Stuff: we all know about it, think about it and talk about it. So you’d think that something to do with this particular item of/event concerning stuff would go according to plan – that it’d be easy to acquire/use/interpret said stuff and fulfil ones initial expectations about it. However, as you can probably tell this article is going to offer a few hundred words that present quite the contrary.

But first, in this paragraph I present a scenario involving the stuff in an ideal world where the stuff would adhere to logical constraints imposed by my own opinions. I floridly articulate this utopia, going into an absurd amount of detail and exaggerating it to a degree where it becomes almost unrecognisable. However, with the loosest of grasps of irony I hammer my idyllic vision home as if it should all be true by its own virtue. Then, in an attempt to force a cliff-hanger where there really is none, I end the paragraph with a continuation in a bid to try and give the following (insultingly short) sentence some gravitas…

Stuff’s not.

BANG! I hit you with exactly what you were anticipating and fail in surprising anyone. But, expectations fulfilled you read on in glee – one by one ticking back your existing opinions about stuff, including some you didn’t actually have but feel are somewhat innate. ‘Why is it?’ I bleat ‘Why is it that stuff just isn’t something when it should be something?!’ You would assume it would be but in this paragraph quite the opposite appears – and yes! Yes you can imagine it can’t you? Especially as I offer a first-hand account that never happened, drawing upon emotions that weren’t really there and pass them all off as my own. It becomes quite clear that I’ve had an awful experience with stuff and at this juncture my point about the stuff could – and should – really be put to bed – but that wouldn’t fill the word quota.

So in an embarrassingly contrived effort to synthesise intellect, I draw upon a genuine historic tragedy (Hiroshima?) or a widely-revered-but-at-least faintly-obscure piece of literature I’ve never read (Waiting for Godot?) and make an ill-conceived comparison that doesn’t quite work (‘It’s EXACTLY like stuff!’). I ignore the jarring length of the last sentence together with the alienation of 99% of my readers and instead focus on patting myself on the back for the use of clever words and a cultural reference.

Quite how I got from stuff to this point would be beyond any rationally-minded person, but I’m all too aware that the conjunction of the mundane with the absurd generates mirth. So in an attempt to end on a strong note I turn silly dial to ridiculous and make one final, unjustified statement to take it just over the agreed word-count:

Stuff – Devil’s sperm ingested by the coke-addled whore of everyday life.

There you go.