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 It was that early hour in cigar stores all over town when boys are fetching in bricks that have been soaking all night in buckets of water, to be put into the display cases to keep the inventory humidified.

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Is this a morning wood joke? Maybe combined with a wet dream joke? Boys soaking in "water" all night? The early hour at the cigar store. Keeping the "inventory" "humidified."

Ha ha! I'm laughing so hard! It's just like my penis's teenage years!

Hmm. Now I'm doubting myself. What if this wasn't a metaphor for morning boners and wet dreams? What if it's just Pynchon not wanting the 1800s cigar store research he did go to waste? I suppose it could be both if you're desperate enough to read as large a percentage of Pynchon as you can get away with as penis jokes.

Ha ha. "Humidified." So true!

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 As to the specifics of this lapse, well, good luck.

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What?! How dare you, Thomas Pynchon! Finally a hint at an adult revelation and you give us the old "Well, you're not going to hear it from me, you horny goat!" First you have the kids pass by a Reindeer Show, then you have Chick and Darby go backstage at a hoochie coochie show but only off-panel and now you hint at some committed sin and refuse to describe it! I'm getting pretty sick of you not titillating me!

I mean, Gravity's Rainbow had boners blasting off higgledy-piggledy and smashing vaginal craters all over London not to mention that disgusting stuff Pudding was into! So I pick up Against the Day thinking, "Pynchon loves sexual metaphor! This is going to be great!" And then it's all Boy's Adventure Novel shenanigans!

I haven't been this blue-balled since reading The Everlasting Story of Nory by Nicholson Baker!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 4: Line 21

 "All right, short-stuff, turn to," muttered Lindsay, reluctantly setting the terrified Darby back on his feet.

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Ugh. "Reluctantly." I mean, really, Pynchon, the way you had Lindsay mutter was enough to show his reluctance. But I'll accept that a writer is going to make a few errors in judgment when he's writing a thousand page book in a six point font. Anyway, these jerkos and their love of bullying and power and control have gotten straight up my wazoo!

I can't believe I just criticized Thomas Pynchon's use of one single word! I feel like I can take on the world! I'm mad with power! I . . . I . . . I should utilize this feeling while I have it! Here goes:

You know what else you did wrong, Pynchon?! You didn't prepare me for the amount of boners in your books! That's on you. How was I supposed to know that you loved writing so much about boners?! Maybe it's also on my college professors because if just one of them had said, "You know who really likes to write about boners?" and then answered, "No, Thomas Pynchon," after I had wrongly guessed "Kurt Vonnegut," I would have read all of these books so much sooner!

God, I love boners!

Whew. I feel good making that admission! I feel free!