Katie Perry

What Happens when the Sh*t Hits the Fan, parts I & II

I.

         There are many things to consider, if the sh*t hits the fan, so many I will never get to them all. One of the things to consider is this: is it a ceiling fan, pushing air at the floor, or is it a box fan, projecting air through itself, standing upright in the window or on the dresser by the bed in the summer? What a sick joke that would be, you put the fan on the dresser by the bed because you need a soft breeze, but what you end up with is, well. Sh*t everywhere. Flying against the walls and flying some toward the ceiling and floor, or, in the case of the ceiling fan,  flying against the walls and ceiling some, but onto the floor primarily. It’s going to be a doozy to clean up, and now it’s all over everything in sight, whether or not everything in sight deserves it. Shrapnel, as I understand it, behaves in a manner similar to that of sh*t that has just hit the fan.

         Another thing to consider: Did someone throw the sh*t at the fan deliberately or accidentally?  Imagine they threw it into the upright fan on the dresser by the bed in the summer. This means it is reasonable to believe they threw the sh*t on purpose, maybe at something, or someone, standing in front of the fan. Maybe it was you they threw the sh*t at, but maybe you ducked and the sh*t hit the fan instead of hitting you. On the other hand, if the sh*t hits a ceiling fan, we can imagine that someone didn't throw the sh*t at the fan on purpose necessarily, but might have tossed the sh*t up in exasperation. Maybe it was you who tossed the sh*t up in exasperation. Maybe you were sick and tired and gave up the ghost, threw up your hands, which happened to be holding a big pile of sh*t, in which case, in this case, a toss-up is definitely not a draw or a stalemate, is rather what happens right after everything comes to a head, as it were. Or maybe, on the other hand, you accidentally threw the sh*t skyward because someone sneaked up behind you and goosed you in the ribs, which you hate, particularly because you are excitable, and maybe you had a lot of caffeine that day, and the only reason you were holding the sh*t in the first place was because your good friend asked you to look after it for a minute while he went to get something from the car.

II.

         Say the sh*t hits the fan, but by "sh*t" you mean a person who's very good, who is above average, as in, "Oh, man, I love that girl, that girl is The Sh*t," and by "fan" you mean someone who's an admirer of The Sh*t, and by "hit" you mean hit as in, "Oh, that dude is so hot, I'd hit that in a second," by which you mean, you'd like to, you know.

         And then it finally happens! The Sh*t hits The Fan! And the two of them are, for a while, happy and relaxed, and they hit it and glow and light up cigarettes nearly every day, except that after a while, the sh*t might hit the fan as in part I, because maybe The Sh*t, sheepish and with shifty eyes, told The Fan it was just for fun, it wasn't like that, wasn't serious, and The Fan's heart was smashed into a million pieces, which caused a huge commotion for everyone who knew the two. In this case, it seems The Sh*t described in this part, part II, might have thrown the sh*t described in part I not at The Fan described in this part, part II, but at the fan described in part I, maybe without even quite grasping how far sh*t flies when it has hit the fan, maybe without realizing the fan was on, or maybe realizing, but ignoring, that the fan was on. In this case, the sh*t described in part I, as a result of hitting the fan described in part I, hits both The Sh*t and The Fan described in part II, so that  The Sh*t described in part II is being hit by the sh*t from part I as a result of being hit by The Fan in part II, and The Fan in part II is being hit by two different kinds of sh*t, first The Sh*t and then the sh*t, and the fan in part I is being hit by one kind of sh*t, unless The Sh*t described in part II then knocks over the fan described in part I. If The Sh*t hits the fan, while The Fan is still, miserably, a fan of The Sh*t even after this heartbreaking misunderstanding, The Fan might get fed up, because now The Sh*t is being mindless and self-indulgent and destructive, and full of self-pity (though from The Fan's perspective, it's really The Fan who got screwed in both senses of the term while The Sh*t got screwed in only the best sense), and so The Fan takes a stand, and tells The Sh*t to cut it the fuck out, stop knocking sh*t over, that fan was expensive after all. Then The Sh*t might skulk away, or storm out, and The Fan might have a whole lot of sh*t to clean up alone, but The Fan and the fan will both ultimately have won, dealing with the sh*t that comes at them in the best way possible given the circumstances and their respective resources, for the fan will spin until every speck of sh*t is gone from its blades, is invisible to the naked eye (though microbes stick around for who knows how long?), and The Fan will do the same, and will, despite standing at the moment alone in a room splattered with sh*t, be fine, eventually, will keep spinning until one can’t, on casual inspection, discern any marks or smudges there.