In Season 8 of The Office, Andy starts singing Closing Time as part of his everyday routine to close out the workday. After doing it several dozen times, everyone in the office is sick of hearing it, except for one surprise character, Stanley. Stanely sings it with gusto, not because he likes the song, but because for him it meant the end of the day. Throughout the series, Stanley takes every opportunity to leave as early as possible, because he is just trying to run out the clock on not only the day, but his career. He was the meaning of checked out. No one has been checked out as much as I have in my career, with as much delusion that I will have the means to do so. Stanley and I are just counting the days until we can move to Florida and spend retirement carving wooden birds…or write bad novels.

Stanley and I know how sometimes in life, the walls close in on you, which is a really weird expression, because walls don’t normally move, except in haunted houses in selected theaters. Speaking of theaters, in my early years, I saw this movie called Star Wars, but I was too young to appreciate it. I don’t remember much from it, other than there was a scene in which Luke Airbender, Hand Soloist, Queen Spacebuns, and Big Foot, were trapped in a trash compactor. In that movie, the walls actually did move.

When I was in high school and college, I got close to a number of girls, who at first really liked me. I would tell them more about me, and they would tell me more about them, and then I would get close enough to one of them to hold their hand. In other words, we got physically and emotionally close to each other. But then they would get to know the bitter me and start to not like one or 10 things about me, or I would not like one thing about them, and all of a sudden, we would bring the relationship to a close.

My question is, how in the world can one word not only mean so many things, but be pronounced in two different ways? First, we were close, but then we broke up, so we closed the relationship. The word close and close mean opposite things. And to make the matter bitterer, one of them is pronounced with a C sound and the other with a Z sound. No wonder so many people are confused about English. I’ve been speaking it since I was 10 years old, and I still don’t have any idea how to do quadratic equations.

It’s especially irksome to someone like me, who is a master of writing words on pieces of paper, computers, novels and even public bathrooms. How can I ever expect anyone to understand my brilliant thoughts when on papers and computer screens, I could mean one thing and they could interpret that word in a completely different context?

If the dual, (or is it duel?) meanings and pronunciations of close and close are already enough to bake your bagels, consider this: Every day, in order to not freak everyone out, I wear clothes. The word clothes, sounds the exact same as close, but not the same as close. How are we worried about war, famine, disease, and strife in the world, when we should be worrying much more about how close, close and clothes are three different things, meanings and pronunciations?

I don’t know about you, but this is making me feel a little tense. It’s also making me want to live in a couple of tents. There we go again with two different words being too similar. Don’t make me go there, or is it they’re, or their? I don’t know what is going on, or do I not no what is going on? Or going awn? All of this is to say that I’m very confused. Or am I vary confused?

Taylor Swift is really good at doing live concerts, but she also wants to live a really good life. Is it pronounced live or live? I can never remember.

Another thing that drives people crazy is the silent letter situation. Sometimes s’s or c’s or L’s can be silent. So question for you. In the word scent, which letter is the silent one? How about in the world llama? Which l is silent? And why can C have two different sounds, but two other letters share the same sounds, S and K? Why can’t C just make up its mind how it wants to sound? And did it ever consider that S and K didn’t want to share their sounds? And why do some vowels sound the same in many situations like O and U, and A. And how is anyone not native to English supposed to pronounce the word situation, as sichyooashun? Talk about confusing. How in the world does “tion” at the end of situation sound the same as shun? The only common letter they have is an N. I have so many questions.

It’s clear that English was invented by a dad who just wanted to be able to tell dad jokes, and he needed the confusion of words, letters and pronunciations to not make any sense so he could tell his bad dad jokes. It’s the only way to explain this illogical mess of language that I speak. It also explains almost all the misunderstandings we have, so if my wife ever asks why I leave my clothes on the floor, it’s because English is confusing and not because I’m lazy.

If you think the written and spoken word are confusing, these are just a few dozen words. If you didn’t know, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a Gifture is worth 10,000 words. And a Bitter Friday Giftures is worth a couple billion. So, while you are trying to process the words, take a gander at the BFG’s and have your mind blown by all the weird pronunciations of these Giftures…

Stanley was always in a rush…

If there was ever a chance to leave…

For everything else…

Stanley and I have both had the feeling…

Back in high school and college…

Then the letter C came along and it couldn’t make up its mind…

Be hard and…

Or be soft…

Or even worse…

Sometimes things…

While other things…

Which means we need to put this post…

I was this…

ARRRGGGHHHHHHHH

Bitter Closing Time Ben