timed right, it can make eating popcorn a breeze. A photo of someone in mid-yawn can be doctored to make that person look like they’ve been decapitated and screaming, which is a great Halloween decoration.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing the Galápagos Islands.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing alphabet soup.

My earlier audio review of the alphabet reminded me that alphabet soup exists, and I have yet to review it. If you’ve never heard of alphabet soup before, it’s a soup where instead of the flavor being the theme, it is the inclusion of letters.

Book soup would have been more interesting because I often get very bored eating soup, and there are only so many words you can make with a handful of letters. With a book there would be hours of entertainment. It’s likely no one has ever invented book soup because of copyright restrictions and licensing fees.

One of the secrets about alphabet soup is that the letter M is never included. If you don’t believe me, go buy a can, open it up and try to find the letter M. You’ll find every letter but. What they did, to save money, was just throw in some extra Ws. I don’t think it’s fair to charge for the full 26-letter alphabet when you’re only getting 25.

You’re probably wondering what the alphabet tastes like. Me too. I always get so distracted by what I can spell out with each spoonful that it never makes its way to my mouth. One time the letters spelled out “danger,” which I took as an omen about the safety of the soup and I instinctively pushed it off the table. I tried to decipher the mess on the floor to see if it offered any further insights but there were none.

This is the mystery of alphabet soup. What does it mean? I consulted with a professional lettererologist I met at the junkyard. He told me that he could decipher the meaning of any warm bowl of alphabet soup. After giving him several bowls he explained that each letter represents a different level of yumminess. I don’t understand what that means.

The more I think about it, the weirder it seems to ingest the alphabet. But, I’ve ingested weirder things.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing purple.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Slimer.

One of the characters in the movie Ghostbusters is a ghost named Slimer. He is green, legless, and mostly a mouth. Slimer loves to eat and he also loves to slime, which is what happens when he touches anyone or anything. He leaves a layer of slime behind him, much like a slug. They could not call him Slugger because that has too strong of an association with baseball.

His actual name is not Slimer. No one knows his real name or who he was before he died. Nor does anyone know how he died. His missing legs may be a clue. Perhaps they were blown off in combat and he bled to death. Or maybe he just never had legs. Whatever the circumstances of his passing, something kept him here on Earth. Possibly his search for his missing legs.

It makes no sense that he would eat. As a ghost, his physical manifestation has no way to metabolize the food he consumes. My guess is that it’s an emotional based eating, possibly a cry for help.

Despite the darkness of his current state, he manages to keep a smile on his face most of the time. It may be denial, or it may be that he’s happier as a ghost than he ever was during life. To be honest, if I could walk through walls and eat whatever I wanted, I’d be pretty happy.

He can’t talk, and not just because his mouth is full most of the time. He can make little noises. Eeeks and urks, but no real words. Unless these noises are ghost words. This inability to talk must be very frustrating for him, much the way that babies are frustrated. He can see and understand the world around him, but he’s unable to do anything other than slime and frighten people.

I say he, but Slimer may actually be a girl. I slowed the movie down and tried to watch every frame, looking to see if maybe I could make out some genitalia. I feel like I saw a vagina, but it was too blurry to tell. It may have just been a fold of skin. He has a lot of those.

When you see one of the Ghostbusters bust Slimer with a laser gun, it’s hard not to feel bad for it. It being Slimer, not the gun. I have no emotions about the gun.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing pinecones.

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As me, I am one of the things in the world, and so I must review myself. However, there is also the obvious ethical conflict in doing so. That is why I solicited reviews of myself via The Become Ted Wilson Contest. After all, who would know me better than my readers?

The following review was written by Garth Beyer. I’m trusting that he’s real, but his name is an anagram of “Gyrate Herb” which seems suspicious to me. His review didn’t specify how many stars he would give me, so I’m assuming five out of five is the preferred rating.

* * * * * * * * *

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Ted Wilson.

When I first read his name, I thought to myself, “sounds like a brilliant fool.” It’s a contradiction, of course, but a spot-on one. It’s much like the idea behind God telling Abraham to kill his son Isaac, but also promising him that Isaac would have many descendants, growing into a great nation. Ted is the epitome of believing two contradictive things at once. I hated that.

Of course, I had to Google the guy. Turns out I was wrong in my assumptions. Ted Wilson is actually the director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. Then I asked myself why would the 30th mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah and director of politics be writing such outlandish pieces of work. This guy is idolized too much, senile, or creative. I’m thinking it’s a combination of the first two.

After reading a few more of his writings, I knew it wasn’t the same guy. Running through all the Ted’s in my head, I checked off Ted from How I Met Your Mother, Ted Wilson the current President of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (which would explain the religious analogy), and I don’t believe it is the same Ted Wilson that I met on the corner of the street seven months ago.

I set out to prove that Ted Wilson, like Sasquatch, was real. However, it seems that there are many more people who are not the actual Ted Wilson, than those who are the actual Ted Wilson. And given that the closest picture I could find to the “real” Ted Wilson was some goofy dog caricature that looks like someone spent 20 minutes in Paint, here is my conclusion:

It’s easy to review things that are as they are, but much harder to review things that are not as they appear. The Rumpus says he was an accountant for over 40 years at Rockville Insura-Best, Inc. Television says he’s a lonesome guy hitting his 30s, still looking for love. Maryland says he’s a Pastor. I say he’s a cartoon. So who really is Ted Wilson?

Maybe you’re Ted and you don’t know it yet. Maybe we become Ted when we visit his website. Maybe Ted is all around us. Then again, maybe not. But what I do know is that he loves hippos and that’s good enough for me.

Please join me next month when I’ll be reviewing a human embryo.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Claudette Tilder Babysitter Inc.

One of the most exciting and innovative start-ups isn’t located in Silicon Valley. In fact, I’m not even sure where it’s located because the founder, Claudette Tilder, refused to tell me where she’s located. But where she is doesn’t matter, and that’s the whole point.

Claudette Tilder Babysitter Inc. is being heralded by Claudette as the next big thing in babysitting. Rather than the traditional model of a person who comes to your home, Claudette does the babysitting from her house over the internet via a web camera.

I decided to try the service out myself. Since I have no children of my own, I made one out of papier-mâché. And since I don’t know how to get the web camera in my house to work, I used the one at the library. I left my papier-mâché child (Nick) in a chair at the library in front of the camera and let Claudette work her magic while I went off to the movies.

When I returned a few hours later, Nick was gone and someone else was at the computer. Claudette was nowhere to be seen. One of the librarians had taken Nick and leaned him against the wall in the corner. If Nick had been a real child he could have been kidnapped.

I emailed Claudete the next day to see what had happened. Because I had to pay up front, I was very disappointed with the service she provided. She didn’t get back to me for several weeks, and when she did she said her webcam went down and she was really sick too. None of that was her fault, it was just unfortunate timing.

It felt great being able to leave Nick alone while I went off and did whatever I wanted. I could see the appeal of Claudette’s service, although I’m not sure of the benefit to having someone there in person, although I will say that I am very excited by any advances in technology. Claudette is breaking new ground here.

Claudette doesn’t plan to stop at babysitting. As she explains, “Oh I got a lot of inventions I want to make since I’m an inventor now. Can you believe that? I’m an inventor and I didn’t even go to science school! I want to make this like tobacco drink so that way I can get my fix without know-it-alls yelling at me about getting cancer like I’m making them inhale my smoke. It’s basically like I empty my cigarettes into my Folgers. This guy I know, he has a connection and can get me cheap cigarettes so once he hooks me up I’ll start making my drink and then I can get it into stores. It’s gonna sell well because you can’t start a fire with just a drink which is how I lost my sister’s kid.”

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing hummingbirds.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing whales.

RUMPUS ANNOUNCEMENT: Do you want to write your own review of the world, have it appear on the Rumpus, and win some other prizes? Join the Become Ted Wilson Contest!

A lot of people say whales aren’t fish, they’re mammals. But there are those of us who believe whales are fish. It depends on how you define a mammal. I define a mammal as anything living on land that can’t fly. Science has its own definitions and I have mine. In the end, it’s really God who decides what’s what, and I believe God decided to make giant fish that are called whales.

If you’ve never heard of a whale before, you probably have and just don’t know it. Remember Willy, that giant fish from Free Willy? He was a whale. And that character from Moby Dick? Not the sea captain and not the guy with all the tattoos, but the one that lived in the water and was being hunted? He was a whale.

Whales have been part of the human consciousness for centuries and yet we know little about them. Unlike other fish, they don’t live in schools but they do sometimes swim together. There is one whale, however, that is the most mysterious one of all.

Discovery.com reports, “For decades now, scientists at the NOAA have been tracking a mysterious whale song that sounds like the ghostly howls of a drowned tuba player. The sounds have been identified as belonging to a single whale, who sings at a frequency unlike any other whale in the world.”

As a tuba player myself, I can’t think of a single, more depressing thing than a lone whale swimming around the oceans of the world, calling out and receiving no answer. My hope is that this is just some regular whale playing a practical joke on people. It would be a good joke, and it would make me feel much less sad about the whole situation.

It wouldn’t be a big surprise if this lonely whale decided to give up after a while. Sometimes they do that – whales will just give up and decide to swim onto land. This seems pretty clearly to me to be an act of suicide, and frankly, I don’t blame them. If I had to spend my whole life swimming and having barnacles grow on me, I would probably want to give up, too.

There’s one whale who I think would never give up. That’s the narwhal. It’s easily the coolest whale there is, known for its enormous horn which it uses to spear its prey. How it gets its prey off its horn once it’s pierced them is anyone’s guess. It may just swim around with a dead fish on its horn and offer the meat to other, less fortunate whales. Kind of like Robin Hood.

When whales aren’t hunting, they are often hunted for their blubber, meat, and blowholes. One of the reasons they are such a popular food is that their bones are so big it’s impossible to get them stuck in your teeth, unlike other fish.

If you ever see a narwhal in real life, run. Because if you’re running, that means you’re on land, and whales can’t really get you there.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Avatar II.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Spanky.

The most famous Little Rascal is named Spanky. Some people think Alfalfa or Buckwheat were more famous but I’m pretty sure it was Spanky. I don’t have any surveys or statistics to back up my claim, but I do have my opinion as a professional reviewer and I think that should be worth something.

Despite his physical shortcomings (he was overweight), Spanky was really good at math. That’s the impression I got anyway. I never once saw him not be able to add or subtract. He never got confused by how many Little Rascals there were. He never said, “Hey, where is everybody?” when everybody was right there. I always looked up to him for this reason, because math is not my strong suit.

Whenever I struggled with a math equation, I would think of Spanky and try my best to imitate him. Only on the inside, not on the outside, because I’ve never been very good with impressions. Unfortunately this tactic never actually improved my math skills, which just goes to show how inimitable Spanky really was.

I’m not entirely sure where the name Spanky came from. He didn’t spank or get spanked an inordinate amount. It seems most likely that his name was supposed to be Sparky, but someone somewhere made a typo. If his name was Sparky, who knows how that might have changed things.

George MacFarland, the actor who played Spanky, was possibly the grandfather of singer and award ceremony host Seth MacFarlane. I say possibly because I’m suspicious of their surnames being spelled differently, and I didn’t have enough time to do any genealogy research. But if you think about it, it’s definitely possible.

I don’t know anything else about George because mostly I just think of him as Spanky, and I think that’s how he would have wanted it. I know that’s how I want it, and since George would never have been Spanky without his fans, I think he owes us all whatever we want.

The one thing about Spanky I would have changed is the giant yarmulke he wore. It was much too big for his head.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing hair.

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Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing the 2013 AWP Conference.

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs has a conference every year for people involved in the literary world. I love the written word, as well as the spoken word, and also the implied word. I love all words. Even new ones that I don’t understand. There are a few words I don’t like, such as “crotch” and the name “Rory,” but for the most part I like anything and everything that has to do with words.

So, you can imagine my excitement when this year’s AWP conference was held right here in Boston! I was literally counting down the days until the conference. Each morning when I woke up I would say, “Ten more days!” or, “Six more days!” depending on how many more days remained.

I planned to meet as many people as I could, even if that meant walking away from someone in mid-sentence. Fortunately, my experience has been that writers are very confident and emotionally strong people, so I felt certain no one would take it personally.

Disappointingly, they decided to hold the conference at an address that was very easy to misread. Instead of having it at, say, 666 William Cardinal O’Connell Way, they chose 900 Boylston St., which is very easy to mistake for 900 Boynton St.

Walking down Boynton St., I noticed the numbers didn’t go nearly that high, so I stopped when I got to the end of the street where there was a small park there. I thought perhaps it was an outdoor conference, so I sat and waited.

The only people in the park were a pair of gentlemen, one asleep, and the other drinking something from a brown paper bag. “Writers,” I thought. As I neared them, I waved and asked, “read any good books lately?” (That’s the opening line I had been practicing because I thought it would be a good icebreaker.) The conscious one threw something at me. Excitedly, I ran to catch it, hoping it was an AWP conference shirt, but it turned out to be a horrible-smelling, stained shirt that gave my hands a rash.

I walked to a payphone to call my friend Isaac Fitzgerald who I was supposed to meet at the conference where he would be manning the Rumpus booth. When he answered he was laughing and I could hear a lot of noise in the background. “I’m selling mugs!” Isaac exclaimed. “I’m selling mugs!” I could hear the glee in his voice. He was in the right place, exactly where he should be, but I was lost and wandering.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing malt liquor.

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