I for one am simply exhausted from thinking the unthinkable. I’ve thought about it and I just cannot do it anymore.
Although I will admit that if there ever were a time in my life of which it might be fairly said—as Harry Nilsson once did—that “everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?” then right here and now is indeed that very time.
I don’t mean only the everyday idiocies we endure, such as the fact that when I drive through McDonald’s for a medium Coke the porcine woman at the first window who takes my money hands me a receipt. For a Coke. Or, while we’re on McDonald’s, that I have to remind the porcine man at the second window that ketchup—which I never think of as a dipping sauce—is a perfectly natural compliment to French fries, and as such, I should not have to ask for it before the food teller has a chance to shove that bag of cattle parts in through my car window.
But at McDonald’s, they have such a total absence of respect for anything or anybody that they boldly and proudly hustle us through the maze like mice, the only difference being that most rodents wouldn’t touch that crap, whereas we inhale it like the last meal it very well might be.
But there are far more insidious and less obvious evils that grow on us everyday, things that make us think we are thinking the unthinkable. Naturally, most of these things relate to consuming, because this is America, the land where freedom is the freedom to buy and sell and if you cannot do one or the other you are not only deemed un-American, you are rendered invisible.
If you are in the market to buy something in this country, you are expected to do it very fast. Consider QT. Quik Trip. They’re in such a hurry, they didn’t even have time to put the letter c in the first word. So when I go into QT to pay for the gas I’ll need later to go through McDonald’s drive-thru—and they’re in such a hurry they didn’t have time to spell the word “through” all the way—I always feel as though I am inconveniencing the clerk who just moments earlier greeted me with a cheerful hello. I’m fishing a twenty from my wallet, he’s already got my change ready, and he’s saying to the third person behind me, “May I help who’s next, please?”
QT, of course, is really the Wal-Mart of service stations. My cousin Connie works for Wal-Mart. She works in the Employee Fraud Department, which means she spies on her fellow associates who just might be guilty of internal theft. Wal-Mart thinks the unthinkable. They make so much money that they can afford a department dedicated to ferreting out a specific type of thievery. Connie didn’t go for my suggestion that if her store paid its people a living wage that those people might be less inclined to steal. I’d love to see one Wal-Mart employee with the guts to take off that blue smock that says HOW MAY I HELP YOU? And replace it with one that says What do YOU want? They know they’re being burned. Why not let out some of that repressed hostility?
If I were ever caught stealing, my defense would be that there no longer are any laws, and that therefore I cannot very well be guilty of violating something that clearly does not exist. The judge would glare at me incredulous and I would respond, “Du-uh. Think the unthinkable.”
The prosecutor, played by Sam Waterston, would jump up and declare, “Your Honor!”
The judge would lift her hand and say, “Sit down, Mr. McCoy. Let’s hear the little fool out.”
“Thank you, judge,” I’d reply. “The basis for our civilization is that set of proscribed agreements, rules and dictates which we refer to as the law. The highest and most revered set of laws in our country are contained within our Constitution. But now the authority of that document has been usurped by the Supreme Court who illegally installed the former governor of Texas as the Chief Executive, an act which went unopposed by the U.S. Congress, all of which enabled what we call our government to launch a likewise illegal war against the people of Iraq. And so, when the majesty of the law is held in such disrepute by all three branches of the federal government, I assert that in point of fact there no longer is any law, and therefore I cannot be guilty of breaking it. QED.”
McCoy’s not buying any of this. He says, “It sounds like rationalizing, Your Honor. Regardless, would the court remind the defendant that motive is not an element of a crime?”
I was waiting for that one. “That would be true if I were a prosecutor. Since I am asserting an affirmative defense, my state of mind at the time of the alleged larceny is very much at issue, and you have my word that—then as now—I am convinced that there is no law.”
The judge, who’s been fidgeting under her robes for some time now, looks right at me and says, “Did you take $100 from the Pizza Palace?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did anyone give you permission to do this?”
“No, they did not.”
“And why did you take the money?”
“I was pretty sure that if I asked the owner to give it to me, he would have said no.”
“I see. Well, that makes sense. Case dismissed. Mr. McCoy, lunch is on you.”
“Fine, Your Honor,” McCoy shouts back, pulling a banana cream pie from his briefcase. “But dessert is on you!”
Although I will admit that if there ever were a time in my life of which it might be fairly said—as Harry Nilsson once did—that “everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?” then right here and now is indeed that very time.
I don’t mean only the everyday idiocies we endure, such as the fact that when I drive through McDonald’s for a medium Coke the porcine woman at the first window who takes my money hands me a receipt. For a Coke. Or, while we’re on McDonald’s, that I have to remind the porcine man at the second window that ketchup—which I never think of as a dipping sauce—is a perfectly natural compliment to French fries, and as such, I should not have to ask for it before the food teller has a chance to shove that bag of cattle parts in through my car window.
But at McDonald’s, they have such a total absence of respect for anything or anybody that they boldly and proudly hustle us through the maze like mice, the only difference being that most rodents wouldn’t touch that crap, whereas we inhale it like the last meal it very well might be.
But there are far more insidious and less obvious evils that grow on us everyday, things that make us think we are thinking the unthinkable. Naturally, most of these things relate to consuming, because this is America, the land where freedom is the freedom to buy and sell and if you cannot do one or the other you are not only deemed un-American, you are rendered invisible.
If you are in the market to buy something in this country, you are expected to do it very fast. Consider QT. Quik Trip. They’re in such a hurry, they didn’t even have time to put the letter c in the first word. So when I go into QT to pay for the gas I’ll need later to go through McDonald’s drive-thru—and they’re in such a hurry they didn’t have time to spell the word “through” all the way—I always feel as though I am inconveniencing the clerk who just moments earlier greeted me with a cheerful hello. I’m fishing a twenty from my wallet, he’s already got my change ready, and he’s saying to the third person behind me, “May I help who’s next, please?”
QT, of course, is really the Wal-Mart of service stations. My cousin Connie works for Wal-Mart. She works in the Employee Fraud Department, which means she spies on her fellow associates who just might be guilty of internal theft. Wal-Mart thinks the unthinkable. They make so much money that they can afford a department dedicated to ferreting out a specific type of thievery. Connie didn’t go for my suggestion that if her store paid its people a living wage that those people might be less inclined to steal. I’d love to see one Wal-Mart employee with the guts to take off that blue smock that says HOW MAY I HELP YOU? And replace it with one that says What do YOU want? They know they’re being burned. Why not let out some of that repressed hostility?
If I were ever caught stealing, my defense would be that there no longer are any laws, and that therefore I cannot very well be guilty of violating something that clearly does not exist. The judge would glare at me incredulous and I would respond, “Du-uh. Think the unthinkable.”
The prosecutor, played by Sam Waterston, would jump up and declare, “Your Honor!”
The judge would lift her hand and say, “Sit down, Mr. McCoy. Let’s hear the little fool out.”
“Thank you, judge,” I’d reply. “The basis for our civilization is that set of proscribed agreements, rules and dictates which we refer to as the law. The highest and most revered set of laws in our country are contained within our Constitution. But now the authority of that document has been usurped by the Supreme Court who illegally installed the former governor of Texas as the Chief Executive, an act which went unopposed by the U.S. Congress, all of which enabled what we call our government to launch a likewise illegal war against the people of Iraq. And so, when the majesty of the law is held in such disrepute by all three branches of the federal government, I assert that in point of fact there no longer is any law, and therefore I cannot be guilty of breaking it. QED.”
McCoy’s not buying any of this. He says, “It sounds like rationalizing, Your Honor. Regardless, would the court remind the defendant that motive is not an element of a crime?”
I was waiting for that one. “That would be true if I were a prosecutor. Since I am asserting an affirmative defense, my state of mind at the time of the alleged larceny is very much at issue, and you have my word that—then as now—I am convinced that there is no law.”
The judge, who’s been fidgeting under her robes for some time now, looks right at me and says, “Did you take $100 from the Pizza Palace?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did anyone give you permission to do this?”
“No, they did not.”
“And why did you take the money?”
“I was pretty sure that if I asked the owner to give it to me, he would have said no.”
“I see. Well, that makes sense. Case dismissed. Mr. McCoy, lunch is on you.”
“Fine, Your Honor,” McCoy shouts back, pulling a banana cream pie from his briefcase. “But dessert is on you!”
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