Adaptive Curmudgeon

Christmas snow is magic.  New and clean and cold and powdery, it holds the promise of new beginnings, sleigh rides, and sugar plums (whatever the hell they are).  Snow in December is a misty eyed Norman Rockwell joy.  It’s beautiful.  Plowing snow in December is a kinetic joyride.

March snow is a slog.  Plowing snow in March is Kafkaesque. It’s a house guest that clogs the toilet, cleans out the fridge, and won’t leave no matter how much you drop the hint that its welcome has worn thin.  It’s a gray oatmeal of misery shat upon a watery base of weak ice and layers of slime.  It reeks of tax forms and moldy basements.  Shining machinery once proudly tuned for battle in nature’s seasonal maelstrom has been reduced to iced up crevices in the snow blower’s infrastructure and frayed winch cables on the ATV.  The woodpile, once stacked like glorious battlements, has been picked down and sags in terminal decline.  My proud little tractor lies unused because its backblade can’t shove snow chest high and the wheel cleats would only spin on the packed snow base.  In December it was perfect.  In March it’s outgunned.  Chickens are moulting, attitudes are harsh, and the beer is running low.  We have held the line bravely but the siege has been long.

Winter has taken its toll.  I am ready for spring.

Yours truly has been in another one of his self imposed news blackouts.  I’ve been busy and also I haven’t the heart to take the inevitable and fabricated sequestration dog and pony show seriously.  I chose to utilize the magnificent switch on the media box which turns it off.  It’s been a delightful (and productive!) week.

Unfortunately it dawned with enough snow piled around my head that I was forced to take a break.  Snowed in!  These things happen.  I could fire up the 4×4 and do battle with mother nature but there are wiser options.  When snow is building, timing is an art.  Good thing I’ve got cold beer and a good book or things would be downright annoying.

Since I had free time I popped my head over the fortifications and noticed that the previous week’s “sequestration news” had been “all doom all the time”.  Glad I missed that.

I’m not making light of those who’ll have hassles (myself included).  Many of us will be impacted and some to a disturbing degree.  Life can be tough.  But isn’t life filled with uncertainty?  Perhaps I’ll regret my hubris but at the moment the level of panic seems a bit contrived.

Predictions of Armageddon seem overwrought.  As if I’ve the goal is to convince us this is all sudden and unpredictable and in no way within the real of reasonable prognostication.  Which is, of course, poppycock.  Aren’t we riding a wave of massive budgets, all of which dwarf the toughest years of WWII?  Haven’t we been floating on debt for most of the last several (dozen!) years?  Wasn’t this all baked in the cake by entitlements and demographics that were known years (decades!) ago?  Once the budget is “sequestered” won’t it still be huge?  Who didn’t see it coming? (And by the way, it ‘aint over yet by a long shot!)

It comes down to this.  Is any cut, even the smallest one, so terribly inconceivable?  Is our society really that fragile?  And if so; how does that mitigate the mathematical facts that cannot be denied forever.  One way or another, math always wins.

Despite a week of news that we’re all doomed, the sun rose on schedule.  Based on the media you’d think we were plunged into eternal darkness.  How do I balance such things?  How should I capture the sense of unreality?  On one hand, peaceful snow, work to be done, and perhaps some unpleasant but survivable belt tightening.  On the other hand, politicians and their pet press are baying at the moon because the new level of spending which is enormous is suddenly an amount less than desired and anticipated.  Really?  Who has words for that?

George will does!

“Washington chain-saw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending!”

Oh that’s just awesome!  Words of gold!  Theres more.

“The sequester has forced liberals to clarify their conviction that whatever the government’s size is at any moment, it is the bare minimum necessary to forestall intolerable suffering.”

Click here for the source.  Well done Mr. Will!

A.C.

P.S.  To repeat, “belt tightening” sucks so I’m not trying to make light of those who’ll suffer… but surely the nation as a whole (a nation which has survived civil war, the Great Depression, WWII, and the AMC Gremlin) has endured worse.

The press informs us that we are a couple of weeks from total Armageddon.  (For the press is made of people for whom even the briefest temporary shutdown of centralized government is indeed horrific.)  Apparently “sequestration” is the new vocabulary for this tragic impossibility.  How did we get here?

The summer of 2012 was an excellent summer.  The skies were clear.  The fishing was excellent.  I even got my tractor running.  I also stacked plenty of firewood… because winter always comes.

What didn’t happen in 2012 was a shutdown of the Federal Government.  Nope.  That little ebb and flow was reserved for 2011.  In 2011 a Federal shutdown came close and a couple of states shut down for a bit.  It generally passed without greatly enhancing our fiscal sensibilities but any time a politician recognizes the concept of “finite” I think it’s a good thing.  True to my Curmudgeonly projections, 2012 was the year when everyone in D.C. endeavored to whistle past the graveyard.  They kept the election year lights on; somehow.  Presumably one cannot shut down the beacon of Obama phones blazing forth from their tower of debt before an election.  Heavens no.

I love probability.  Especially when I can see the outlines of the game board.

On November 5th of 2012 America held an election.  I stayed up late watching the returns.  As always, the peaceful transition of power in our ever more powerful central government is a source of joy and awe.  Unfortunately, the transition of power was from the guy who’d burned money like it was a mission from God to the very same guy.  His fans partied hardy.  I took a stiff drink, resigned myself to another four years of bullshit, and went to bed.  The following day was an important one; I had to repair the chicken coop.  Winter always comes.

November 6th I mentally reconfirmed my intention to avoid most political commentary.  At some point standing on the deck of the Titanic bitching about icebergs just isn’t productive.  There comes a time to put on your life jacket and get ready.  (Possibly grab one last drink at the bar while you’re at it.)

So what came next?  About ten seconds after the media had anointed their chosen one, they discovered a new word in their vocabulary.  “Fiscal cliff!”  Remember that?  As far as the media was concerned there was no “fiscal cliff” until November 6th.  I pretty much ignored it.  The truck needed repair and it was time to butcher our Thanksgiving turkey.  Delicious!

A month later, when the “fiscal cliff” had been safely kicked down the road, it was time to hyperventilate about…  wait for it…  guns!  Yes, the nasty evil baby seal clubbing implements of doom that are self aware and leap off the table to gun down innocent nuns. They were suddenly in the spotlight.  The stampede began and it hasn’t yet played out.  All I can think is that I knew this was coming on November 5th.  So did you.  Who didn’t?  Be honest with yourself; who among us expected a second Obama term without this fight?  Everyone, right and left alike, knew that this was on the wish list somewhere just behind socialized medicine.  So now the stores are cleaned out of Ar15s and my friends are all worried.  I just haven’t the heart to be pissed off.  This, like all political bullshit, shall pass.  Whether it’ll get bad or worse, I don’t know but I never expected a flowering of human dignity and respect for individuals.  This is why, of the many articles about guns I’ve hammered into my laptop, very little has reached my blog.  Everyone reading this made up their mind long ago.  Besides, it was time for Christmas.  While D.C. hyperventilated in their playpen I enjoyed hearth and home.

Now that the gun control fuse is lit it’s time for the eyes of Sauron to turn to their next “problem” in desperate need of solution.  “Sequestration!”  (Funny me but I think of sequestration as putting the ducks and turkeys in a different pen from the hens.  Sequestration is a bizarre way to say “we’re out of money”.)  Sequestration implies that we cannot make wise decisions about debt so we must make unwise decisions about debt.  I don’t disagree.  We cannot (or have not) made wise decisions so math alone forces us into unwise ones.  Frankly I’m simply happy that a decision might be made.

Here is where I’m hoping to say “the glass is half full”… I’m not naturally an optimist so bear with me.

Unlike 2012, it appears that 2013 is a year when unreality cannot paper over the debt.  It feels like everybody (from both sides of the spectrum) is bone tired of pretending.  Denial is hard.  Collectively they might just cut something, a little, when all other options are exhausted, maybe.  Sure it’ll be a mess and people (me included) will get hosed.  Either way it’s at least an acknowledgement of the concept of “finite”.  I never expected an outbreak of fiscal responsibility.  This is as much as I’m going to get.  I’m heartened that neither party is ready to fold…yet.  In fact it seems a bit of a ray of hope.

Sure sure.  I’m a hopeless deluded optimist.  Folks will comment that the end is nigh, etc…  I agree but I can still stop to smell the flowers.  Sequestration will amount to a lot of press releases amid very little debt reduction but it’s a smidge more than zero.

Also, lest you think I’m gloating from my fully stocked fortress of doom, with it’s pile of suddenly valuable Ar15s leaning against a truckload of dried beans… it’s not so.  The bad economy hurts me too.  Our tax bill just grew and the uncertainty of a shutdown will likely kick our little household’s finances in the groin too.  I can live with it.  Bad news is much better than willful delusion and when there’s no more money there’s no more money.  I’ll no more weep over a temporary “sequestration” shutdown than I’d weep over gravity should I slip off a ladder.  The issue is the ladder, not the gravity.

Let us rejoice that 2012 is over and some tiny figment of reality still remains.  Should we have a shutdown, let us hope it’s as painless as possible, but painful enough to do some good.

A recent phone conversation:

Ring.  Ring.

“Curmudgeon residence. Curmudgeon speaking. If you’re a telemarketer prepare to die.”

“Curmudgeon. I’ve got a cat and you need it.”

“I need a cat? Why? Am I too happy?”

“Nope. I read your story. The one about the chipmunk. You need to demote your useless indoor cat and replace it with this one.” (Editors note: refer to Chipmunk Wars Part I, II, III, IV, V, and Useless Cat Update.)

“Forget it. Curmudgeon Compound is full. We’ve attained peak cat. We’re domestically independent of cat import needs. I shall not need another cat until the coyotes get lucky.  Unfortunately, for you as well as me, all of my cats appear healthy and intent on living forever; possibly just to annoy me. You’re screwed. Bye…”

“Wait! This cat is special!”

“How so?”

“It kills everything in sight.”

Really?  A cat after my own heart. On the other hand, the creature suffers from the incurable ailment of being a cat instead of something less annoying; like a wildebeest.  “Nah.” I rejected the idea.  Cats are like politicians, more promise than production.

“It’s a good mouser.”

“Sure, and it was only driven to church on Sundays. Not interested.”

“It uses the litterbox, doesn’t scratch stuff…”

“Not interested…”

“It sits on your lap and purrs.  I’ve met your indoor cat and it’s as cuddly as an octopus.  A wintertime book by the fire is a whole lot better with a purring cat.”

“I agree.  The secondary purpose of a mouser is to purr.  But if it’s good for sitting on a lap and still a mouser, why are you unloading it?”

“My kids hate it…”

This was a new one.  What could it mean?  “Tell me more.”

“We had an ‘event‘.”

“Event?”

“The first time we left the cat alone in the house for a day it went on a rampage. You know my kids have got a whole bunch of pets in the house; well they did.  The cat killed nearly half of them.”

“Oh really?”  I know this household.  There are zoos with less diversity.  I love visiting just to meet the critters.  Marlin Perkins could have sold insurance in this house.

“I’m not sure what happened.  We’ve got screens on all of our tanks and I thought the cages were secure.  Maybe the cat figured it out.  The gerbils had babies and the cat ate them all.”

“Yuck.  Well at least you have the adults.  Another few weeks and…”

“No the cat killed them too.”

“Uh…”

“Left them dead… like a gangland killing.”

“Uh…”

“Plus it somehow got the rabbits.”

“Oh man.”

“Yeah, both dead.”

“Uh…”

“And the lizards.”

“Wait a minute.  I thought you had some sort of bearded kimono dragon ‘zilla.  It could fight off a…”

“Not that.  The geckos.”

“Oh…”

“We found them on the other side of the room.  With the snakes.

“The boa that could eat a truck tire?”

“No, the little corn snakes, three of them.”

“Eaten?”

“Just the heads”

“That’s…”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“…tragic.  What?  There’s more?”

“The kid’s 4H project.”

“Um…”

“Baby chicks.  Seventeen of them.”

“Dear God no!”

“We’ll have to start from scratch again.”

“Seventeen?”

“That’s why the kids hate this cat!”

“You don’t have a cat.  You have a badger.”

“…and we lost some fish too – all in one day!”

“It’s not a badger, it’s a wolverine.”

“We’re pretty sure the cat just decided to kill anything smaller than itself.  The kids tossed it outside.”

“How are the farm animals doing?”

“Fine but you know how we just store the feed in a pile?”

“Yeah.”

“There isn’t a mouse left in the same time zone.  Our poultry is free range so they’re used to foxes.  The cat can’t get the drop on them.  It seems smart enough to leave big critters alone.  The pigs, and horse, and dogs…”

“You don’t have a cat, you have a horseman of the apocalypse.”

“Exactly.  Want it?”

I pondered this.  My useless indoor cat stretched out on the footstool in front of the fire and eyed me with the disdainful look only a cat can muster.  That’s my damn footstool.  I put my foot the empty half of the stool.  The cat immediately took a swipe at my slippers, screeched in anger, and tore off like a shot.  As jetted over the couch it knocked down a pile of papers onto the floor.  Just great, I’d have to clean that up.

“What would this cat do when it meets mine?”

“To be honest.  I think it’ll beat the hell out of anything smaller than it.”

Upstairs I heard Mrs. Curmudgeon yelling; something about ‘get the hell out of the cupboards’.  There was a crashing sound.  The dog looked at me as if to verify it’s alibi.  I pet it and smiled.  She’s the size, density, and intelligence of an engine block.  The cat would need a hatchet and opposable thumbs to bother the dog.

“Bring the cat.”

There was a relieved sigh.  “Whew!  The kids will be so happy I bet they throw  a party.  Look if it doesn’t work out…”

“It comes with a guarantee?  If it’s a pain in the butt I can send it back?”  Cool!

“…no. I was going to say if it doesn’t work out…”

“Yeah?”

“…just shoot the bastard.”

Wow, talk about a job reference!

I hung up the phone and went back to my book.  Our current (and soon to be outsourced) useless indoor cat trotted in and glared at my feet.  My feet were resting comfortably my footstool in front of my wood stove.  I’ll give up the comfy footstool to a cat when it pays the mortgage.

I’ll share though.  I motioned for the cat to jump on my lap and relax.  It flicked it’s tail as if to say it would no more share a chair with me than it would share a bottle of Thunderbird with a derelict under a bridge.  Then it sauntered off; probably to break something.  I went back to my book happy in the knowledge that cat staff is about to change for the better.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of more “concepts which piss me off” (TM).

1. Being called a racist by someone who is a racist:  I’ll often spend all day in the presence of my dog and wood splitter only to have some professional victim on the news declare that on that very day I and everyone like me was a racist, bigoted, moron.  How?  If you know nothing about me except my race you pretty much don’t know shit. I refuse to believe that I’m racist when chowderheads like Al Sharpton walk the earth.  He can’t eat his breakfast without foaming at the mouth and he’s part of the “discussion” that will lead to a “solution” and eventually “healing”  Really?
2. More racism:  Can we please dispense with the concept that if you’re a “minority” you’re instantly issued a halo and if you’re not you come with horns and a pitchfork.  Also can we drop the fallacy that if you’re white your granddaddy automatically owned a plantation in 1830 which somehow paid for your Subaru in 2013?
3. Minority as a word of art:  As demographics change, folks skate ever further into the stupid zone using “minority” in a way that makes no sense.  Minority is a math term.  It means less than the majority and nothing more.  If I’m a white guy and I’m in a room with 37 women and 3 guys then in that room I’m a minority.  If I’m in a room in France then Americans are the minority.  If they’re all black except me, then I’m still in the minority.  If they hate me just because of my appearance then they’re racist.  If they hate me because of my personality then maybe they’re fully justified or maybe they’re dickheads… math can’t answer everything.
4. High count prosecutions: Ever hear following; “The defendant was charged with 250 counts of being evil, 10 counts of super extra bad murder, and 4 counts of littering.  He was cleared on 263 counts but was found guilt on one count of littering.  He was fined $500 and kicked in the nuts by the bailiff.”  Really?  There’s a word for someone who’s had 50 charges leveled at them and beat 49; that word is innocent.  (Or at least “guilty with insufficient evidence to convict”, which in American law is supposed to equal “innocent”.)   Judges who let this shit fly are a pox on our world.  Juries that eat this shit need to shovel it back down the prosecution’s throat.
5. Diversity as a surrogate for quality:  I’m all for human diversity in the overall scheme of life but I wish they’d give it a rest when I’m just trying to get a job done.  When I bring my truck to the garage I don’t really care if you’ve got a full range of the human experience on staff.  Neither me nor my transmission care if the overdrive was tuned by a Lebanese transgendered Buddhist, an inner city black kid, or an illiterate redneck asshole.  I only care whether it’ll crap out on a mountain pass.
6. Diversity as a code for uniformity:  Diversity is supposed to mean the whole range of human experiences.  So why is it that a I can walk into a “diversity laden” coffee shop and be the only guy there that has ever been hunting, paid taxes, or fixed a radiator.  What are the odds?  Conversely, if ten people all dress like Elvis Costello is it no longer ironic and simply sad?
7. Tax deduction math:  If I can take the mortgage interest deduction and get ten grand back from the government on April 15th that’s fine with me.  You know what’s also fine with me?  Not paying the ten grand in the first place.  There is a significant population that’s so brainwashed they think they’re getting an awesome deal with the deduction and I’m getting hosed not paying in the first place.  Not surprisingly all real estate agents have this illogic baked into their DNA.
8. State radio:  The only radio station I am guaranteed to receive everywhere is National Public Radio.  I know what they’ll say on any subject before they open their shrill mouths to spout surprisingly uniform platitudes.  I understand the function of Pravda in Soviet Russia.  I understand the function of American state radio in Bulgaria during the cold war.  Why is NPR still running  in the homeland during 2013 and why is a tax supported entity perpetually dry humping one of two parties?
9. Tax deduction manipulation:  It’s groovy cool to spend money on solar panels and college tuition.  It’s equally awesome to spend money on hookers and beer.  Social manipulation through the tax code is a bad idea.
10. Moral Relativism:  Some things are simply wrong.  It’s common to over think in an attempt to justify doing what you want to do anyway.  I don’t buy it.  Deep inside we all know better.
11. TSA:  Does any sane person think the Transportation Security Administration is a good thing?  Knowing the TSA will be burning tax dollars doing perv scans, stealing baby bottles, and X-raying shoes every time I fly for the rest of my life totally depresses me.
12. The political ends that justify the means:  If the guy in your political party wants to aggregate power but only to do something ultra-awesome that will save orphan kittens and give flags to the poor.  Don’t do it.  Sooner or later the douchebags on the other side will get their hands on the weapon you just made.  Neither party has a clean conscience on this one.  Quit it!
13. Government budget / tax cuts:  If a budget this year is X and next year it’s even one dollar more, then the budget was not cut.  If tax collections this year are Y and the next year it’s even one dollar more, then taxes did not go down.  Every single word spoken otherwise should be met with a knee to the groin.

“There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy

I’ve been told to believe too much inconsistent nonsense and it’s bad juju.  Therefore I’ve sifted through a small sample of bullshit which has been shoveled my way and started a list (in no particular order) of “concepts which piss me off” (TM).

1. People who would ban cigarettes and legalize pot at the same time:  If you smoke many cigarettes over several years you face an elevated risk of cancer.  Everyone and their dog has understood this for 50 years.  Some folks decided that they are extra-special and have Godlike powers of awesomeness.  Thus they’re justified in coercing other people to stop smoking.  They regulate, tax, sue, and harass the hell out of smokers safe in the conceit that they’re morally superior instead of just the petty bully they look like to me.  Some tobacco Nazis simultaneously turn the dial to eleven and think it would be groovy to legalize marijuana.  Once you’re confident in outlawing cigarettes on the way to a legal toke why not just make a law that everyone ought to be just like you?
2. The rope argument: Hemp was historically used to make rope but now it’s banned as part of the “war on (some) drugs”.  So what?  Nobody gives a shit about rope made with hemp versus rope made from nylon.  You’re not fooling anybody.  Be honest and say you want to legalize pot because it feels good.  You’ll get my vote anyway.  Also quit bitching about glaucoma.  I’m happy with “it makes Pink Floyd sound better”.  Honesty is superior to obtuse discussions of eighteenth century rope technology.
3. The muffler / suppressor paradox:   I’m required by law to maintain mufflers on my vehicles.  This mitigates the theoretical risk loud engines pose to other people’s hearing.  My rifle will unquestionably damage exposed ears.  I am banned by law from equipping it with a suppressor to mitigate the demonstrable risk it poses to my hearing.  Go ahead.  Ponder that for a moment.
4. Cheap is good except when it’s not:  I was told that it’s a good thing to have “affordable housing” for the poor.  When the real estate market crashed, housing got a whole lot more “affordable”.  Success!  Except the government is turning somersaults to prop up housing prices.  Either cheap is good or cheap is bad.  Pick a goal and go with it!
5. If it saves just one life it’s worth it:  No its not!  Life is dangerous and we’re all mortal.  Get over it and make your own choices about risk.  Then leave my choices the hell alone.  Mandatory helmets on a motorcycle make no sense when you compare a Harley to a Volvo.  Mandatory seatbelts in a Volvo make no sense when you compare hurtling down the highway in a Volvo to sitting on your couch.  More people are killed with hammers than assault rifles, more people drown in swimming pools than die of Ebola, and you’ll be hit by lightning before you win the lottery.  Suck it up puss.  Ralph Nader can take his “unsafe at any speed” sensibilities and go cry under his bed like the scared little shit he is!  I’ll be rocketing down the freeway on my deathtrap motorcycle with a Glock in my pocket and a smile on my face.
6. Who needs that:  I do.  I need it.  I need it now.  I need it because I’m big and bad and rich and scary and awesome and you’re a bully who wants to control others to make yourself feel good about your failed little ignorant existence.  You don’t get to decide if I need a 450 horsepower muscle car, sixty guns, a dog bigger than Detroit, and a full collection of the Monkees greatest hits on 45 RPM vinyl.  If I can afford it and I want it I’m going to have it.  That’s what freedom is all about.
7. Cheap is good except when it’s not:  Gun control fans call cheap pistols “Saturday Night Specials” and claim they serve no purpose but to commit crime.  Funny thing but my cheap guns never commit crimes.  Nor would I feel somehow better if Tony Soprano did me in with a pearl handled classic worth more than my car.  The phrase “Saturday Night Special” was coined because “we can’t let poor people have guns” doesn’t sound good on TV.  This concept also rears it’s head whenever someone opines that a $0.50 tax on a round of ammo will somehow improve the universe.
8. Destroying things is good: Cash for clunkers used tax dollars to destroy functioning but obsolete vehicles.  It had no effect on the lifestyle of sanctimonious urbanites who never drive crappy old cars but I personally got hosed.  I’d like to say a solid “fuck you” to the assholes who used my my tax dollars to nuke my supply of inexpensive parts and replacement vehicles.  Destroying something poor people need so rich people can feel good is a rotten trick.
9. The intolerant tolerant: There is a significant overlap in the yoyos who harangue me about being tolerant and the jackoffs that get the vapors over a Nativity scene at Christmas.  How intolerant is someone who drops a legal deuce on a whole religion’s peaceful vision of global spiritual redemption?  If you’re too special to  simply ignore the Nativity you left “tolerant” in the rear view mirror years ago.
10. Europhiles who haven’t been there:  I’ve been told ad infinitum that America should be more like Europe.  There is a place that’s a lot more European than America.  It’s called Europe.  I’ve been there.  Meh.  Europe has good points and bad points but it’s not Utopia.  Many of the people who extol Europe’s superiority are excited about a dreamy eyed never never land of socialist awesomeness that doesn’t match reality.
11. Honesty in everything that doesn’t matter:  If athlete A and athlete B compete in the 100 meter dash, the one with the fastest time wins.  We all get that.  If student A and student B compete in college admissions their test scores are but one of many factors blah blah blah diversity blah blah blah underprivileged blah blah blah.  Bullshit!
12. Human Resource Departments:  The ability to do a job and getting hired for it should be a one to one correlation.  When you’re applying to be a transmission mechanic the person who does the interview had better know how to swap a clutch.
13. More on gun control:  Regardless of your politics on the matter, I want everyone to admit one thing; nobody has ever been shot by a criminal and gone to their grave thinking “at least it didn’t have a bayonet mount”.

I can’t say how long it’ll last but Curmudgeon Compound’s “EMP Resistant, Non-OSHA Approved, Overland Work Unit” (i.e. my antique tractor) is running! (This isn’t a new development but I’ve been afraid to mention it because I didn’t want to tempt fate.) She’s a bit anemic (I must have kergiggered the carb wrong?) but every time I’ve asked she has sputtered to life and performed like the plucky little powerhouse she is. Good!

Tractors, like Curmudgeons, are only good if they can work. Can I rejoice? I don’t know. I’ve been hurt before. Maybe it’s all just a ploy to regain my love. Who knows? For now, though, my driveway is plowed like a runway. Huzzah!

When I bought her she leaked like the Exxon Valdez even before the engine croaked. During the rebuild I managed to get the engine so tight that it didn’t leak at all! Awesome! Unfortunately, it didn’t run. Not awesome. Much swearing and banging of knuckles happened before I finally got her moving under her own power. By then a tiny oil leak had developed. Damn! The leak is minuscule. For a tractor of her age it’s normal. Yet it annoys me. On the other hand I’m afraid to fix it. If I tear it down again who knows what’ll happen?

The drop of oil it left on the ground reminded me of Rodney’s coffee.

. . .

Skip gears a bit and I’ll tell you about this guy I knew. Lets call him Rodney. For all I know Rodney was a genius and a saint but I always thought he was a doofus and a yoyo. He might have been a consumate professional in his field. I didn’t work with him directly so I don’t know and it wasn’t my problem. The only thing that mattered was that Rodney and I (among others) shared the communal office coffee pot.

Rodney simply couldn’t hold a cup of coffee. I have no idea why. Perhaps it was something dark and tragic. Maybe he was kidnapped in Seattle and abused by a barista. Regardless, Rodney blundered through the coffee area like a one man talking tornado.

He was impressively unaware of his surroundings; the living demonstration of “condition white”. He was a big guy. He moved with the grace of Orsen Welles on dope. He was loud. He was hard to ignore.

He would careen into the breakroom with a mug in hand, smack it down on the counter, yank the pot off the burner, pour in the general vicinity, and shove the pot back onto the burner… or somewhere nearby. Never once would he look at either cup or pot. On a good day he’d get three quarters of the coffee in the cup and the rest on the counter. On a bad day he’d get coffee on the rug, himself, even the stupid plastic plant. (Someone please explain why offices have plastic potted plants?) Sometimes he’d splash it on the walls.

On. The. Walls. Have any of you… Seriously now hear me out… Have any of you spilled coffee on a wall?

Rodney thought his hands could pour coffee without his mind’s participation. He simply looked wherever his mouth was aimed.

His speech was Foghorn Leghorn mixed with “Drunk Senator”. Much of what he said was for the joy of hearing his own voice. The rest was for self aggrandizement. As if everything in his brain were a great revelation. “HO HO HO. GOT A BIG MEETING TODAY!” Splash. “I.T. JUST HOOKED UP THE NEW COMPUTER!” Spill. “A NEW PHOTOCOPIER HAS BEEN ORDERED!” Drip.

I like my coffee area laboratory clean (I’ll admit that makes me weird). Intellectually I accept that office coffee pots are never truly clean (people are pigs) but brewing coffee shouldn’t create an EPA Superfund site. Rodney, clearly, had other opinions. After he passed I could analyze the splash marks like a detective determining bullet trajectories.

I’d always fix the mess. Why? Because wasn’t I going to get into a hygiene war of attrition with a human bomb and coffee is important. I’d wipe off the pot, move it from wherever he left it to its proper place on the burner, wipe the counter with a towel, apologize to the plastic plant, tiptoe around the wet carpet, and OH MY GOD… the sugar bowl! What did he do, take a dump in it? (I started bringing my own cream and sugar.)

I’m a cream and sugar guy (especially when the coffee sucks). It’s the only sweetness in my personality. Whenever he saw it, Rodney simply had to comment. “Ho ho ho. I LIKE IT BLACK!” He intended this to demonstrate his awesome masculine prowess. Really? We both knew he couldn’t climb the stairs without having a coronary. I could wear a dress to the ballet and still be tougher than him. For those of you who work up a sweat levering your ass out of a chair; just let it go.

“Ho ho ho. Want a TOP OFF?” He’d shout while pivoting wildly in my direction. I’d hop back as coffee spewed in a wide circular arc. I tried to diplomatically bring Rodney’s focus to the task at hand. “Hey asshole, quit spillin’ the damn coffee.” It didn’t work. Rodney could only hear one wavelength and that was his own voice. Speaking to him was explaining physics to a sea monkey. Not everything is within our power to change. Watching fat braggart whales drooling Folgers on their penny loafers is part of life. It was a lesson I had to learn.

Once I distanced myself from the compost heap he was making out of the coffee pot I felt not merely disgust but also awe. He had a sense of personal importance I’ll never attain. He had found the place where humility grew and battered it to nothingness. As he swayed down the hall at the head of a trail of coffee I’d think to myself; that level of unawareness is simply magnificent.

Once we were all forced to attend a minor safety briefing about a new power unit. Rodney, of course, took charge and narrated the whole thing. Fascinated, I watched him set a cup down with a thump that spilled half it’s contents. It formed a little pool near his right arm. Everyone was watching a screen. I was watching the coffee. Ever so gently I lifted my side of the table. Not much; a fraction of a degree. Nobody noticed. Rodney was loudly reading the slides’ bullet points (based on his personal understanding that we were all illiterate and therefore couldn’t read them on our own). The coffee pool found it’s new low point and started moving. “Balanced position…” he boomed. The coffee inched forward. “Power disconnect…” He orated. The coffee formed a tiny river and spilled on his crotch. I stifled a laugh.

At the end of the meeting he got up, wet nuts and all, and shambled away. I practically died. He never noticed. Was he daydreaming about taking a dump in the sugar?

To save my sanity I got my own coffee maker. Evasion is a legitimate way to deal with the Rodneys of the world. Absent the strange slow motion disaster of watching Rodney drool coffee on… well everything… life became a bit more peaceful. A few years later I left and got a job in a different industry; taking my personal coffee pot with me. I presume Rodney is still where I left him. Their coffee station has surely fostered new life forms amid it’s lively microbial activity.

That was eons ago. How odd that my little tractor’s oil leak jogged my memory.

Back to the present; “If you manage to keep running through the spring” I patted the tractor’s battered old hood “I might try to fix that leak.” I promised. First of all I keep my equipment to be in as good repair as I can afford. Second, I can’t be having Rodney flashbacks. I think I’ll stop writing now and clean out the sugar bowl. One can never be too sure.

In the depths of winter, when the days get short and the nights get cold, I occasionally park by the woodstove and indulge in stupid TV. This is my reward (?) for spending most of my year productively; particularly in seasons when the weather isn’t so fully dedicated to freezing me to death. I’ve earned a brief seasonal period of mental hibernation.

Netflix has a TV show called “Eureka”. I don’t recommend it. For all I know it was broadcast on cable channel 298 in Mexico at 2:00 am in 2009 and then canceled. It’s definitely not Shakespeare. Who cares? It’s a compromise with other house residents and they’ve had enough of me selecting Black Adder and boring documentaries about Pleistocene vegetation patterns. So I watch it.  I’ve even gotten used to it.

It’s about a town of geniuses akin to the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos, but played for laughs by people who couldn’t explain the Manhattan Project, fission, or even find Los Alamos on a map. The silly show has merry adventures with autonomous cloaking invisible teenage armed flying drones (I’m not making that up), Barney Fife androids, robotic dogs that spontaneously combust, wise ass talking computers, vaguely defined “DNA serum”, and various other bits of utter bullshit.  I could write pages about the logical disaster of screenwriting hacks who confuse “science” with “magic” but that’s not the point. In order to watch it I engage in willing suspension of disbelief.  My reward is entertainment on the same intellectual level as a monster truck rally.

The plot, and there is only one plot, is that an absent minded scientist from central casting who is required by law to be socially awkward (because in TV land all smart people are weird) is doing an experiment. This experiment is performed at the behest of the single employer in town; a vaguely ominous big corporate research company that is apparently the Rand Corp.’s idiot twin. They’ll always mismanage it and you know they’ve made a mistake when a computer erupts in a shower of sparks (because that’s exactly what it looks like when an experiment goes awry). Sometimes one or more innocent town citizens is transformed into goo, vaporized, or turns into a statue.

This sets the stage for an even greater impending disaster that will annihilate everything in the known universe. It also signals time to pause the show while I put more wood on the fire and grab a second beer for the “unexpected solution”.

The protagonist (and I’m sure the target audience of this show can’t define or spell “protagonist”) is the hapless sheriff. In each episode he does something stupidly heroic to save the town while the super genius scientists look concerned and tap on computer keyboards. Invariably the solution to everything is to either blow it up or “reverse the polarity on the flux capacitor”; unless of course, it can be fixed by incorporating a time travel paradox that was really clever the first time it was written into science fiction in the 1950’s. None of this makes sense but it goes OK with beer. As soon as the “so crazy it might just work” plan succeeds, the cast stands around congratulating each other while the camera lingers on the paid product placement . This, inexplicably, happens to be hygiene products and Subarus. (Go figure.)

None of this bothers me. I can roll with stupid.

Every few episodes the corporation’s financial backer, played by General Manymedals, has to show up and stir the pot. He’s not associated with any specific armed force but struts around in a jaunty uniform like a parade float and sports a square jaw that compares favorably to Dick Tracey. Unlike the happy eggheads he’s pissed off… always. Massive hardass that he is, he can’t ignore budgets that show he’s spending a metric shitton to finance freaks who are using particle accelerators to do stupid shit like make herbal tea.  Further, every week they somehow (because radiation!) threaten the continued existence of mankind and that’s totally uncool.  (Despite the fact that he’s the “bad guy”, I see his point.  Eccentric weirdos who can’t make a go kart without a million dollar grant and six fatalities need a new career.  Perhaps the Amish are hiring?) He flies to town in his patented secret black helicopter of bossiness and strides around bitching out the scientists for going over budget and not making awesome enough stuff with which to vaporize the Russkies. (It’s good to know the guys from Dr. Strangelove have found work in the modern era.)

Because he hates everything pleasant, he also bitches out the honest and brave sheriff. (It’s implied that he probably strangled a baby seal before he had breakfast too)

In a plot twist sure to be reversed within the next twenty minutes, he abruptly fires the sheriff.

At which point I lose it!

I set down my beer and bellow at the TV. “The United States military does not have the authority to hire or fire any sheriff in any state! The military is not in charge nor does it control the goddamn domestic civilian civil authority. It can’t fire a Federal Marshal, it can’t fire a State Sheriff, and it can’t fire a town’s Mayor.” The dog eyes me nervously but I’m not done yet. “The military is equipped to nuke Peru but domestically it cannot so much as fire the night janitor at Wal-Mart!”

Whew. Glad I let that out.

I reflected on my outburst. I’m perfectly happy watching a magic/science levitating invisible robot that’s powered by glowing radioactive crystals and can also play jazz; but the minute a general fires a sheriff I’m royally pissed off. Yep, that came from way down deep.

This, like the monster truck, Internet porn, and coca cola is a gift America has bequeathed to the world. It’s a big gift too. It’s the idea that the military is only the boss over certain things and not everything. I won’t let go of it even when I’m watching bullshit. Our culture still values freedom and for some of us (like your’s truly) it’s baked into our core being.

Now if you excuse me I’ve got to watch the next episode to find out if “overloading the gigijoule whackfroomeler” will reverse the nanobots that are expanding “super extra logarithmic exponentially because math” and may wipe out the whole planet by Tuesday. I hope the sheriff can save the day!

A little background. I spent most of my life not liking kids; including most of the time I was a kid. Kids, in my eyes, were like adults but dumber and more likely to spill shit on the carpet. Kids also, nearly unforgivably, trash the interior of every automobile they touch. Ever see a minivan after six kids have been in it? It’s like a truck stop latrine in Tijuana.

This was never a popular attitude. As a young man I was mystified because folks would orbit a drooling germ vector and emote about how cute it was. I couldn’t see it. “That’s cute? The thing that looks like Yoda was dipped in bleach and beaten with a pipe until he lost his rudimentary backwards talking language functions? You’re kidding? It just barfed. Barfed on you!  Have you considered a dog? When dogs barf you can chain them to a tree. I’m just sayin’.”

Then, somehow the universe changed. I was suddenly a dad. Inexplicably children became awesome. Well not all kids. My kids are delightful. Yours should stay the hell off my lawn.

Eventually, and this is proof the universe isn’t playing fair, I came to like all kids. Especially when they weren’t barfing and extra especially when they smile. It helps when I know someone else is going to care for them until they’re adults and if they fail in their parental duties it’ll be their couch (and not mine) that sprouts an unemployed loser. That’s as close as I get to becoming a Hallmark card.

Anyway I was in line to get coffee to go because I just couldn’t face the universe without it.  A guy walked in with his son. The son was a cute little bugger. He was bundled in a little hat that was “precious”. His tiny boots were “sweet”. My gruff demeanor faded a bit.

The little cretin fixed his eyes on me with laser beams of soul crushing sweetness. I had a sudden urge to give the kid anything he wanted. A new bicycle. A puppy. My kidney.

“Dammit kid”, I thought, “quit that. I’m trying to enjoy my evil funk and you’re messing it all up.” The kid, because he was telepathic, tossed it right back at me. “I’m pure innocence. You’re going to melt like butter in my gaze!”

I did the stupid little wave strangers use when they want a child to smile. If you put a gun to my head I wouldn’t do that wave for anyone over five. The kid smiled slightly and kept staring at me. (Kids are the only being that’ll look you right in the eye and it’s not a challenge to battle. Infants can see into your soul and you can’t avoid it. Only infants have this superpower. If a grown man looks at me like that I’ll kick his ass. If a dog looks at me like that one of us is about to learn about submission.)

The beam of sweetness continued. The kid had bright, intelligent, inquisitive blue eyes. A tractor beam of childhood innocence against a Curmudgeon? I was doomed.

Suddenly I missed my own children. I wanted to drop everything and immediately seek them out and give them hugs. (Which would embarrass the hell out of them.)

The little kid knew it too. “That’s right you balding loser. This is my coffee shop now. Check out how blue my eyes are. When was the last time a cute girl passing by stopped to pat you on the head? The future belongs to me!”)

Meanwhile the dad was buying coffee and a treat for the kid. He seemed like a nice fellow. He tossed a couple bucks on the counter and then started fidgeting with his pockets. He stammered a bit and started putting some of the food back. The hipster joint where we were standing doesn’t take credit cards and he was a few bucks short.

“I’ll cover it.” I said.

Damnnit! What the hell was that? Charity? From me? To a damn stranger? Just because he’s a few bucks short? This was going to totally ruin my reputation as a Randian hard ass. The guy tried to talk me out of it. I wouldn’t have it. The kid smiled with his big blue eyes of total domination.

I tossed a five down on the counter which covered his kid’s cookie and some other shit. The guy thanked me like I’d just cured cancer and the kid kept looking at me. “I made you do that geezer.” The kid was smiling. I got my coffee refill and made a hasty retreat before I put the little bastard in my will and gave him my truck’s pink slip.

The innocence of youth. More powerful than the grumpiness of age. Who knew?

A.C.

Epilogue: I didn’t know the guy but some other customers did and they started talking. As I was shuffling into the background I heard that the kid was home from day care because he “had the sniffles”. (Good grief!  The little monster was going to give me bubonic plague!) Also the guy was free today because “work was slow”. (Aaack! He was probably a perpetually unemployed paint huffing cretin.  For all I know he just used his sister’s kid to score a free donut off me!)

Someone hustled over and asked if the guy was free to paint a kitchen. I had to listen further. It’s rude but if the NSA can spy, so can I.

A job offer was the perfect uncontrolled experiment.  Despite what every pork laden politician has said tried to do to us (good and hard) here was a job that didn’t involve subsidies, solar panels, or tax credits.  Would the guy go for it?  Would he make a lame excuse and run from the opportunity?  Would it be shoved up the ladder until Halliburton, hired a union organizer to subcontract it to a guy without a green card named Jose’?

To my delight the guy perked up and was all over it.  Excellent! Some folks are glad to work for money.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it you damn politicians and your regulated economy!

Someone willing to hire? Someone anxious to work? Be still my beating heart!

Soon a deal had been struck. I didn’t hear the details but I gathered that a spare room and kitchen will be a new color and there will be more money the guy’s pocket. As God intended!

Could there be anything better? A cute kid. A grouchy asshole who buys coffee for a stranger for no reason. And the crowning glory of it all free enterprise! Yahoo!  My heart soared all day long. An infusion of good cheer in the dark days of winter.

Now I’m sharing the story with you. No fee required. Smile and be happy dammit!