Is Susan Really A Bat?

Paranoia

Part 28 of 30

I feel like I learned something like this at the state university, although it’s been so long ago that I can’t remember the details.

There was a theory or speculation questioning whether what we see is reality in any real sense (whatever that’d be) or if the things we see are completely different, right down to shapes being utterly different, etc. If you think about it a while, it makes sense, but we’re very resistant to it because "reality" appears to be a given. Our hands feel something, we jump to conclusions. Like the story of  the blind men feeling up the elephant. He has tree trunks for legs, a necktie for a tail, and a sturdy windsock for a nose.

The theory -- a naysayer’s dream ever there was one -- is that every assumption is to be questioned, because we can’t be sure what reality is. I would’ve taken the professor on, but my vocabulary was pretty limited around smart people. But I still could’ve gone out on a limb: “Uh, professor, I notice that you express your thoughts with the same words we use. If everything is to be questioned, don’t you think you ought to come up with a vocabulary that isn’t part of the same farce? And your clothes appear to fit your body as though it’s shaped in such and such a way?” Where should the questioning begin? "What do the clothing know about your body that my eyes are missing?" OK, enough of me flaying the guy to no profit. Because I actually flunked that class because of other issues; honestly, I skipped all the tests on the theory that the tests, though required were actually not required. Which would be more true to the spirit of the class. But according to the professor -- against his previous scruples -- the tests were actual tests in the traditional sense!

Our guy in the graphic has something of that mindset going on. And probably all of us have been there a few times. It hits me occasionally, out of the blue, that I think things are the complete opposite of whatever everyone else thinks. It might be tricks with my eyes; I can’t make out what’s right in front of me. For me it's a serious side effect of paranoia. Your senses just go wacky, or perhaps they’re indeed fine tuned according to what reality really is. Even if that's the case, I’m still happier when reality goes back to its good old false self. Because I have most of the rules of that reality memorized and anything new I'm forced to "learn" I’m automatically against. If not because I can't accept its reality, but on general purposes, I'm just too mentally exhausted to accept new things.

I know I’d hate it if someone mistook me for a bat. And Susan here must be the same. “Look again, Buzz, does it really look like, does it really feel like she has a furry face like a bat and little beady eyes and a bat-cave that she returns to every night? You know where she is, right by your side, not hanging in a drizzly cave with the occasional bat flitting by.”

The Rich Shouldn't Risk Their Life

Part 22 of 30 -- Speaking Ill of The Dead

I had this idea for my Master's thesis: "The richer you are, the less you should risk your life protecting what you have." They said that was a given and the thesis not practical. I tried bullshitting them but they wouldn't budge. So I did some gas-lighting to prove my point, putting a great deal of psychological pressure on some of the top donors.

I was relentless over months with scary faces at their windows, creepy phone calls, and I even broke one guy's leg. The fear was so horrendous there were three or four deaths the first year alone! The university, always begrudging, finally saw the light and the degree's on my wall to prove it! But the families sued and the university lost so much money and prestige it sounds like they're sorry they ever heard of me.

But I hate crime and that's what I'm here for today. I really hate crime. Please don’t tell any criminals that you read this here, because they also seek revenge, but I wish they'd only give criminals “One strike and you’re out!” I know it changes the old adage about three strikes. But with the world's population exploding and crime everywhere, we can’t afford an unlimited number of three strikes. Change the rule: Just one!

It looks like the only good luck society ever really has is with the non-criminal population, and we're all dirt poor. We haven’t got anything to steal, so it's no use for criminals to attack us. Yes, they can break into our hovels and take our chewed up old blankets — my dog chews blankets and everything else — but I’m pretty sure there isn’t a pawn shop in the Big City that sells used blankets. My most valuable possession is a half gallon of paint from 10 years ago, but, again, it takes a lot of old paint to make one good gallon. With the colors always ending up potluck.

I'm definitely poor. I don’t take much comfort in things in my life; I can’t afford to. But at least I have some comfort knowing there are poorer people yet. Do I feel badly for them? I actually do. I was bit by the compassion-bug when I was a kid and it's a lifelong infection, because sometimes I feel guilty that my car runs and my backseat isn’t on my porch. But it'd be comfortable and very weather-resistant thanks to the plastic covering I bought with my inheritance after Mom and Dad passed.

Yes, even though crime usually affects people better off, I still hate it. Another reason, I watch the evening news, and I hate hearing about criminals breaking in here or there, robbing places, abducting people, dumping their bodies in the river, and all the rest. I cry out, “Can the police do nothing right?!” It totally screws up the fishing. Still, they speed by all hours day and night with their sirens. How about leaving the sirens off and sneaking up on people. This is one of my peeves. When they hear the sirens they drop the evidence and sneak out the back. What happened to stealth? Even the military has stealth planes. Something to try...

I’m looking at the graphic of Sir Reginald, one of the richest guys in town. He was worth a lot of money, going by how much he gave to every museum in town. But he didn’t keep it quiet either. His attitude was, “I’m filthy rich, jump me in the dark!” He probably took the dark way home just to brag about it at the Admirals Club. But in this case, his luck ran out. He was not only robbed but brutally murdered, bamboo shoots shoved in his hair follicles. Reggie was a rich fool, having every advantage but blowing it for bragging rights.

But he still got the last laugh; his family crypt's about the size of the mall. With lots of legroom, which he deserves, being so rich.

Keep Your Hands Off Ruthie

My failure to figure out the motives of Money Mules made me a wreck. I asked myself over and over, Why do they always run instead of returning with the money? But there was no satisfactory answer, leaving me, frankly, crumpled and crying. When that happens, I'm a mess. I'm sparking and sizzling, twitching and babbling on my bed, close to destruction; I'm afraid to brush against anything lest I spontaneously combust.

I knew I needed help, but who was qualified for the job? I'm Super Brain, and if I couldn't figure it out, who could? Wracking my mind, I came up with this thought: Those who first taught me the deeper principles of people skills, psychology profs at the university! Maybe, if they put their heads together, their collective intelligence plus my own greater intelligence would give us the answer.

I should probably mention, those guys are shells of their former selves. They're bogged down from reading the same lectures since the early '60s, while I've cruised past them, making me, the student, their master in every way. It has to be a nasty feeling to watch me run laps around them as though they're standing still, but that's what you get if you lose the hold on life and scholarship you once held dear.

Then we must add sex. We all know the go-to rejuvenator for old guys, at least in their fantasies, is sex. You're old and decrepit, like my professors, and you try to prove your abiding mastery of life by sex. The main reason being, the equipment's right there in easy reach. Surely, that guy or that lady feels as I do ... We shall rise together from the ashes! they're thinking. Which, to the rest of us still holding our mental clarity, is obviously vanity.

So, anyway, I got my esteemed profs together, and threw in one fatal juicy apple of temptation by which to test them -- the cashier from the union cafeteria, Ruthie. Were I to see them entirely resolved to scholarship and not thinking of a roll in the hay to prove their scholarly manhood, then and only then could I trust them with the Money Mule question. (This is preliminary stuff. The sex stuff plows the field before we see the harvest, the "meat of the goodie," the answers I really care about.)

There they were, then, gathered in the seminar room. And each of them had his damned eyes on Ruthie, seated next to me, exquisitely dolled up! Perverts! (I would've done her myself, had my brain been just a little looser and slightly more unreliable.)

Of course I first had to set the parameters of our study and call them unto the quest: Why, when you present a Money Mule a sum of money, say $100,000, and send him forth, does he always run and never return?

They looked like they were ready to venture a few good guesses to the question. Before we could dive in, however, I wanted to inform them that I had strict ground rules:

1) Do not approach or in any way come on to Ruthie. Keep your grubby hands off Ruthie.
2) Abide by all the best legal and academic scruples. Give me your best work.
3) A Number 2 pencil is preferable to any and all other numbers. If it ain't Number 2, it's crap.

And that's it. The professors raced forth to find their pencils and bone up on the best legal and academic scruples.

As for me, I fell to my knees where I stood, a shaft of light streaming through the skylight putting me in a very dramatic limelight, and asked the Lord: "Bless them, dear God, if they deserve blessing. But if they're not ready for this important task, please reveal that as well. Thou knowest what I mean."

Of course I referred to Ruthie. She really does have a fantastic allure when she's out of cafeteria scrubs and exquisitely dolled up. I glanced around and reached down, then told myself no.