My truck’s air conditioned cab was luxurious after getting roasted in the sun all day. Shortly after sunset, I wound up eating dinner at the only place I could find, a bar that was absolutely filled with drunks. Not a mask in sight, because why would there be?
The food was surprisingly good. Slowly accepting that I was physically spent, I decided to drink iced tea(!) rather than beer. One beer might put me to sleep! Still rehydrating. I drank three huge iced teas like I’d just crawled in from the desert. In a way, I had.
Then I was back in the truck for the long drive home. I had the radio on. I’d tuned to a talk show which I was ignoring. Eventually, I stopped to take a piss and left the FM yammering away.
While fumbling about I noticed I’d bruised my leg. I probed carefully, no blood. That made sense. My protective gear is meant for a street bike. It’ll slide along pavement in a crash but it hadn’t absorbed the direct strike when I’d slammed into a tree. It could have been worse. The tear resistant fabric had kept the bark from gouging my leg. Any day you don’t need stitches is a good one.
“How ‘bout that Honey Badger?” I shouted to my motorcycle on it’s trailer while pissing under the full moon… which is quite the image if you think about it. “You got both mirrors knocked loose and I’ve been bruised. Battle scars!”
I’m not completely insane so the bike didn’t talk back. Yet.
Back inside the truck I massaged my leg a bit and started pondering better protective gear. I really need boots and now riding pants had risen in priority. Due to my foolishness, Ibuprofen would be part of my routine for a few days. But that’s not too bad considering the risk I’d taken.
“A risk you take…” The radio was saying.
My curiosity was piqued. What interesting radio topic had matched my inner thoughts?
“They crawl all over you so it’s hard to stop… but it’s still a hazard to be cognizant of…”
What hazard crawls all over you? They had my full attention now.
“Your cat can get Covid from you so…”
What. The. Fuck!
It was NPR. Goddammit! America’s ever-present, continuously preaching, massively woke, propaganda distribution system never sleeps.
Some unaccomplished retread was interviewing a balless wonder. The topic was ‘how to make sure your housecat is safe from Covid’. That’s the ‘hazard’ they were talking about. I listened a bit more just in case it was satire. Does Babylon Bee do radio?
It wasn’t satire. They were serious, or at least as serious as something that unserious can be. Does a cat owner’s vaccine protect the cat during risky behavior, like letting fluffy sit on your lap?
It’s a fucking cat. It shits in a box! It’ll eat a raw mouse. Cats lick their own balls until we cut their balls off to keep them from making more useless damn cats.
Yet, this was a “hazard”. This was “risk”. NPR’s limp, ineffectual, soyboy, losers were evaluating the “physical dangers” of petting a housecat! In a world where desperate people fall off airplanes trying to flee Afghanistan, NPR used its vast network of antenna for a call-in show about how Covid might make a cat sick or the cat might inexplicably give it back to you. These people walk among us.
Can there be anything more pathetic? Some of us crash through the forest in a chaotic symphony of fear and exhilaration. Others, fear to pet a cat.
Anyone who’s so afraid of illness that they worry the cat will die… they’re completely irrelevant. Consulting their opinion is like taking advice from a houseplant. What does it know about being human? What has it done? Where has it gone? What wisdom has its unfulfilled life of photosynthesis taught it that we, the people who actually live, can use?
America is best when we ignore cessile, inert, semi-sentient, weaklings. Without the spark of life that makes the world so wonderful, they crawl up their own ass and weep while clutching cell phones. They may not know it, but they’re dead already. They’re not at the boisterous bar I just left. They’re not on the dusty mountainside where I spent a delightful afternoon. They’re not pissing in the grass under a full moon. They’re just… nothing. Being so deeply deeply deeply risk averse they’ve taken the glorious gift of life and turned it into a mockery. A lifestyle of waiting for the clock to run out.
The biggest tragedy in modern society is when we equate people who do with those that talk. Gutless losers don’t belong at the adult table with the rest of us. Don’t ask their opinion about anything. Give ‘em a juice box and a pat on the head. Then send ‘em back to their padded collegiate playpen where they can live out their days amassing debt and wallowing in fear.