Neglectful In Negligee

 

No. 10 of 30 -- Speaking Ill of The Dead

I don’t care who you are, a two-bit hustling chick on the sidewalk or Mrs. Worthington herself (!), the self-absorbed heiress killed a few years ago, it pays to maintain at least a passing awareness of your surroundings. You're looking in a mirror at your great beauty, maybe also think, "How am I going to maintain my beauty if an idiot rushes in with a knife?"

We know well these days -- I've known it since the time I peed my pants in 4th grade -- anything can happen to anyone at any time. I like the example of chipmunks, which you don’t see very often. There's a good reason for that; they had the good sense to move to the wilderness for self preservation. When we used to see them they were constantly on the lookout. Are any predators nearby? They’d duck in their hole. Kids passing through? Down they went. Sometimes I find myself a little neglectful. I’m walking the dog and there’s a close call, someone squealing their tires around the corner too fast and they just miss me. But usually I'm very alert, like a chipmunk.

When Mrs. Worthington was killed, no judge or jury could ask her if she was in any way to blame. No, of course not, she would've said, it was all the fault of the gardener and his fool dog. But, really? Fool dog, idiot gardener? Is that right? I don’t think so. Yes, Corky could’ve left the dog home that day. But hindsight’s like assholes, and if you’ve ever stood behind a dog with its tail up, you know that’s true. And even if you're smarter than Corky, accidents still happen. I take my dog out and I don’t know what might happen. But at a minimum we don’t dawdle.

So look at her: Mrs. Worthington was obviously a snooty woman very self-absorbed and hence a sitting duck. It wasn't a priority, she didn't have it on her list to monitor her surroundings. Big mistake! Because being aware of your surroundings is not a contradiction of dedicated self-absorption. Just the opposite. Self-absorption demands awareness of your surroundings for purposes of validation. You’re Number One and you're going to stay that way! If riff raff's anywhere near, your mind focuses on all looming threats. But look, she even had a rear view mirror and didn't use it for her survival. Maybe she wouldn't have seen the dog, but that big lunk Corky's always big enough to detect.

So here he comes with a knife, chasing his dog! It’s Oswald all over! The threat was obvious, even the barest bones laziest half-assed security plan pieced together by blind morons or monkeys hanging upside down could've seen at a glance the security threat he posed. But no! Then there’s Corky and his dog. Corky had the right idea, chase down a security threat with his knife. He may have failed but he was still better than the entire Secret Service of the United States of America. Just not good enough to keep the dog from clawing its way up Mrs. Worthington’s gown. And the fact that he stabbed her to death, that was pure mindlessness...

Mrs. Worthington, alas, is gone. Stupid high society dunce, wasn't she? Should’ve been watching better...

The NSA and Baby Monitors

Welcome to the true nanny state, as our National Security Agency (NSA), with their great success at surveillance on all other fronts, turns its attention to the last frontier, baby monitors. These limited communication devices, usually with such innocent messages -- "Good baby," "Baby wet," and "Hey, Mom, get your butt in here!" -- can also be channels of deceit and intrigue, detrimental to national and international security.

They say kids are growing up faster all the time. We've all seen that's true. Kids shooting one another, kids blowing up schools, and of course, kid entrepreneurs buying up multinational companies and burning them to the ground for the insurance. With schools -- this is no laughing matter -- kids are developing a war mentality: "If I'm old enough to go to school, I'm old enough to vote and drink." It's a lot different from when I was a kid. If the teacher saw you with a knife, let's say, she gave you a thumbs up and we continued our mumblypeg game. But the downside was we couldn't vote or drink.

Now it appears, we're facing an even more insidious enemy, the innocent baby. Think of Vladimir Putin. Is there a bigger babyface than him on the international scene? There actually is, Kim Jong Un, but we've got him contained. That leaves Putin, who, with his KGB background has brought the old Soviet mindset to our shores in the most despicable manner possible, in our freshly-minted youngsters, fresh out of the womb, fresh into the party! Communists!

Look at the way they do it in hospitals. The babies are in a little commune behind glass, one big happy family, sharing and sharing alike, identifying themselves by party colors, pink and blue. I think I've got that right. Pink field, blue sickle in the corner. It's only right that the NSA would do their best to protect the homeland, gathering and massaging all the intelligence they can get. I know they even have a number of my calls by now, checking around as I have with various baby stores about monitors in researching this article. Some creeps google pressure cookers -- and not just Grandma -- I google baby devices. Both dangerous to do.

Anyway, we've always looked at these monitors as completely innocent, because Mom, and to a more limited degree Dad, thought they needed them to keep Junior or Princess protected. God forbid they soil themselves and they miss their immediate cry! They might have to lay in their own filth a few seconds. Seriously, my opinion, we've been babying babies far too long. We should let them experience life as it really is, tough. Lie in it, kid! Learn what Desitin's for! Of course we wouldn't let them suffer to the point of demanding the vote and liquor, just give them moderate toughness, of the right kind, American toughness.

But no, instead, by babying them various party apparatchiks have taken advantage and infiltrated the nursery, knowing the little buggers would reveal information via the monitor. "What's your father up to?" "Burning flags in the basement." "What's your mom doing?" "Something with a breast pump, sending milk to Russia and Red China, hoping to develop super warriors, that America be destroyed from within and without." God, that's insidious! Who was it who rued "The Enemy Within"? One of the Kennedys, Churchill, or some bigwig like that? They didn't expect the enemy within to be so young ... and apparently so helpless!

Then there's kids who aren't merely passive and accepting of outside schemes. There's the ones with brains -- probably reincarnated Cold Warriors -- who know where the grids are and what grids do and can be made to do. They're the ones who immediately know how to communicate via these obscure radio frequencies -- baby monitors -- the plans of a mastermind: "We'll meet at the docks. The soldiers are hiding in tuna barrels. You'll know them by their breath, smelling of fish. Get there by 8:00 p.m. Bring mayo."

I have to say, friends, I'm glad -- you don't know how glad! -- the NSA is on this. And patrolling neighborhoods all through our threatened land. Recording baby monitors and protecting democracy from future generations, hopefully never to be born.

Fangs of Hell Security Systems

There's probably people out there with actual security systems. Stands to reason. They're advertised all the time, they can't all be fake.

But I know I go plenty of places where the signs are carryovers from old companies. The subscription ran out -- one thing or another -- and all they have left are the signs. Like little shields, they're right there by the door, fading and maybe falling over. Or there's decals on all the doors, also shabby with age.

The bet is the criminals won't know which is which, protected homes from unprotected. Although it seems, the shabbier the sign, the less likely it's connected. Or, if you throw a brick through the window and nothing happens in two hours ... maybe Sasquatch is sleeping.

One of the first fake signs I ever saw was in the early '80s, at Goodwill, no less, where the sign said something like, "This store is protected by a really sensitive security system." No name, no clue as to what it might be; they could only divulge it was "really sensitive." Very primitive ... and not convincing.

I personally have the signs of about five different security companies in my yard, and, I'm not going to say if any of them are true. Although you can probably glance up at the roof and see if the sniper's there or not. There's only two sides of the house he could be on. As for my Superman sign, I'll just admit, that one's definitely fake.

My "Screen Door Has a Hook" sign is absolutely true. But it's very loose, and just a little pressure, like a three-year-old halfheartedly bumping it is all it'd take. Please, though, if you're in my neighborhood, don't try it. Sometimes I put a frozen turkey on top of the door. And I always hope I remember it when I get home.

Mister Ed, This Is Your Last Chance

I'm giving Mister Ed this last jab, then that's it, I'm moving on. I've done my part for national security, which was only my duty, and now it's up to the higher powers, the higher echelons, to bring that one trick pony home. Oh, that takes me back, really, to my days on the horse show circuit, years ago. I truly thrill to hear the exhortation of the crowds to the horseman at the end of his showing to, "Bring it home! Bring it home!" What a mad dash it is to make good time!

That's also a good message to you, Mister Ed, "Bring it home! Bring it home!" Don't you feel it, just a little, the desire to make good on your duties of citizenship, to "bring it home" and face justice here in the fields of home, with those beautiful amber waves of grain? That's such a pretty sight, driving by a farmstead, with the horses standing around, munching their way from here to the fence, and swishing their tails to ward off bugs. I love it. And I believe you love it, too, Mister Ed. Maybe a fly creeping around by your eye, and the area around the horse's eye twitching, with nicely evolved little muscles there...

My words to Mister Ed today aren't actually "jabs," so much as hoping to talk American to American, mano a mano, rider to horse, man to pony, man to beast, humanitarian to equestrian, one on one, small nose to big nose, gaining his confidence, then slipping in the bit and adjusting the rigging. Yes, he roamed far afield, to the foreign fields of Hong Kong, Moscow, and Ecuador, a lot of far flung places, where, quite frankly, I can't see why any American would have anything to gain from going to those places. I certainly wouldn't want to range that far from the old barn back home.

I love it here, Mister Ed, and I believe you could regain your love for it, too. Of course I'm sleeping good at night, with a clear conscience, no worries, nothing beyond the day to day stuff: Will there be a mouse in the trap in the morning? Did I remember to give the dog fresh water last night? Are those pork chops that were on sale three months ago getting freezer burn? I'm definitely not worrying, at least too much, whether the Navy SEALS are going to storm the compound I'm holed up in, whether I'll be waterboarded by sundown, or whether I'll ever be able to live within 2,000 feet of a national security installation, then having to have a sign in my yard, "Registered National Security Data Thief."

I know, I know, it's all "alleged" at this point. Which I respect. That's one of the greatest things about America. You get the full measure of justice, whatever you're alleged to have done. All you have to do is avoid living in Texas or some other backwards place, and everything will be fine. So you may as well give yourself up, and get it over with. Tell you what, Mister Ed. Contact me at this blog, and I'll personally lead you to the police department, so you can get this weight off your back. You don't want to be saddled with guilt all your life.

The fact of the matter is -- and I guess I'm doing a little more leaking here than I should -- is that they already know where you are, and they're just biding their time before rushing in, trying to give you one last chance to do the honorable thing. I know if you do the right thing, I'll be proud of you. And rightly proud of my own efforts to talk you down. I'm something of a horse whisperer, as the old phrase goes. I soothe, soothe, and soothe, then gently work the bit in and the halter on, then BAM -- You're in the paddock, in the barn, in the pen -- clouds so swift, the rain comin' in, you ain't a'goin' nowhere, Mister Ed!

One last thing, lest anyone think Mister Ed is solely to blame for this national security fiasco. No, there's other horses in this race. He didn't just saunter in there and fill his saddlebag with 2 million documents without someone else being complicit, even if complicity is only measured in incompetence and lack of oversight. I remember many instances of dealing with government employees. They were sticklers for the rules. They wouldn't fudge on this form, this form, or this form, regardless of what common sense said. "You need this form of ID, this paper, and these records. Nothing less will do." But when Mister Ed was busy emptying out the mow, where was the thoroughness? Clearly, they were in their own stalls, dozing. Don't wake us when you're done...[snoring].

One more chance, Mister Ed, that's what you go, it's time to come home. Think how pleasant that journey will actually be. I know when we used to go horseback riding, ha ha, the horses were so used to the paths we took, they hated it. You had them going down the path, away from the barn, at a snail's pace. It took forever to get anywhere. But just you dare -- hope you're never this unlucky -- to get their nose pointed to the barn, then ... Whoa, Nellie ... they were deaf, differently advantaged as to hearing, there was no restraint. They zeroed in on the barn like a laser, and you were off at the same speed. I remember a limb coming at me at 60 mph, which could've taken my head off!

Please think of that, Mister Ed. Give yourself up, and come home.

Surrender, Mister Ed!

I was absolutely besieged with well-wishers and others singing my praises yesterday for my post, "We Got Bin Laden, We'll Get Mister Ed." I'm actually a little tired today because I didn't get much sleep last night. Readers from many time zones around the world kept me up. It was exhausting, but also very gratifying. It meant a lot to me.

And, I had to chuckle, there were even a few readers from Hong Kong, Moscow, and Ecuador who basically wrote, saying, "Please, get him out of our country or city!" It seems like they're afraid he'll get a job in their country next, then compromise their security by too much stealing. It just goes to show, whatever your nationality and whatever your background, you're paranoid about the same things as me.

But yesterday's gone. Now it's today. So I thought, you know, maybe I'd go to the well one more time, since I love your praise. The memories of it, after all, are still clear in my mind. My right arm -- my dominant arm -- is sore from the fist pumping. But it's a pain that I enjoy, because of how I got it, by pleasing you. Does that make sense? I really think I'm on to something: All I have to do is find some famous scoundrel in the news and publicly take him to task. And my blog really takes off! It's sort of devious, I know ... [devilish grin].

OK --- THIS IS AN OPEN BLOG POST TO MISTER ED, MY MANE MAN. LISTEN UP, MISTER ED! LISTEN TO ME AND COME OUT, WITH YOUR HOOVES IN PLAIN SIGHT. SHAKE 'EM, LET'S SEE THOSE FETLOCKS!

Mister Ed, I know you used to read my blog. You told me so that time you downloaded every entry of every blog on the internet and put them in everyone's individual file. As you recall, I was irate. The government I could handle. But you threatened to show it to my minister, thereby threatening me with excommunication. That was despicable. But I paid you off, and after a few months, it all went away. I can only assume you still visit here occasionally, although now that you're on the run, no doubt you have only stolen moments for savoring it.

So I will be brief. Mister Ed, all horsing around aside, the time has come for you to give yourself up. Do not make them have to capture you. If you give yourself up, that will be seen as a goodwill gesture, and things will be easier for you. They might even give you greener pastures. Only, please, whatever you do, for God's sake, give yourself up before you ruin our relations with the Ecuadorans. From there the dominoes could only topple, and we'd lose Mauritania, Togo, Texas, and the tiny island nation of Podunkia.

Honestly, Mister Ed, wither or not you'd admit it, you should've known better than to have (allegedly) stolen all our national secrets, including, you bastard, my data from the NSA, detailing all my alleged misdeeds, the foremost of which would have to be my spotty calls to my mom. I know the rap: You must be a terrible son, calling as infrequently as you do. And there she sits, with several diseases, staring almost hopelessly at the phone. And I know there's some stranger stuff in my file. Like when I called Al Qaeda. I swear, my call was nothing more than to ask them how they managed to have their name start with a "Q" and it's not followed by a "U." I didn't know that was allowed. It should be Al Quaeda, like that.

But enough about me. The government actually wants to geld you for showing the vulnerabilities of the NSA, that it's apparently overseen by three monkeys, See No, Hear No, and Speak No Evil. Whether they even have locks on the doors has not been established. They might've been "locking" the place with duct tape left over from the Bush administration. For you to have carried out over 2 million documents without a hint of suspicion sounds like quite a feat. I'm thinking back to that time I ripped one measly MP3 file off a neighbor's CD at 3 o'clock in the morning in the middle of the Sahara Desert, and the FBI was right there to pick me up, staying true to their warning label.

Do I relish the fact that you're in big trouble? you're wondering. You're damned right I do! It couldn't happen to a worse guy, after how you threatened me. And all my loyal readers -- you screwed them over too! Let's just say, you're something less than a thoroughbred... OK, Mister Ed, you get the message. Give yourself up today.

Bolt Upright In The Night

Thank God for government snooping. It helps me get to sleep at night and get my rest. Let me explain.

At one time, I would be sleeping, then dreaming, with the noises of the night mixed in. A truck goes by and clunks its load on the bump in the road. It's a critical moment in my dream, and I bolt upright in the bed. I'm in a terrible sweat, breaking into one, I'm shaking, and even itching. (If I wear long johns in the summer, my legs tend to itch.)

After much stirring, I get back to sleep. Then I start dreaming about a mountain of bills. A mountain of bills, things you could never pay even were you to have a good job. I'm stewing away over it: I might lose my credit rating, my game toe might get better and I'll lose my disability, I might lose the house! I bolt upright in the bed, a horrendous sweat breaking out everywhere.

I try to sleep, but sleep doesn't come. The whole night's terror continues to drill into my mind. I'm even praying now, "God, be merciful to me, a poor sleeper." Again, I'm stewing over it in my mind, all that could happen: Burglars are very stealthy; there could already be one in the house; Underbrush, my dog, has virtually lost her hearing, she won't bark. Car thieves are out there, too. And someone might be stealing the copper from my air conditioner. I'm not even asleep but I bolt upright, then get up and go to the bathroom and change my sweaty clothes and sheets.

Back in bed, I'm worried over my health. There's a few new aches and pains everyday. But I manage to doze off. The health concerns have now morphed into a terrible dream. There's monks flagellating themselves and trying to get me to take up flagellating. I, who think flagellating is totally stupid! But they convince me, so there I am, beating myself to death with chains. It's making me dizzy, I'm passing out, I see the signs of death everywhere. My arteries are clogged, I've got scrofula, halitosis, catarrh, rheumatism, and dropsy. And to make it worse, I'm getting a bad doctor's report. The terror builds ... I bolt upright in bed.

Once I get back to sleep, everything has shifted. Now my dream is of people on my trail. They're all trying to corner me in some way. I have few options left. I'm telling morphing inquisitors -- morphing from kindly priests to horror film beasts -- "Yes, yes, I'm guilty and everyone knows it!" There's two figures, like the Spy vs. Spy characters, with big beaks, and they're leading me to a field of bubbling tar pits, where they raise knives to stab me and dispose of me still alive. I bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath, hot tar everywhere.

At this point, I really feel like I need to work on my prayer life. But none of it helps. Then I remember, "God damn it, I live in a country where security is Number 1, top of the line, grade A. The government is keeping track of everything and everyone, and that includes me. They've got eyes in the sky, eyes in the street, eyes in the hills. They know what I've done, who I've met with, and what we've planned -- all quite innocent. No one, and nothing, is going to get me. I don't have to worry about it. Thank goodness -- seriously, thank goodness -- for that kind of security, both personal and the security we enjoy as a nation.

I consider it like that, the facts, and as I do, a great warmth descends upon me. From my feet to my head and back again, I feel the warmth. It's pervasive, a great warmth even though I'm not sweating. It is comfort, a feeling of complete comfort, like being in my dear mother's arms, little footies on my feet. And a drop seat in the butt should I need it. I find myself going into that blessed stage just before sleep, and all is well. I drift happily, then, easily into full sleep. Safe and restful, sleep, sleep, sleep.

grandmaslump.com

I can't keep anything under wraps for long. The guys at Wikileaks, always revealing my secret plans for the blog, leaked it a few days ago. And now I can announce it officially as true. I have a brand new address: grandmaslump.com.

Yes, I've joined the big boys, with my very own "dot com," hopefully not just in time for the bubble to burst!

I've had my grandmaslump.blogspot.com address for quite a while, so it was a complete shock to me that grandmaslump.com was even still available. But it was!

The honest-to-God truth is maybe it wasn't available, if you know what I mean. But the government has the means to twist a few arms when they want to. So let's say some other guy had grandmaslump.com. They put pressure on him to give it up, which is only right, because it was meant for me.

You're probably wondering why I made the switch after all these years. So here's the real deal. As part of the government's push to make the homeland safe, they've been designating certain internet sites as vital to the national interest. And because I gave a couple hundred bucks in the last election cycle, and with 2012 looming, and them hoping my generosity will continue, I qualified. I am officially "vital to our national interest"!

Seriously, the Department of Homeland Security contacted me one day, offered to pay for the domain name, and after making them pass the sniff test, I accepted. Simple. And they were more than generous. It's not just for one year like I was expecting. It's for life! Isn't that something! I've got the grandmaslump.com domain forever! [I'm fist-pumping the air.]

The ironic part about it is this, that I actually think the Department of Homeland Security is by and large a lot of crap. We had 9/11, the powers that be "didn't see that one coming," so now we need an entire department just to sit around and buy people websites. LOL, it's ridiculous! Hell, one of my neighbors got his driveway graveled for nothing, just because the police occasionally turn around in it to chase a speeder. This guy's driveway is "vital to our national security"! Anything to spend money .... and keep us safe! :)

The way the Department came about, though, if memory serves, is that the Democrats proposed it, of which I am one. The Republicans were against it, then they embraced it and it took on a more Republican slant and was even promoted by them, and dare I say, exploited by them. Remember all the duct tape we bought? Someday archaeologists will be digging through a mound, come to a stash of duct tape, and immediately pin it as "post 9/11."

We had -- oh, what was that clown's name? -- that big doofus from Pennsylvania ... -- I'm drawing a blank -- oh, yeah! Tom Ridge! He was George W. Shithead's man, and he kept us busy, didn't he! The alert is red, orange, blue, chartreuse, the chart is throbbing, the thermometer's exploding at the top! Then, fortunately, the 2004 election was over, Shithead was again ensconced in the White House, and we were safe!

But by now they had all this money. So they threw it at crazy stuff. I literally saw wheelbarrows of cash being pushed down the street, with the wheelbarrows having the Department's logo on the side. They turned in to this big heavy-duty truck shop and came out with a Command Post for the local police, something like $250,000. An armor-plated Winnebago. Meaning the July 4 parade would be safe, since that's what they did with it. Parked it at the main junction, monitored the crowd, and sold cotton candy out the window.

Now, with the next election season upon us, they're cozying up to guys like me, and I can't complain. I'm happy to have my own web domain. Ten bucks a year ain't chickenfeed! And since it's for life, and let's say I live another 25 years, that's roughly ... hundreds of bucks ... Unless, and this is my biggest fear, we get another idiotic Republican president and he cuts the funding, with Obamadomains going down the tubes.

But I'm going to live for today, not for what is to come. And today I have "grandmaslump.com," giving my blog some real credibility. You realize, I hope, that yahoo.com and google.com are dotcoms just like me. Once upon a time, any schmuck could've registered google.com. Think about it. It was just sitting out there! I could've registered google.com once upon a time, then what became Google might have been grandmaslump.com. People would be looking up stuff on the internet, saying, "I grandmaslumped it!"

Today, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security -- and their tireless work protecting the Fatherland and upholding the Motherland -- you can "grandmaslump" it. Just by checking out my blog, not at the old address, although that will still work, but at the newer, better, bigger web address!