Staring is Rude

This post could be construed as the continuation of a previous post, but I prefer to think of it as an original grouping of thoughts...so you think of it that way too, 'kay? 

Am feeling rantful today due to the fact that a person CANNOT walk through the halls of this hospital building without being visually assaulted.  I'm minding my own business and pushing the noisy metal mail cart through the ground floor halls (which, by the way, I'm convinced holds a secret bunker full of experimental body parts...why else would temps be sub-Arctic?)  where one has the opportunity of encounter all manner of humanity.  Much of said humanity smiles, nods, and greets you in the typical friendly Texas manner.  While I appreciate these kind vocal gestures, quite honestly, I'd prefer to be ignored.  Still, kindness is theoretically its own reward, so I shan't obstruct the kind individuals who prefer to earn those groovy reward points from collecting their due.

These well-meaning people comprise approximately one third of the types you'll find wandering and/or sitting thereabouts on the ground level of our building.  Another third of the visiting population really DOES ignore the hades out of me.  Whenever I pass someone in the hall and they treat me as an invisible nonentity, I want to take their hands and bless them many times over.  But since that would require talking and the consequent revelation of my presence/existence, I instead mentally bless them in a vehement fashion.

Alas, this celebration of The Silent must now be interrupted by the intrusion of a third group of people oft encountered 'midst the chilly labyrinthine passages below my sandal-clad work feet: those who stare incessantly without reason or consideration.  One might assume that I'd forgive them this mortal sin as long as they didn't speak to me, but one would assume incorrectly.  As aforementioned, I'm walking down the hall and blithely pushing my cart along its rickety, squeaky path whenever I encounter a member of "Satan's 33 1/3."  No matter what, they stare from the time I (or anyone) comes into their eyes' focus, and then they literally turn their head to continue this visual infringement of my/anyone's personal space as I/anyone walk by.  What really melts my snowcone is when there's two or three of them in a group, and the entire group stares, turns, and continues staring...like that three-headed, slobbering dog monster in Harry Potter, only atonal harp music won't make these people stop staring. 

So do parents these days simply not teach their children that staring is rude?  Maybe it's because there's no smartphone app for it.  Or maybe no fun-but-instructional blu-ray disc exists to teach said children such things via video screen in the back of the SUV on their way to baseball practice.  Or maybe Sony needs to devise an action-packed, blood-and-guts video game depicting the consequences of illicit staring...gaze too long at any particular person for no good reason, and you get disintegrated by a Romulan disruptor...and so does The Princess!!

It all comes down to common courtesy, and while the super sweet people that energetically insist on saying "hello" or "good morning" do annoy me at times, at least they're demonstrating the fact that their parents did indeed teach them manners...and that they bothered to learn the lesson.

In All Seriousness...

I needs must pause from my typical banter o' goofiness and relative insanity that nobody gets but me in order to make a poignant, pertinent observation that far more Americans should be making at present: both U.S. political parties seem intent upon utter national destruction.  Both Democrats and Republicans pretend to be addressing the debt ceiling we as a nation crashed into a couple of months ago.  All political posturing and ruse-ing aside, these elected officials appear far more interested in preventing a success by their rival party than in doing anything even remotely positive for the survival of the United States.  In my opinion, neither party deserves to win (or purchase) the next Presidential election, and if their self-important antics continue for much longer, there won't be much of a nation left to govern. 

Now, I'm not going to get irrationally patriotic and declare that our perfect country was preordained for greatness by the near-Godlike acts of flawless Founding Fathers who knew precisely which form of government would seamlessly span the centuries.  What worked great during an age of exploration, global expansion, and industrial revolution doesn't necessarily transition effectively into a globally-populated, technological age defined and consumed by its industrial predecessors' lust for wealth, power, and convenience.  My guess is Thomas Jefferson did NOT have the internet in mind when he glorifed absolute freedom of speech nor did George Washington comprehend a necessity to ban automatic weapony from the general populace's possession. 

(Before I go any further, freedom of speech is requisitely necessary for any civilization to survive and flourish.  Overall I think the ability to own a gun is good too since any bad guy will find a way to own a gun whether it's legal or not.  Licensed, responsible gun ownership is okay by me, and that's not just my Texan blood talkin' ;-)

But back to the original commentary: no doubt the U.S. achieved worldwide power and prestige.  We succeeded where many failed, BUT we can't owe all of our success to unique government, personal ingenuity, and the incredibly strong bootstraps our forefathers apparently possessed.  No, we also got lucky.  VERY lucky.  We also seized upon opportunities regardless of whether they arose from positive or negative world events.  Our technological advancements which began in the 1950s were largely a result of the scientists our government "rescued" from a defeated Nazi Germany (unless Robert Goddard and Robert Oppenheimer were aliens, I'm not buying into that theory).  Much of the land containing our coal and oil deposits was blatantly stolen from the "relocated" Native American population.  The Great Depression was ended largely due to the massive amount of jobs created by the inception of World War II. 

That brings me to my final summation point: are the people that We the People elected to take care of this nation as a whole going to wait on a World War III event to bail us out of this financial crisis, or are they going to step into adulthood and make the sacrifices that We the People have to make in our normal lives on a daily basis?  Those types of financial choices typically require the loss of something we deem personally important.  We very well may lose face in someone's opinion.  But "failures" such as these are integral to our continued individual survival as well as eventual financial reconstruction.  Neither political party should be out to "win" right now because there is no winning without assuring the nation's continued existence.  Forget the elections.  Our political parties have created a culture of neverending election season.  No, instead of perpetuating the notion of campaigning as a 24/7 lifestyle, sacrifice your personal and party pride on the altar of "doing the right thing," do what we're paying you to do, and GET US OUT OF THIS! 

Ensign Wesley Crusher would have ;-)

Ensign Wesley Crusher vs. Sauron...and Darth Vader...and Rachel Ray

Stardate 48557.8

After safely relocating his mother to her day spa home complete with white picket forcefield, Ensign Wesley Crusher decided to embrace his maternally-prescribed domestication process and vehemently pursue gourmet cooking as well as hydroponic gardening.  He reprogrammed half of his nanites for weed-fighting and aphid-killing at the cellular level then proceeded to run database searches for past culinary geniuses.  While the wily microbots were cultivating veggies and exterminating veggie vermin, Wesley programmed various holodeck simulations for participation in a variety of cooking classes with the aforementioned culinary geniuses.  For the most part these lessons did not go as planned.  He strangled Martha Stewart with her own doily after his third failed napkin-folding attempt.  Data mistook the Iron Chef as an actual chef made of iron and challenged him to single combat at which point Data discovered there was no such literal thing as a chef made of iron.  Data could not understand the chef’s chagrin aimed in his general quadrant when Data also mistook massive blood flow for overly-tenacious rust. 

Ensign Crusher felt he would make great progress once he located Rachel Ray’s simple, flavorful, fattening brand of cooking but discovered otherwise when all of her recipes called for the deadly Electromagnetically Variant Oxygen Orbs.  He thereby concluded that Ms. Ray was a wicked voodoo priestess intent upon obliterating the universe with her inimitable, hip-expanding old-world ways.  To confirm his suspicions, the well-meaning Wesley consulted the literature-loving Captain Picard for any pertinent information on the subject.  He left the good captain’s presence armed with a stack of Time-Interstellar Life’s “Ambassador Spock Narrates the Classics,” now formatted for your very own shipboard computer!  The exhausted Ensign fell asleep to the soothing tones of the Ambassadors voice as he detailed exciting stories of old when there was still such a thing as money, toilet seats, and explosions that could be heard in the vacuum of space.

Upon waking suddenly, Wesley saw a plastic-hooded figure inspecting a set of holo-blueprints in the corner of his quarters.  The Ensign leapt out of bed and immediately demanded to know precisely what this mechanically-asthmatic interloper was doing in his room. 

“I’m inspecting the ring, the ring that will make me invincible!” 

“That’s the exhaust port right below the main port.”

“It’s the Ring of Power, I tell you!  I must protect it with my lightsaber!”  The black figure produced a glowing stick from beneath his flowy cape and brandished it at the now-fleeing Ensign.  Wesley reached into his pocket, grabbed the latest batch of reprogrammed nanites, and flung them at the lumbering bad guy who, Wesley now suspected, must really be Rachel Ray manifesting in her true evil form.  In moments the robot assault ceased as Wesley cautiously approached his attacker.  “The ring!  Where is it?  Don’t just stand there, mister, where’s my napkin ring?  My presentation must be perfect!”

Thus ends the tale of how Ensign Wesley Crusher was able to learn and perfect his domestic skills all thanks to the assistance of Sauron disguised as Darth Vader channeling Rachel Ray, Priestess O’ Humanity’s Doom. 

P.S. Wesley inadvertently fell asleep in the holodeck not realizing that the Ambassador’s narrated classics had accidentally been replaced by the Ambassador’s ANIMATED classics. 

P.S.S. Dr. Beverly Crusher accidentally electrocuted herself on the white picket forcefield.  Oh the humanity.

P.S.S.S. Dr. Beverly Crusher is now engaged to marry the man who treated her forcefield burns, Dr. Hugh Manatee.

Ensign Wesley Crusher and the Attack of the Ficus Dwellers

I'm not entirely sure about this one but am feeling gutsy...these sagas were funny when I started them in 1992, but I'm woefully out of practice!
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Stardate 48556.3

You did WHAT to my ficus???

After configuring the precise chemical makeup for his culinary sciences final, Ensign Wesley Crusher was dismayed to find himself with flattened soufflé and a failing grade.  Apparently having the correct number of properly beaten eggs is no match for a random phaser blast from a trigger-happy Cardassian tactical officer.  The Academy would not be pleased.  Anyway, upon feeding the soufflé remnants to Data’s cat Spot, Wesley decided it was time to employ his up-and-coming 25^th-century-grade nanite experiment to cooking since the advent of replication obviously hadn’t relegated the fine art/science to ancient history.  Why didn’t somebody come up with a “cook-check?”  The need to spell correctly had been eradicated all the way back in the 20^th century, after all.


Dr. Beverly Crusher's Ficus

Little did our intrepid Ensign know that his food failure and corrective nanite attempt was being closely watched by his mother’s ficus: or more accurately, being watched by the in-dwellers of said ficus.  It seems that upon eating Wesley’s ill-begotten soufflé, Spot had proceeded to “fertilize” the potting soil therein (thereby answering the age-old question of whether or not beings in the 22^nd century and beyond do, in fact, poop) in a very unsightly and badly-scented manner.  Oh, the humanity.  It was in this moment of such rude violation and disrespectful treatment that the Ficus Dwellers made their vengeful presence known.  “Aha!” the Ficus Dweller Leader shouted.  “You, Giant Biped, shall remove this travesty from our midst lest we attack thee with our poison-tipped vibro-spears of doom!  Grrr!”



Angry Ficus Dweller



Arggh.  Of course Wesley couldn’t hear him.  The leader was 2 inches tall.  It was due to this unfortunate difference in species height ratio that the left side of Wesley’s body suddenly began to shake uncontrollably.  The Ficus Dwellers had made their vibratory presence known and launched hundreds of tiny vibro-spears from multiple leaf layers of Dr. Crusher’s prized ficus into the unsuspecting Ensign’s skin.  Oh, the humanity.  The handful of experimental cooking nanites in Wesley’s left hand went shooting toward the tree.  Of course, being microscopic and all, the Ficus Dwellers couldn’t actually see the mechanical entities headed their way.  They instead continued to vibro-spear the hades out of poor Wesley until he lay in a stunned convulsional heap on the floor.  Oh, the humanity.

The Ficus Dwellers having taken a respite from their justified--though invisible--onslaught, Wesley had a chance to recover.  After reviving himself with a cup of “Tea. Earlgray. Hot.” he put on his special super-sensitive, sight-and-sound-enhancing device to aid in locating all of the wayward nanites.  What he found instead was of the astonishing.  Hundreds of mini-people were shaking mini-spears in his general direction and shouting about the sudden unleashing of Devil Gnomes upon their plant populace.  Sure enough, several nanites were digging in and out of the potting soil and attempting to make fire for the performance of their cooking duties but were unable to do so due to the lack of dry ingredients. 

The "Devil Gnome" as depicted in The Ficus Dwellers'
Book of Barely-Believable Legends

Other Devil Gnome incarnations



Their deviousness knows no bounds


“They’re nanites,” Wesley said patiently.  “Not Devil Gnomes.”

“They’re gnomes!”

“Nanites.”

“Gnomes!”

“NAN-ITES!”

“GNOM-MES!”

Exasperated with the inability of this species to communicate effectively, concisely, and with an English accent, Wesley decided that the best way to solve the problem was to relocate his mother’s ficus plant to an alternate location.  After consulting Data for any known ficus havens in nearby galaxies, Wesley discovered one suitable option for ficus relocation and proceeded to lock coordinates for transport.  His mother would be far from pleased, but it had to be done.  “Greetings once again, Miniature Ficus People.  I’m going to transport you and your potted plant to a ficus-friendly, gnome-free planet.  Do not throw additional things at me.”

The relocation was conducted successfully, and Ensign Wesley Crusher was overwhelmed by the personal satisfaction of aiding an interstellar species in need.  He was also overwhelmed by the maternal mandate that he now pass a horticulture sciences course AND take charge of her relocation to a mother-friendly planet of gnome-free day spas.

Oh, the humanity.