After dreaming up Otto, I’m now following a “cultural anthropologist and creative leader” named Philip Otto on LinkedIn because of his name. Aha! Philip Otto is on this platform too, barely.
I wonder if he occasionally attracts Auto Fill jokes like I get Holy See jokes. Mentions of Otto herein = me, not him.
What does Otto write about?
Not sex or gender. I know I don’t think like a man, so half- and lightheartedly pretending to think like how I imagine I might think if I were Otto inside sounds difficult if not impossible. I’ll relax and enjoy the broad concept, not detailed execution.
I know! Otto writes about autos! At least this time. Do Brits call cars “autos”? In trying to find out, I found this delightfully earnest woman’s video, which Otto bookmarked to watch when he needs cheering up. He calls her Zehbra.¹
Zehbra’s gonna get hit by a car if she walks on “roadways” in the US. Pedestrians walk on “sidewalks” here IRL and apparently on “pavement” in the UK.
I enjoyed the ZEHB-bra crossing part because I wasn’t aware Brits pronounce it that way. I say ZEE-bra. I also say ped-exing.²
Otto’s brain, like mine, likes word signs better than picture signs. Plus he fell in love with the way Zehbra says zebra and replayed it 42 times.
Hogan Torah, I’m pretty sure Zehbra’s never visited your neck of the US woods. She says expressways/interstates may be as shockingly wide as 4 or 5 lanes and they’re for FAST TRAVEL!
Speaking of Hogan
I have little to no interest in writing like a dick or about dicks and neither does Otto. Hogan’s well-known online characteristic birthed Otto, like Athena from Zeus’s forehead, so I turned to Hogan’s ABCs of Cars story to figure out what more Otto oughta cover.
My favorite part was its featured image, Ask Me About My Mud Flaps.
Mudflaps
Otto and I both like trucks, especially trucks decorated with flames. I used to compulsively draw flames like that as a teen. Why doesn’t this lovely free-use yellow truck picture show a manly yet tasteful mudflap such as that in the picture near the end of this story?
What do mudflaps with voluptuous female silhouettes signify? Are truckers advertising for a curvy woman or wishing they had such curves? Maybe the flaps enable members of a secret society to identify each other.
As long as you got the curves, baby, I got the angles.
— The Guess Who, Clap For The Wolfman
It’d be cheaper to pose naked Barbie dolls on your dash
Or they’re for men whose fathers wouldn’t let them play with Barbies? My mother wouldn’t let me have a Barbie. The naked ladies on mudflaps look more like toy Barbie than any naked woman I’ve seen.
Conveyor belts are the best material. I asked my real-life man about conveyor belts. They must be useful, or desirable. He says they come up in auctions all the time
34½" is the best length. Wow. Per Justin the Junkie,
it’s mind-numbing, boring work
which apparently must be done on your knees, on the floor. You need a really sharp knife and a ruler. F-bombs are required during mudflap construction, along with cutting, hole punching, and measuring. You’ll also need a block of wood and a leather punch, which can’t always self-clean. Per Justin,
See how it gets in there like that, then you have to come back in here?
Use 3/8" bolts, but Justin recommends a 1/2" hole punch
He has made a lot of mudflaps and leaves you with these parting words:
The release agent on these mudflaps doesn’t like to take a mark. — Justin the Junkie
Mudflaps at least are functional. I see faux nuts — truck nutz and bulls balls — dangling from vehicles big and small. Why? Maybe Otto’ll write about that next.
¹ I know and you know her real name is Niharika but Otto doesn’t.
² Y’all ain’t from around here, are ya? It means “pedestrian crossing,” if you must have all your peds crossed and your manis cured, Mr. Rahcuef. You could’ve figured it out. Don’t you dare accuse me of Smillewsplaining!
³ In case you missed it, Otto didn’t want to be accused of mansplaining PED XING.
Otto Phil fans!? His stories are listed here.
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