Guest post by Rowdy Geirsson about things that keep happening to me ALL. THE. TIME.
Sometimes life just sucks. This is especially true in the 2020s. The lemons of life are everywhere this decade. It’s basically raining lemons. Hell, you can’t even turn on the news or play with your godless smart phone without encountering a serious societal lemon of some sort. And that doesn’t even touch on the matter of the depressing preponderance of actual personal life lemons on top of everything. All of which is why maintaining a healthy emotional balance by establishing a spiritual connection with the drunken rage of Thor is now more important than ever.
Simply put: there is no better coping mechanism for dealing with life’s lemons than to churn them into Thor’s favorite intensely alcoholic lemon-ale with a flurry of tension-releasing, physical body spasms and highly therapeutic, vocalized outbursts such as, “I AM THE SON OF ODIN AND MY HAMMER WILL DESTROY EVERY EVIL GIANT IN JOTUNHEIM!” Some of life’s most common, everyday lemons and how they may be remedied with the unhinged anger of Thor are discussed below.
LIFE GIVES YOU THE LEMON OF A CRANKY, OLD FERRYMAN WHO WON’T LET YOU ON HIS BOAT
Oh gods, you know how it is. You get to some river or lake or fjord of whatever on your way home from killing dumb trolls and you just want to get across, but there’s some cranky, old ferryman on the other side who heckles you and won’t cross over to give you a ride. I mean, what the fuck, right? And then he starts insulting you! Just completely unacceptable. So, shit-talk him for a while and feel your uncontrollable rage build within (embrace it) and then threaten to whoop the old coot’s ass since everyone fears you, you ferocious animal. And then when the jerk finally tells you that your wife is cheating on you, just flip the fuck out. Seriously, go flat-out ape-shit berserk; nothing is better for your chi than raging like a pissed-off thunder god. Unfortunately, the distance is too far to reach the old man and actually beat him to a bloody pulp, but you’ll still feel a lot better. And then afterwards you can rehydrate with Thor’s favorite summer shandy for the very long walk home while pondering certain accusations of adultery.
LIFE GIVES YOU THE LEMON OF A PIECE OF WEAPONIZED WHETSTONE THAT IS FLYING STRAIGHT TOWARDS YOUR FACE
Holy shit, does it suck to to have a piece of weaponized whetstone flying straight towards your face! No one wants this, ever. But sometimes it just can’t be avoided, especially when it’s all your smart-ass dad’s fault for having provoked an evil giant who is—big shock—known for throwing whetstones at peoples’ faces. In these instances you just have to go with the flow until you see the whetstone hurdling through the air straight towards your noggin. At that point, throw your hammer at it with all your strength and a blood-curdling berserker scream of pure, unbridled wrath. This will break the shit out of that stupid whetstone and the magic hammer will continue its trajectory till it smacks and instantly kills the dickhead who threw it at you! But be aware that sometimes when this happens, the whetstone will shatter into tons of fragments that go in all directions at once and you might end up with a piece of it eternally stuck in your own forehead and, if that happens, then the evil giant’s corpse will also collapse on top of you. These instances provide all the more reason to crack open a cold can of that fine, craft-brewed lemon-ale and chillax with your three-year old baby son after he pulls you out from underneath the evil giant’s filthy, dead leg.
LIFE GIVES YOU THE LEMON OF LOSING A WRESTLING MATCH TO AN ELDERLY LADY
How embarrassing. One minute you’re boasting about your inhuman strength, the next minute some feeble, old lady wrestles you down to the ground. Clearly, something is wrong with your daily exercise routine, but that’s besides the point. The point is, you’ve once again been tricked by an evil giant; this time one who scammed you into wrestling a metaphor for old age itself. And that’s total bullshit! So, now is the time to just completely blow your fuse. Scream bloody murder and hammer everything in sight like a fucking maniac until you collapse from complete and utter bodily exhaustion. At this point, you’ll realize all the destruction that you thought you wrought didn’t really happen since it was all just an evil giant Jedi mind-trick, but that post-tantrum lemon-ale will really hit the spot and you’ll be feeling super zen, too.
LIFE GIVES YOU THE LEMON OF ACCIDENTALLY SWIMMING IN EVIL GIANT MENSTRUAL FLUID
So, of course you decided to go along with your degenerate trickster friend’s dumb-ass suggestion to leave home without your favorite emotional security device: your magical, murderous hammer. Not one of your smarter moves (you really should start reconsidering some of your life decisions) but, on the upside, sometimes terrible personal decisions result in the best opportunities for the healing power of Thor’s rage to work its wonders. Case in point: now you’re crossing a river that your degenerate friend has led you to and the river is rising, which is due to the evil giant who is directly menstruating into it from somewhere upstream. Well, this would probably upset most people but you can’t completely lose your shit just yet or you’ll drown in mythological period blood, which sucks! The good news is that your pent-up rage will only grow to epic proportions while you swim your ass to safety on the other side of the blood river with your jerk-off friend clinging onto you for dear life. And then it’s time to go ballistic with your bare fists and any other non-hammer objects you can find! After you lose all sense of time and place in the psychotic rampage that ensues, you’ll feel more balanced and grounded than ever and also be super ready to get drunk on lemon-ale with your creepy horse-fucker of a friend while singing heartfelt songs together about how much you miss your hammer.
Rowdy Geirsson is the author of The Scandinavian Aggressors and the editor of Norse Mythology for Bostonians: A Transcription of the Impudent Edda. His next book, an actual translation of The Impudent Edda, is set for release in late 2023. His writing has also appeared in Scandinavian Review and the Sons of Norway’s Viking Magazine.