Family Nagging, Badgering

Part 11 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I’ve always treasured the love and understanding of grandparents. They’re different from your parents, not quite as strict, but strict enough to give you plausible deniability in spite of their various indiscretions of leniency. You’re staying with them, you get home late, and they pretend to be asleep as you crawl through the window, huffing and puffing from someone’s father chasing you across town, then honking his horn for an hour challenging you to come out for a duel.

The next morning at the breakfast table there’s not a word about it. Just Grandpa demurely saying he has a few bullet holes on the house to patch up, no big deal. They pass the eggs and give you nothing but the look of love and pride as you stuff your mouth and stow the rest in your jacket pocket before dashing out of the house to god knows where. “That’s my boy,” I imagine them saying, “he’s going to sire a lot of babies and make sure our family name lives forever.”

Not a chance in hell, of course. He could never find anyone to answer the question appropriately, “Who gives this woman to be this man’s bride?” And even if he did there’s always the question about someone with a reason why they should not be joined together. And if no one else speaks up he has enough ventriloquist talents to fake an objection from somewhere in the room. "She got me that close just to be unceremoniously dumped at the altar..."

The wise and restless spirit of man knows he can’t be tied down to any one person for more than a day or hour. Hence the constant cheating that goes on everyday, making a sad mockery of the vows wedding guests think are sincere and meaningful. And if partners to cheat with are absent -- the sad aftermath of nuclear wars and pesky attacks -- there’s always self-abuse, forever one’s truest devotion in the face of ever-present enemies and family hangers-on and their whole selfish approach to family, the nagging attachment that has a tight grip.

This grandpa’s certainly the wisest most lenient grandpa I’ve heard of, even in the face of knowing that their grandson Jim can hardly wait to get out of their sight to spill his seed somewhere else, who cares where? Indeed, Jim thinks, "I'm a man of the world. I can't stand to be tied down. I could spring into action at any moment. These guys are cramping my style, the old folks of home." He's dying for a wild session of self-abuse but somewhere else is preferable. On an infestation of thistles, on broken glass, somewhere like that where he'd be alone in nature. “Get me out of here,” he whispers to himself, even as Grandpa offers the solitude and freedom of the bathroom, presumably for as long as it takes, which would mean the rest of the family sitting all day in the living room, stoved up, turning blue with backup, while he idled his way through the underwear section of an old Sears catalog.

Yes, we’re all blessed with family. Whether they themselves were an accident or actually wanted, no one remembers the full story. Those secrets were taken to the grave long ago. But if we had to guess, they would've been just as content if we’d never been born.

The Government Is Coming!

Now we all know the full extent of the government's snooping program. They felt it wasn't something we should know, and since we democratically elected them, and they serve the people, with the people being their bosses, it seems only right that we should've had to learn it by underhanded means. Whether the information will do us any good is still to be determined.

Many, of course, are unhappy that they've been doing it at all. As we know, though, many are simply unhappy people and are never satisfied with anything in life. Others normally have a happier outlook and so their unhappiness is a little more legitimate. I fall somewhere in the middle: I'm sometimes unhappy and sometimes happy, so I can see both sides. And on this issue, I'm a little on each side. It doesn't seem like it needs to be secret entirely. What kind of terrorists are we protecting ourselves from? Are they so innocent that they don't know we're even slightly devious?

Most of us are happy when there aren't terrorist attacks. That's the justification for all this. On that subject, though, there's a couple different ways to look at it. Which we were saying in the Bush years when all this bullshit was going down. 1) Are we willing to give up all our liberties and privacy over the miniscule chance that any one of us would be the victim of a terrorist attack? You have a better chance of dying from secondhand smoke from three counties away. We ought to be following the Cheney Doctrine, if there's only a 1% chance secondhand smoke from three counties away is going to kill us, we ought to be building a big wall and installing fans. 2) Can't they just kill the terrorists and leave the rest of us alone? Or maybe make a more wonderful world where people don't become terrorists? Like in the Tao Te Ching.

Personally, I see it as overkill, needing the complete records of all of us, just like it's overkill to strip search grannies at the airport. They've been perfectly normal, harmless people all their lives. They have no criminal record, they haven't done time. Their friendships are mostly with other members of the Doily Club. The idea that they should suddenly be strip-searched, and given this potential thrill in their lives that late in life, might be bad for their heart. Then the government would have blood on their hands, not that it's bothered them thus far.

Take me, though. A strip-search now and then would probably do me good. I've honestly never carried contraband or presented a second of harm to anyone in my life, but you never can be too sure. I feel shifty sometimes, that normal malaise the daily battles of life gives, I carry a certain amount of existential guilt, thanks mostly to my religious upbringing, and that extra punishment, the strip search might be redemptive, depending on how far it goes. Go far enough -- one drop of blood -- and I could redeem the whole world! IHS. Then 2,000 years from now, an unknown citizen -- we'll call him Walt -- will be testifying in church, at that point held under bombed-out interstate bridges: "The Grandma Slump guy was thinking about me. Had I been the only sinner in the world, He would've died for me." The imagination of people runs wild. And the imagination of Saviors.

Then once the whole world is redeemed, we won't have to worry about terrorists. That's the idea, anyway. But how to get everyone to accept the redemptive work (1), then to live 24/7 in the light given them (2), means we're going to need a whole new missionary emphasis. We'll be sending missionaries to the ends of the earth, meaning terrorists will be coming out of the woodwork, confessing their sins and accepting the new grace. Whatever phone records the NSA missed, the redeemed will present in hand, detailed printouts, of how, yes, indeed, they did conspire with my Grandma to blow up the World Trade Center, meaning the surveillance on her was justified all along. Turns out my whole family was involved, from Cousin Roto scheduling flight school classes in the barn to my blind Cousin Connie (a man) hiding Mohammed Atta in the outhouse. Guilty as charged!

Part of the complaint we the public have about government snooping is how secure our personal information is. They assure us it's perfectly safe. No one's looking into it. No one, that is, except this one guy, a lone wolf, who managed to download everything they have without anyone noticing. Not only that, but he was able to flee to Hong Kong. Sounds secure! With all the logistics the guy needed to do it, I'm suspecting UPS. (I wouldn't have the first idea how to flee to Hong Kong, let alone what I'd do once I got there!) The fact that our government had someone in their midst like that alone means heads should roll. How the top man still happens to have his job -- assuming he is a man -- is beyond me. We should examine some of his phone-computer records. Was he playing Farmville on the job? While the fox was in the chicken house, was he in the barn rolling in the hay?

It's a Hogan's Heroes moment. "No one has ever escaped Stalag 13! I know nothing, I see nothing!" Yes, I have all the information in the world at my fingertips, but still this one guy was able to steal the whole store. Wouldn't you think they've have some sort of software good enough to detect massive downloading? I think I'm more pissed about that than anything else. If they're so incompetent at oversight, how is it they're fully engaged at the switch protecting us from terrorists? While this guy was on the phone arranging the logistics of his world travels with UPS, why wasn't anyone noticing? Someone needs to order something from Amazon. I know the only time I never see a UPS truck is when I'm expecting something.

The lesson for the rest of us is to flee now! We're governed by incompetents! They can't even keep track of the people working for them. What do you mean Ed's in Hong Kong? I thought I just saw him in the hall! We could be safe from terrorists if the government wasn't asleep at the switch. Maybe we need to get George Bush back. He was stupid and looked it, so we had no temptation to trust his sorry ass.

Things You Can Still Do Without The Government Knowing

What in the fark was I doing losing it anyway? Except that 9/11 happened, everyone (you know the sort) got frightened, at at least pretended to, and next time you went to open a savings account you were treated like a terrorist. Because if one person in a cave (we thought) in Afghanistan was a terrorist, maybe we all were. It got so bad we even had various litmus tests. I went to a gas station where they wouldn't sell you fries if you asked for French fries. Seriously.

Now, in the last few weeks, there's been revelations that all our phone records are a matter of top secret information-gathering on the part of the government. I wasn't shocked. I thought that was happening already, that and more. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't put past them. And when that's true, just let your imagination run wild. Certainly we know our every move is tracked or traceable, with video cameras everywhere, the trail of cell phones, internet usage, ebooks, cloud drives, bank withdrawals, etc. And even if it's not the "government" doing it, we know they have instant access to it any time they want, as in, and legitimately so, the Boston bombing.

So, alas, those were the good old days, those thrilling days of yesteryear, back when we went around pretty much without a trace. No cell phone. If you were a block from home you might be anywhere. The only video cameras were the ones Action News used, which you never saw. And so forth.

But surely -- you gotta be kidding me -- there have to still be things you could do without the government knowing. Although, if you're willing to toss in informants everywhere, heat-seeking devices (like in Boston), and various bugs, it looks like it's getting pretty tough. So we'll say these are things you could still do without the government necessarily knowing.

Library book sale -- Of course if the government wanted you to know if you went to the library book sale, that'd be easy. You traveled public roads and paid with a debit card. But they don't necessarily know what you bought. There's a couple of checkout ladies, who seem fairly nosy about what you've got, but they're being more friendly than anything. You could buy something from this checkout lady, then something from that one, etc., until you worked your way through the whole box.

Silent prayer in the garage -- Silent prayer is always best anywhere. It's closer to actual meditation, closer from making a production of things before the Divine. Who are you trying to impress? My thought is, naturally the house is bugged, if anything is. But they don't know you're going to be in the garage. Then if you do choose to pray silently there's really nothing for a bug to pick up. I don't know of any current technology that picks up silent prayer. How God manages it? God's the ultimate snoop, I guess.

Drink coffee at coffee places after paying with change -- Again, you're on video getting there. And you might have bugs in your clothes. And your money might be marked. But it's conceivable that you could go to a coffee place, let's say with change. Dollar bills have serial numbers, change doesn't. Who you meet there could be dicey. Personally, I wouldn't meet anyone. They might be informants. And the coffee lady, she might be one. Drinking coffee at home might be safer. If you must go out, drink it as fast as possible and get the hell out.

Dreaming -- It's obvious. This is like silent prayer. They're not going to know what you're dreaming. Unless you're stupid enough to write it in a Dream Journal, which New Age magazines suspiciously always give away as subscriber premiums. Hmm. As for me, I dream a lot but I don't remember them clearly after the first few waking moments. I met a guy a few weeks ago who said he never dreams, which I take to be either an outright lie or he's mistaken. Now, though, on reflection, I'm thinking maybe he thought I was an informant.

Listen to music -- I'm putting this on the list even though I know it's tricky. You will need an old fashioned CD player. Even a record player won't do, because the vibrating stylus is easy to bug. Your player can't have Bluetooth either. And your ear-buds have to be completely inserted, no gaps. Then you'll need to play it at the absolute minimal volume. Of course, any MP3 is encoded with identifying information, especially if you're getting it off a Cloud source. The best recommendation here is to be discrete and to avoid guilty pleasures, just in case.

Picking your nose on a boat -- If you're on an open boat, thanks to telescopes, it wouldn't even be a matter of privacy to pick your nose and toss it to the fish. They might even see the very minimal ripple on the water and charge you with littering. But if you had a houseboat, you could go inside, allowing for all the usual rules of bugging and video devices perhaps being present, turn out the lights, pretend you were silently praying, then pick your nose and palm it. Then, with the appearance of washing something off your hand, you let it go, and the fish get it. If the fish shows up at the shore, opening its mouth with the picking on its tongue, bearing witness to a game warden, you're on your own! I used to go fishing with Grandpa, who had the greatest luck by merely farting on his bait. But Grandpa lived in a different era, when you could get away with that. Thanks to the Patriot Act and the NSA, I've quit farting all together.

Visit my blog -- No, you can't visit this blog without leaving a trail. They know you've been here, and obviously I know you've been here. You know that little camera on your computer? That's right, straighten your hair a bit ... what a mess. Why look so quizzical? I can see your hair and everything else. Including the old Sitting Bull poster on your wall and that stack of erotica on the shelf. You've been a bad boy. You've offended my sensibilities...I'll be reporting you. Sitting Bull, wasn't he an enemy of the U.S. Government in his day? You don't think they've forgotten, do you? Now you're palling around with him! And as for the erotica, we know what that's all about. There's a heat-detecting sensor built into your bed. And they've charted some interesting heating/cooling cycles when you're in bed, right before you're dreaming and "forgetting" your dreams. You're busted!