Contents Assume the Position, Santa! 3 If the Feds visited the North Pole, would Mr. Claus measure up to their regulations and political correctness? Don't Help! I've Fallen But I Can Get Up 4 If the Consumer Product Safety Commission had its way, we'd be a Nation of Wimps. On the Road, Okie Style 7 A quick survival guide for out-of-staters who might have the misfortune of driving through Oklahoma. Future Shock? Only If It Talks 8 One man's reaction to “artificially intelligent” machines that carry on conversations with him. How to Annoy a Groundhog 9 Groundhog Day from the groundhog's point of view. I'll Get Rid of the Repressed Rage As Soon As I Find It 11 Wherein the author (an “in denial” kinda guy) sacrifices his pillow on the altar of pop psychology. The Smoker Is Dead! Long Live the Smoker! 13 Whose ox is the government going to gore when they've achieved their goal of a “smokeless” society? Watt Sine? I Dint See No Sine! 15 Are we really an illiterate Nation at Risk, or are the survey subjects just pretending?
Copyright 1986, 2009 by Charles Wesley Orton All rights reserved.
Assume the Position, Santa! “I'm afraid we're going to have to shut your little operation down, Claus,” said the Man from the Government. Gone was the honorific “Mister” he'd used when first admitted to the North Pole workshop. And his tone of voice indicated he wasn't “afraid” at all. He was happy and gloating, as most people are who say they're “afraid” to do something to someone else. Santa was confused. “Why? What's wrong!” “What's wrong? Everything!” The Man from the Government waved a sheaf of papers in Santa's face. “I've got it all down here. First, 99% of the toys you've got here are all wrong. Not a single one of them is politically correct or educational or 'green.'” “But the toys I have are the ones the children want! Here, read their letters.” “You're out of touch, Claus, Toy rifles teach kids that violence is okay. Dolls given to girls teach sexist values. And,” the Man from the Government dangled a pink plastic pipe, “just what is this?” “It's a bubble pipe. You put it in soapy water and blow bubbles.” “Is that so! You know what I think, Claus? I think it's really a sneaky way to teach our children that smoking is good. And if they line it with aluminum foil, they could use it to smoke drugs. Come to think of it, we'll get the DEA in on this. They might like to confiscate this spread of yours. Make a good northern outpost.” “But I don't have anything to do with drugs!” “No matter. I'm from the government, and if I accuse you of it, I've convicted you of it. And, speaking of other agencies, the EPA will want to see that shed full of coal out back. It's probably high-sulfur. That would be a nice big fine!” “That coal is for the stockings of bad little boys and girls.” The Man from the Government was shocked. “Bad...little.... There is no such thing as bad little boys or girls, Claus. Only boys and girls with low
self-esteem. You give them a lump of coal, and you'll ruin their self-image! Yep; we're going to confiscate that coal. Who knows what damage you've already done to their tender little egos?” He flipped through the sheaf of paper. “And here! What's with all the vertically disadvantaged people you've got working here?” “You mean the elves?” “I mean vertically disadvantaged. It's good of you to hire a minority, but it's wrong to hire only one kind of minority. That makes them a majority. The EEOC is going to have a picnic with you. More big fines!” The Man from the Government was becoming happier and happier. He was actually smiling, but not with mirth. Santa protested, “The elves have worked for me for years! Centuries! Besides, no one else has ever asked to work for me. It's not easy living year 'round at the North Pole, you know.” “That doesn't make any difference, Claus. You should have asked other minorities to apply for work. Now we're going to make you pay a bunch of wages to people who never worked for you because you never gave them the chance.” He contemplated Santa for a moment. “I'm going to have to take away that fur suit you're wearing, too. That red dye is undoubtedly a nottoo-clever attempt at camouflaging the fur of an endangered species.” “It's the only suit I have!” “That's your hard luck. But if I can get these charges to stick--and I don't doubt that I can--the Government will supply you with a nice suit of clothing at Leavenworth.” “This doesn't make sense,” moaned Santa as he slowly disrobed. “None of this makes any sense at all!” “It does to us,” said the Man from the Government. “And that's the only thing that counts.”
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Don't Help! I've Fallen But I Can Get Up If I subscribed to the current belief that “Everyone's responsible for what happens to me except me,” I'd feel tempted to sue the people who headed the school district of Chippewa Falls, Wis., during the late 50s and early 60s, and--also in tune with our time--my parents. Although they didn't know it (and we all know that lack of knowledge is no excuse when it comes to lawsuits), these adults failed to protect my tender young self from horrible hazards to life and limb. My proof is a set of “recommendations” set forth in a Consumer Product Safety Commission publication called “Handbook for Public Playground Safety.” Among these guidelines are ones that practically outlaw every type of playground equipment I ever used as a child. The CPSC says they are dangerous and can harm the unwary child. The guidelines make special note of what are called” head-entrapment risks” -- such things as having the timbers of railings too close together; and when it comes to wooden construction, there is the dire danger of splinters. One wonders, then, why the CPSC goes on to “recommend” (that's FedSpeak for “thou shalt”) wood mulch as a possible “shock-resistant” cushion. Oh, yes; the CPSC says that in any area where a child might fall or be dropped, such as under swings and slides and seesaws, there should be a shock-resistant cushion of wood mulch or pea gravel or sand at least 12 inches thick and six feet in radius. At my school, there were fulcrum seesaws (we called them teeter-totters) without the now-recommended springs in the middle and without padding beneath the seats! The swing seats were made of wood! There was a trapeze! The CPSC says that kind of seesaw is dangerous; why, a child on the low end might suddenly dismount, causing the child on the high end to hit the ground with a spine-compressing thump! Wooden swing seats are disallowed
because they hurt more than rubber or plastic seats do when they hit you! Trapezes and suspended rings are not recommended, either. You can fall from them! Of course, I knew all this when I was a child, I came down hard on my tail-bone when one of my classmates leapt off his end of the teeter-totter. It happened only once. Thereafter, I learned to let my legs take the shock. Maybe today's kids don't learn quite so fast. And wooden swing seats do, indeed have capacity for harm. One day, Gary Krumenauer and I took turns shoving one another into the path of an occupied and swinging swing. The game ended when the seat caught Gary alongside the head. He spent the afternoon on a cot in a corner of the classroom. We both spent the evening being punished by our parents for stupidity. (In our neighborhood in those days, parents didn't sue one another for their children's acts. They took the kid to court -- woodshed court.) Gary got even some time later, in a way; at least with the family. He was the batter during a softball game. My younger sister was the catcher. She was crouching too close to Gary. He missed the pitch and the bat carried around and hit her on the head, knocking her cold. She spent the afternoon on that same cot. The grounds of Oak Grove School were a bit less than an acre, bounded on three sides by one of Gordy Buttenhoff's fields and on the fourth side by a county road. A barbed wire fence separated the schoolyard from Gordy's field. There was no fence along the road side. Had the CPSC focused its attention on our school in those days, they probably would have mandated soft rubber fencing along the field and a childproof barrier along the road. The CPSC wouldn't have cared that any selfrespecting cow would just walk through a soft rubber fence, and they wouldn't have cared that the ditches along the road were our favorite play areas in the winter.
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Those ditches were perfect for snow forts. We would form alliances and build a fort on each side of the road, using shovels to dig the blocks from the ditch so the ramparts were effectively higher. Then each side would take turns attacking the other, a la WWI trench warfare, with the hundreds of snowballs we had stockpiled the previous recess. It just might surprise the CPSC to learn that none of us poor, defenseless, unprotected children were ever hit by a passing car or truck or tractor. Maybe because we weren't overprotected, we had a sense of self-preservation. The softball field would have given the CPSC a collective heart attack. It was very small, perhaps 50 feet across and 60 feet deep, so Gordy's field was our outfield. So there we have our first hazard: The barbed wire fence--bloody cuts just waiting to happen! I did tear a new pair of blue jeans going through that fence to retrieve a ball one day. If my mother had only been more modern! She could have sued Gordy and the school board for that, or at least have filed a complaint with some federal agency. Instead, she sweetly said that if it happened again, she would suggest to my father that he “take his belt off.” Jeans were expensive, and any nine-year-old boy who didn't know how to go through a barbed wire fence was a dunce. In the meantime, I would just have to live with the ignominy of wearing patched jeans to school (in those days patched or holey jeans were a mark of poverty and shame). The bases on our softball field were -- horrors! -- old tires. Insidious traps just waiting to break the leg of the clumsy child! For some reason, no one ever twisted or broke an ankle running the bases; perhaps because no one was foolish enough to step in the middle of a tire. Then there were the oak trees scattered about the playing field (hence the name Oak Grove School). Batters were frequently disappointed when a nicely hit ball that should have been a home run hit one of these trees instead of Gordy's corn, but none of the fielders ever ran into a tree. Speaking of trees, in a corner on the other side of the school building was the largest of the oaks, a good tree for climbing. Placed around its base
were a number of large rocks that served perfectly for the girls when they were playing “house”--not quite the “shock-resistant” padding the CPSC would like to see. Yet none of us ever fell from the tree onto the rocks. Just as dangerous, in the eyes of the CPSC, yet just as safe, given the injury record, was my home turf. Although my father didn't farm, here were a barn, a silo, a granary, several sheds, and a 50-foot windmill. To the CPSC, it would have been the seventh ring of Hell: There was no shock-resistant padding, there were no safety railings; there were splinters and head-entrapment apparatus and heights from which to fall. But what a glorious place for a young boy to play! Here in the old tobacco shed we walked along the rafters 20 feet above hard-packed earth to inspect the nests of pigeons and barn swallows. We suspended a rope from one of those rafters and swung in a long are, taking turns as Tarzan. Here in the cow barn, we scampered up and down the foot-worn vertical ladder to the loft. We actually tested “head-entrapment risks on ourselves: the stanchions meant to keep the cows in their places. That the environments of our schoolyard and my father's property never seriously injured (and certainly never killed) any of us would not have mattered to the CPSC. Both would have been declared child-hazard disaster areas. At school, we would have been given a perfectly safe, padded, and extremely dull play area. We would have been protected from the laws of physics and the consequences of making wrong choices. We also would have been protected from learning about the world around us. We never have found a monarch butterfly chrysalis on a weed among those dangerous rocks. We never would have brought it into the schoolroom to be kept in a jar and inspected daily until the butterfly emerged. We never would have felt a strange, almost spiritual lightness of the soul, when we set it free and it fluttered across the road to explore its own big, new world. We never would have gathered the acorns that fell from the black oaks and learned that although they might be great food for squirrels, as a snack
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for people they are too bitter. If the CPSC could have kept us safely inside our houses at home, we never would have learned at first-hand the difference between a pigeon's nest and a barn swallow's, nor the difference between their eggs. We never would have learned that hard-packed earth is indeed hard, and that one should avoid falling onto it from any height. We never would have decided that since cows spend a lot of time with their heads in stanchions, being a person is preferable. Without the CPSC to protect us, we learned many things about our environment and about ourselves. Perhaps the most important lesson we learned is that no one can watch out for you better than you can. It's your responsibility to keep out of harm's way. If you get hurt, it's your own fault. The universe was not created with human safety in mind. Rocks are hard; trees don't have
CPSC-sanctioned “shock-resistant” cushions beneath them; our bodies are soft and easily cut, bruised, and scraped; gravity dictates that if you go up and slip, you're going to come down. You learn these things as a child; you must learn these things as a child or risk becoming a disappointed, ineffectual, quick-to-sue adult. But such personal responsibility is not popular today. If you fall from a ladder, you're urged to sue the ladder manufacturer (even if you did set it at the wrong angle), the maker of the flooring you hit (it should have been softer), and maybe even the maker of the shoes you were wearing (they should have had a prominent warning label: “Not To Be Used On Ladders”). There is one small problem with these lawsuits: They go after the wrong people. If you get hurt, why not sue the one defendant who's really the cause of it all? Why not sue God?
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On the Road, Okie Style In none of our United States are the majority of the drivers perfect. One must learn the local unwritten rules of the road as quickly as possible or court annihilation. In Oklahoma, the drivers drive with abandon: They abandon good sense, courtesy, and the much-touted Okie friendliness. I've finally unraveled the complexities of Oklahoma's unwritten rules of the road. For those of you who are new to Oklahoma, learn these rules quickly or die. Natives and naturalized Oklahoma citizens needn't read them. They are already second nature. Stop Signs: 'STOP' is an acronym for 'Stomp The Old (Accelerator) Pedal.' It does not mean you are to bring your vehicle to a halt. If you do stop, the driver behind you will use his horn to remind you of the sign's true meaning. Yield Signs: These are the true stop signs, especially if they appear at the entrance ramp to a limited-access (Interstate) highway. Always come to a complete stop, whatever the circumstances. Divided Highways and Interstates: 1. Locations for mass insanity in Oklahoma. 2. Never speed up and certainly never slow down to allow another car into your lane, particularly if the other car is entering from an entrance ramp or an acceleration lane. 3. Never watch ahead for traffic conditions. You can always suddenly change lanes or stomp on the brakes. Turning: 1. Always signal your turns no sooner than when you begin turning your steering wheel. 2. Always make shallow, sweeping turns. It's the other guy's duty to watch out for you. 3. When turning against oncoming traffic, wait until you can cut right in front of someone and scare the bejesus out of them. Patience: This virtue has no place in traffic. Honk and cuss at people who are driving at the
speed limit, who are abiding by the written rules of the road, and who don't take chances at stop signs and when making turns. After all, you're the most important person on the road, and you're in a hurry to get to the store a half-block farther on. Pedestrians: The only persons who don't drive cars wherever they go, whatever the distance, are Commies, fags, health nuts, and Yankees. All of these are fair game for the true Okie driver. See if you can get close enough to take some skin from an arm or thigh without breaking any bones. Always honk and cuss at pedestrians who are crossing the street legally in a crosswalk if you want to make a turn into that street. After all, if God had intended people to walk he wouldn't have invented Henry Ford. Bicycles: The rules for pedestrians apply equally to bicyclists. Turn Signals: The turn-signal lever on the steering column was designed by Detroit as a handy hanger for spare keys. It has no other utilitarian purpose. Speed Limit Signs: Make-work projects for the transportation department workers. Can be safely ignored. If other drivers do not ignore them, honk and cuss at them. At the very least, tailgate them so they get the message. Traffic Signals: The amber light means go faster. Never stop, even if you know the light will turn red before you get to the intersection. The red light means stop if a car is already stopped in front of you. Maybe. Red lights are a test of courage. You are not a true Okie driver until you've run three red lights in a single month. Tailgating: 1. A method of showing your displeasure at the slowpoke in front of you. 2. The natural way to drive. If the guy in front of you stops suddenly, that's okay; his car will be dented, too.
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Future Shock? Only If It Talks Some years ago, when there was still a Ma Bell, one of its companies announced it was going to start charging for calls to directory assistance. When asked about the effect of this policy on the blind, the Bell people said they had that little problem all figured out. To avoid charges for directory assistance, all the blind person had to do was to go to their offices downtown and fill out a form. Now, just who's going to fill out the form? The dog? These types of announcements--of problems “solved” by people who don't think them through and of problems “solved” that aren't problems--are too frequent these days. The technocrats, being so intent on producing wonders, ignore the effects of these wonders on humans. The unwary citizen is thwacked over the head with a change or innovation nearly every day, and we're all getting a little dizzy from it. One of the latest is the new plaything of a local bank. It's a talking automatic teller machine. According to the newspaper account about this wonderful advance in banking, “The talking tellers help customers make their transaction, reinforcing printed instructions on the screen.” In one way, this business of “reinforcing printed instructions on the screen” reminds me of another great service to the blind: The automatic teller machines at drive-up installations that have instructions on the panel in Braille. Who's driving? The dog again? In another way, this “reinforcing printed instructions” business gives me a tic in the corner of my good eye. I can imagine what might happen: Machine: Press red button to raise glass panel. I press red button. Panel raises. Above the slot into which I'm to slip my Magic Money Card is a simple line drawing of the card and the printed instructions: “Insert card as shown in diagram.
The machine reinforces these printed instructions by saying, “Insert card as shown in diagram. So I do. It comes back out. The slot didn't like the way the card tasted. Machine: “Insert card as in diagram. I insert it. It comes back out again. Machine: “Look, dummy! Can't you understand plain English? Hold the card with its brown strip up and to your left, and then stick it into the slot. Now, that's reinforcement! It might not really work that way. I don't know and I don't want to find out. It's not my bank, anyway. I do know that I'll forever keep my distance from any machine that talks to people. At least, I'll try to. But experience has taught me that once an innovation like this gains a toehold, it will spread. What's next? Refrigerator doors that remind you of your diet. Typewriters that tell you that you, not itself, just misspelled word. Front doors that tell you (and your supposedly sleeping spouse) in a loud voice that it's three in the a.m. and you should have been home hours ago. Chairs that comment on your posture. Clothes washers that moan if overloaded. Cash registers that proclaim, Don't blame me! It's the Democrats/Republicans! I suppose I'll try to absorb the talking-machine innovation, as I've tried to accept UPC codes messing up the aesthetics of packaging, plastic automobile parts in the drive train, and simulated walnut grain. But it won't take much for me to turn into a back-to-the-lander. All it'll take is for my socks to tell me they need laundering, and I'm heading for the hills, rucksack on my back and portable TV in hand.
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How to Annoy a Groundhog It all started with a phone call from my editor. “Charles,” she said, “I want you to interview a groundhog for the Groundhog Day edition.” I inspected the telephone handset for abnormalities. Finding none, I brought it gingerly back to my ear, and told her, “You've been rolling your own from the little bag in the art director's desk, haven't you? And speaking of bags, have you counted the marbles in yours?” “Charles!” (Miss Putnam of the second grade used to talk to me like that. Makes my scalp twitch.) “I'm serious. It would be a first! No one's ever interviewed a groundhog before!” “There might be one or two good reasons for that.” “I know. They're as press-shy as Garbo. If you pull it off, you could win a Pulitzer!” “Or an all-expense-paid vacation at the Rubber Room Resort.” “Or...,” and she named a nice sum of money. “Okay. I'll do it,” I said. “That's enough to pay for crayons and blunt objects for a year or two.” Being reasonably certain that a telephone interview was out of the question, I packed up my tape recorder and notebook and went to Martin Park. The cold weather must have frozen the tape recorder, since the tape contains only weird hissing noises (or maybe Rose Mary Woods sneaked into my office). But I have a reasonably good memory, and here's what happened. As I wended my way down a faint trail in the park, someone behind me shouted, “Hey, Mac! Watch where you're going!” I turned. A large brown rodent was sitting before a burrow, brushing dirt clods from its pelt.
“Clumsy human, “ he muttered. “Caved my living room in on me!” “Sorry. Er--Do you know where I can find a groundhog?” “Typical human, “ he replied scornfully, “What do I look like? A tree stump? Probably thought I was a gopher, didn't you? Little kid last summer saw me, said, 'Daddy! Looka the big rat!' Daddy said, 'That's not a rat, son. See the hairy tail? That's a pocket gopher.'” The groundhog stood to his full height and screeched, “You see any pockets on me?” He went back to all fours and used a hind paw to scratch vigorously. “Stupid humans. And you reporters are the worst. Tape recorders and notebooks and you still can't get things straight. And don't go blaming your editor, like the guy this morning did.” “This morning! Another reporter? “ (Bye-bye, Pulitzer!) “Too right! Three, four interview me every year, but do they print a word I say? No. I tell 'em the truth and they write something cute, instead.” “What is the truth?” He eyed me skeptically. “Promise to print it?” I nodded emphatically. (Hello, again, Pulitzer!) “Okay, “ he said. “We groundhogs (I prefer the term “woodchuck, not as swinish sounding-don't get me wrong, a lot of my best friends are swine, like yours are, no doubt)--anyway, we woodchucks take a long nap during the winter. Getting up on February Second is like a human getting up at four in the A.M. And to have to go outside--well! “But we woodchucks have a sense of responsibility (something you humans could work on). Anyway, this distant ancestor had
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insomnia. Couldn't sleep more than two, three weeks at a stretch. Went outside one February Second, stood on the front porch for a while for a breath of air, and went back to bed. “Some dumb human saw him and drew the wrong conclusion (typical human trait, drawing whole theories from single events). But we have this sense of responsibility, so we all get up every February Second to go through the charade. We can't forecast the weather any better than you humans can.”
I said, “Why get up at all, then?” “Ever see what happens to an animal that displeases humans?” “You might have a point, “ I conceded. “I do. “ He waddled back to his burrow and disappeared underground. So, here it is for the first time: the bald, unvarnished truth about Groundhog Day right from the woodchuck's mouth. Send me my Pulitzer quick! I deserve it! I do deserve it, don't I, Doctor?
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I'll Get Rid of the Repressed Rage As Soon As I Find It Men are in pitiable shape, today, say the experts. We males have all this repressed rage against our fathers and it prevents us from caring, from loving, from being nice like women are. Well, that's what the experts say. The experts who never heard of Indira Ghandi or Mary Queen of Scots or Eva Peron. One of these historically disadvantaged experts tells us men should beat up on a pillow with a baseball bat while (his words) “in a group of men who support and confront one another. Ideally, the client will continue to beat the pillow until he works through his rage and can tap into his underlying feelings--grief, sadness, and helplessness. When the client completes the work, he has had a cathartic experience.” Ideally I'm not about to get anywhere near a group of men (or women, for that matter) who are “confronting one another” while hefting baseball bats. And catharsis? Isn't that what happens when you stick your finger down your throat? The idea stuck in my mind after I read the article, though. Maybe I do have some repressed rage planted by my father. I thought, maybe I should beat up on a pillow. I wouldn't want to have any repressed rage against the “old man.” I like him too much. I don't own a baseball bat, but my neighbor Sam, who lives below me, is a sports fanatic. He'd have one. So I went downstairs to borrow it. “What,” asked Sam, when I told him what I wanted, “do you want with a baseball bat? You're about as athletic as moss.” “I'm going to beat up on a pillow.” “What did the pillow do to you?” “It's not what the pillow did. It's what my father did.” “Why don't you beat up on your father, then?” “I like him. But this expert says he planted all sorts of grief and rage and helplessness inside me,
and if I want to get rid of it I have to beat up a pillow with a baseball bat. Then I'll have a cathartic experience.” “You mean you wanna throw up?” I glared at him. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I'll lend you the bat. If I can watch.” I dithered. He'd probably make some snide comment about my batting stance. But I didn't have a bat, and he did. “All right,” I said. “But don't make any snide comments about my batting stance.” “Perish the thought.” He got his bat and we went up to my apartment. “Don't mind the mess,” I said as I led the way into my bedroom.” “I wouldn't call it a mess, exactly,” he said kindly. “But where's the bed?” “Funny. Give me the bat.” I stood at the side of the bed and whacked the pillow. I didn't feel any kind of relief, much less a cathartic experience. “Hey! “ said Sam. “What?” “It's not very sportsmanlike, hitting a pillow when it's down.” “Was that a pun?” “Here. “ He picked the pillow up by the “Do Not Remove Under Penalty Of Law tag and held it out at arm's length. “Now take a good swing at it.” I took a good swing at it, and it flew out of his hand and against the wall. The tag was still in Sam's hand. “Uh-oh,” he said, shaking his head. “The pillow-tag police are gonna getcha now, for sure!” “Shut up. Let's do it again. I don't feel anything yet.” Sam retrieved the pillow and held it up by a corner.” “This time,” I said, “I'm really going to pop it one!” I wound up and tried to dredge up some repressed rage. “Okay, Dad...” I swung mightily.
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“Take that!” The pillow exploded. Feathers drifted in a great cloud. “Ho, ho!” said Sam. “The pillow is down. Down and out for the count!” I handed the bat to him. “It doesn't work,” I said, sadly. “I still have feelings of grief and rage.” “You do?”
“Yes. I'm grieving over ruining a thirty-dollar pillow and I'm raging at myself for doing it.” “What about your father?” “He didn't have anything to do with it. And I still like him.”
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The Smoker Is Dead! Long Live the Smoker! It's 9 a.m. on a Saturday some years hence in Washington, D.C. The president addresses an emergency meeting of her closest advisors. “We have a dire crisis on our hands, “ she says. “Two hours ago, the last cigarette smoker, a woman in Michigan, died.” “Lung cancer?” asks Advisor One hopefully. “She slipped in the tub.” “Too bad. Lung cancer would have been better. Serve her right for spreading all that second-hand smoke around.” “Right!” agrees Advisor Two. “She should have suffered!” “Well,” says the president. “She didn't. She's dead, and there goes the $5,000-per-pack tax we've been getting from her to pay for our health programs.” “This is a dire crisis!” says Advisor One. “What are we going to do? What can we do?” asks Advisor Two. “Simple,” says the president. “The purpose of government is not to govern; it's to tax. Therefore, we have to tax something else to pay for the programs we've made the citizens think they need.” “It should be health-related, of course,” says Advisor One. “Health is the easiest idea to sell.” “And it should be something lots of people can feel moral about,” says Advisor Two. “Or something we could make lots of people feel moral about.” “And, “ adds Advisor One, “it should be something we can turn into a simple-minded slogan that will fit on a bumper sticker.” “That gives me an idea! “ shouts Advisor Two. “Why don't we put a tax on bumper stickers with simple-minded slogans on them?” The president's voice turned to ice. “I was elected because of my bumper stickers and the simple-minded slogans on them.”
“Well...,” says Advisor One, “The point is we've got to come up with something related to health.” He drums his fingers on the table. “Health, health, health....” Advisor Two drums her fingers and joins in the mantra chanting: “Moral, moral, moral....” “Now, remember, “ the president warns, “the thing we tax doesn't have to be directly related to what the money is used for. California put a tax on cigarettes to pay for breast cancer research, but there's no proven connection.” Advisor One breaks off his chanting. “But how is California going to pay for their breast cancer research now that no one is smoking?” “They're not, because they're not going to get any more money,” says the president. “And the breast cancer rate isn't going down any. And,” she said in italics, “We're not going to get any more money, either, unless we can come up with something to tax that affects only a minority.” “Got it!” shouts Advisor One. “Let's legalize all the drugs that are illegal and put a big tax on them!” “Short-term relief,” says the president. “We did that with cigarettes, remember? And everyone quit smoking. We don't want that to happen again. Besides, it would put the Drug Enforcement Administration out of business, and I don't want them on my case.” The meeting went on for several more hours. They considered salt because of high blood pressure, coffee because of heart murmurs, candy because of tooth decay and obesity, fast food hamburgers because of E. coli--all the things they could think of that people put into their bodies in one way or another. None of them quite fit the bill, because not enough people put those things into their bodies. The country's citizens had become just what previous administrations and specialinterest groups had wanted them to become: healthy, vice-less, mindless sheep. Finally the president said, “Let's sleep on it.
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There's got to be something we can tax and be heroes for doing it!” Advisor Two wailed, “Why did that smoker have to die? Everyone had a fine time hating her and gouging her for money. Now who can we hate and gouge?”
Advisor One reflected. “Maybe we should just start a war. Then we can all hate a whole group of people just because they're not Americans or something. It's a lot easier, and it will boost the economy. It might be the answer. This enforced morality is turning into a two-edged sword!”
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Watt Sine? I Dint See No Sine! We are a Nation at Risk, we're told. A country of functional illiterates. Every third American can't balance a checkbook or read a road sign or spout the atomic number of potassium. This crisis has led to a number of self-help programs. One of the more prominent is one called Hooked on Phonics. This literacy (illiteracy?) program teaches a person to read by “sounding out” letters and combinations of letters. It's magic, say its proponents (that is, the people who are selling it). It's immaterial to them that “phonics” has been proven a dismal failure in the public schools and is one of the reasons for the great number of people who cannot read (just try spelling “phonetically” phonetically!). Most interesting is this program's advertising. We're told we can get information about it by just dialing 1-800ABCDEFG. What a wonderful idea! Now, if I'm illiterate, just how am I going to dial that “number?” By sounding it out phonetically, I suppose. I sincerely doubt that the illiteracy problem is as widespread as the doomsayers and the phonetic-program hucksters make it out to be. The people on whose tests they base their conclusions are probably making mistakes purposely. These people don't want anyone to know they really can read. They want some leeway in case they're caught doing something they're not supposed to do. The reason for this is simple: Many signs, just like laws and contracts, are made to be ignored. Go to any state park anywhere in the country. You will see a number of signs that forbid firearms on the premises. These signs are riddled with bullet holes. Another example is the “10 Items or Less -Cash Only -- No Checks -- No Coupons” checkout at the grocery store. Here's how this last one works in real life: You're third in line, toting just a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. The person being “checked out” is a behemoth female sporting pink plastic curlers in her hair and a muumuu two sizes too
small squeezed over her body. This woman has a whole basketful of candy bars, cookies, corn chips, chip dip, and other Couch Potato staples. The checkout clerk, no doubt stunned by the sight of this apparition, is ignoring the fact that this person has 10 times 10 items in the cart. She starts running the various items across the barcode scanner. There is one item the scanner doesn't want to recognize. Instead of giving it to Pink Muu-Muu for free, which she should do, she looks all over the package for a price sticker. Naturally, in this day of barcode scanners, which save all of us so much time, there isn't one. She picks up a phone handset. “Price check on Three, please.” She scans other items. When she comes to a 32ounce of macho cheese dip, Pink Muu-Muu says, “I have a coupon for that.” She digs through her purse and in the short span of 30 minutes or so finds it and hands it over. The checkout clerk says, “It's for the wrong size.” “But I want that size!” “I can't do it.” The clerk turns to the bag boy. “Go get the 12-ounce size.” He ambles off and the clerk continues scanning the other items. A harried-looking man wearing a thin and poorly knotted tie comes up. He is wiping peach juice from his chin. The clerk hands the mysteryprice item to him. He hurries off. The clerk finishes scanning the thousand or so items Pink Muu-Muu can't live without, and everyone waits for the bag boy and Necktie to return. The bag boy finally returns. “We're out of that size.” The clerk says to Pink Muu-Muu, “I'll give you a rain check.” She fills out a form and hands it over. Necktie runs up. “Thirty-nine cents,” he says, and hurries back to the warehouse to resume eating his peach. The clerk enters that amount and pushes the
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Grand Total button on the cash register. “Two thousand, thirty-two fifty-nine,” she announces. Pink Muu-Muu digs around in her purse again and hauls out a checkbook. Some more digging yields a ballpoint pen. She licks its point. “What's the date?” she asks. “April fourth.” “Who do I make it out to?” “Ralphs.” “How do you spell that?” (She's a 1-800ABCDEFG graduate.) “R-A-L-P-H-S. No apostrophe.” Pink Muu-Muu licks the pen point again. “RA-L-P-H-S-N-O... How do you spell 'apostrophe'?” (She's a 1-800-ABCDEFG graduate cum laude!)
The check finally written, the clerk asks for Pink Muu-Muu's driver's license and a major credit card (what's a minor credit card?). You wait for more purse mining and for the clerk to write several hundred numbers on the face of the check, filling all the blank space. Now she lifts the phone and says, “Check okay on Three, please.” Five minutes later, Necktie shows up. There are wet spots on his tie. He glances at Pink Muu-Muu, glances at the clerk, initials the check, and goes back to the warehouse to eat something else. The clerk pushes some buttons, and Pink MuuMuu waddles off, pushing her cart of goodies before her. As she departs, she glances back and smirks at all of you sign-abiding citizens.
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