Adaptive Curmudgeon

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Ignoring Brett and Cindy’s argument, The Curmudgeon snatched up Brett’s iPad. He read quickly, swiping through several pages of text. Brett didn’t notice because he was too busy cringing at Cindy’s shouting. Cindy was too pissed to care.

“You’re wrong.” The Curmudgeon pronounced, as if his word was law. This brought Brett and Cindy to a halt. They’d been unaware the scruffy fisherman intended to insert himself in their debate.

The raptor you’re looking for isn’t gay. It’s trans-species. You’ve conflated gender with species. Also,” The Curmudgeon continued, “it’s probably wicked stupid.”

“What!??” The university students exclaimed in unison. In four sentences The Curmudgeon had violated at least a dozen hate speech codes. Cindy looked around in case someone had overheard (unlikely in a forested parking spot near a river but you can never be sure). Brett started with the counter arguments that sprang, Pavlovian style, into his head. (It never occurred to him to question how certain “facts” sprang directly to mind given the appropriate cue.)

“First of all… we never say “gay”.” Bret was ticking off talking points on his fingers. “Second, if a creature wishes to identify as…”

“Relax Poindexter.” The Curmudgeon interrupted. “Spare me the logic behind your rooster egg omelet.” He beamed expansively. “I’m here for the same reason you are.”

“What?” Cindy repeated for a second time.

“This habitat, the water conditions; something about it leads to the dumbest fish for two hundred miles.”

Brett and Cindy stood there dumbstruck. What the hell was the man saying?

“I’m unsure about the actual environmental processes involved,” The Curmudgeon was sounding something like an old school professor, or an idiot, “but this particular drainage produces trout of exceptionally low intelligence.”

He paused. Brett and Cindy stayed silent so he expanded further.

“Fly fishing for trout is a pain in the ass. Tying up bits of fluff to make a floating likeness of a mayfly? That sucks. So I explored a bit and came here. These trout are the gullible idiots of the trout world.” He smiled happily at his own innovation. “I fish here to improve my self esteem by interacting with stupid exploitable retarded trout.”

Brett and Cindy were at a loss. They both sat down on the bank. Finally Brett prompted for more. “And?”

“I think it has to do with the University.” The Curmudgeon happily expounded. “We’re only a few miles downstream of the municipal water treatment plant. It serves mostly to process University effluent. I think the stupid gullibility of the University students is somehow passed on to the fish.”

“So the fish are somehow harmed by pollution?” asked Brett.

“More like, they lack individualized decision making.”

“Brain damaged?” Cindy suggested.

“Socialist.” The Curmudgeon corrected.

It was too much for Brett. “Are you implying political views are waterborne!?!”

“I think so. Or more like stupidity is infectious when concentrated.”

“So the trout go on strikes and protest?” Brett mocked.

“Not quite.” The Curmudgeon answered without defensiveness. He hadn’t detected Brett’s mockery. “You know how a baby bird in the nest just sits there demanding to be fed; for no other reason than it expects it? That seems to happen here. That’s why I catch fish with these.” He held up an M&M.

“That’s nuts!” Cindy exclaimed.

The Curmudgeon tossed a fun sized bag to Cindy, who gobbled it up before realizing the joke. Brett giggled.

“No proper trout should want a candy coated chocolate nugget. They should want a bug or worm. Right?” The Curmudgeon continued.

Brett and Cindy nodded.

“But when conditions are right, they’ll eat anything. How’s that for proof?”

“So they turn into baby birds?” Cindy grumbled.

“Almost, but less… um…” The Curmudgeon grasped for a descriptor, “…self-aware. Yes, that’s it. A baby bird demands it gets fed which implies some level of sentience. The stupid tuns them into something like a filter feeder that just assumes the food is there. An oyster, but dumber; a barnacle!” The Curmudgeon spoke it proudly, as if he’d communicated a deep truth of the Universe, across a vast gulf of unseen knowledge which the two students lacked. From his point of view, the University was an accretion of so much stupidity that it overflowed the natural order of things and turned trout from bug eating aquatic predators to pseudo-barnacles that eat chocolate.

“Bullshit.” Concluded Brett.

“Furthermore”, The Curmudgeon ignored him, “a raptor exposed to those fish will surly think itself highly skilled at fishing. Perhaps a kingfisher or a hawk would think themselves an osprey or an eagle.”

“Bullshit.” Cindy added.

“And this is why I only catch and release when fishing here. No knowing what harm would come from a diet of unnaturally stupid prey.”

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Happy to be alive, Brett dove out of the van before Cindy could initiate any further automotive feats. The parking lot was empty save a single farm truck. It was old but well equipped and unreasonably large. (Did no one drive a normally scaled vehicle anymore?)

“We’re in a van, down by the river!” Cindy hammed with her best Chris Farley impression.

This made no sense to Brett, who assumed the T fellow lived near a river. Vans, he concluded, either caused or were associated with madness. No wonder they stopped making them.

By now Cindy was in the back rummaging around in “the equipment”. She tossed aside a huge shoulder-mounted camera that looked pretty expensive. Rummaging through a box full of wires, she retrieved a soda can sized camera she’d obviously soldered together out of junk. Brett looked dubiously at her handmade toy and the beefy professional looking thing she’d ignored.

“It’s VHS, total shit.” Cindy waved dismissively at the impressive camera. She mounted her little device on a tripod that looked like she’d welded some pipes together. “I welded pipes together.” She explained, as if that was a good thing. “You could beat a bear to death with this tripod.” She thumped it to show how solid it was. Brett was, theoretically at least, a riparian ecologist. He’d spent hours and hours near and along streams. Despite the hubbub about Grizzlies he’d rarely seen one and they’d never been an issue. He’d never beaten a bear to death with anything. What was Cindy planning for their nature documentary?

Near the opposite side of the river, a thoroughly disreputable fellow was lounging on a flat rock. He had a fishing pole, a floppy hat with lures “stored” on the brim, and a small backpack. Imagine a trendy fly fisherman who’d been attacked by hyenas and you’ll still have envisioned someone far more presentable than this particular riparian bum. It was less like a normal person going fishing than a homeless man who’d found a gift certificate for LL Bean and bought a fly rod.

This man was The Curmudgeon.

Cindy and Brett planned out a wonderful opening shot. The river would be a glorious backdrop. Unfortunately, the guy on the rock ruined the view. As they adjusted their camera, the weirdo took a pinecone from his pocket and lobbed it into the water. Brett wondered if bums were allowed to take up fly fishing. Wasn’t fly fishing for millionaires?

“Hey, over there.” Brett shouted across the water. “You have to move. We’re trying to film a documentary.”

The Curmudgeon focused on Brett; an evil grin spread across his face. Brett knew he’d made some sort of faux pas. “That guy looks like he could own a van.” Cindy whispered.

“Upon careful consideration,” The Curmudgeon announced, “I regretfully inform you I ain’t moving; for you or anyone else.”

“Please?” Cindy tried to defuse the situation. Maybe two X chromosomes could fix this before the hillbilly tossed Brett into the river.

“Let me think,” The Curmudgeon fixed on a distant point and scratched his chin, as if the computational bandwidth under his battered hat was limited. “Nope, having re-examined your argument I am still in agreement with my earlier analysis. Y’all can kiss my ass.” It should be noted that The Curmudgeon had plans to move anyway but took offense at being ordered to do so. Thus, he was trapped in a conundrum of stubbornness. He actually wanted to move but couldn’t. This was all Brett’s fault. Contrarian to the core, once someone ordered him to move, The Curmudgeon was honor bound to stay put… forever. It was damn inconvenient but a man has to have principles.

“I’ve got an uncle like that.” Cindy told Brett. “He’ll stay there all day. He’ll build a cabin and live there; just because you pissed him off. We need to negotiate. Darn it, I knew we should have candy in the van!”

Cindy went back into the van and started rummaging for something to offer. Brett feared she’d give away that big camera that was probably still considered very valuable according to the University’s property list. The Curmudgeon tossed another pinecone and watched it carefully.

“I’ll trade a sandwich for the view.” Cindy had returned with a Tupperware box.

“Hey, that’s my lunch!” Brett complained.

“The fish are going to start biting soon.” The Curmudgeon countered. “I’ve waited two hours and it’s almost time.”

“It’s pastrami.” Cindy added.

“What kind of bread?”

“Rye.”

“Mustard?”

Cindy checked and nodded. The Curmudgeon tossed another pinecone and swore under his breath. Then assented. “OK, fine.”

Without a second’s hesitation, he strode into the water and began wading across the current. Brett sighed, his mother had made that sandwich.

The Curmudgeon stopped twice in midstream; each time retrieving a pinecone from a pocket and tossing it into the current. He’d watch carefully, but apparently nothing was happening.

Soon he was on shore, well out of camera range, and completely engrossed in the sandwich. Meanwhile Cindy was standing in front of the camera, reading the script Brett had written. He was holding up an iPad to serve as their makeshift teleprompter.

“Hello, I’m Cindy Leachman and I’m delighted to welcome you to Untamed Monarchy, a documentary series about America’s most interesting animals. First, a word from our sponsor ‘Incremental Insurance’”.

“Are you a dumbass who keeps wrecking your car? Incremental Insurance is happy to monetize your bad driving. For a low rate paid every month we will protect you from the fruits of your own behavior. When you have yet another crash, just call us. We’ll give you as much as half of what you’ve accumulated in payments to us. After a small matter of three estimates and getting raked over the coals by the world’s meanest claims adjusters, you will get a check to pay for repairs on the vehicle you just trashed. Remember, Incremental Insurance is why your bad driving is a hassle for everyone else, but painless for you!”

“Nice!” Brett announced. “Now lets record the opening for episode one.”

“For today’s episode we’re going to try to capture video, for the first time anywhere, of one of America’s rarest…”

Cindy paused.

“Brett! What the hell?”

Brett tried to defend himself. “No, it’s real, I’ve been tracking this one for months. It’s in my Thesis…”

It was no good. Cindy stormed off, having decided a van was a good place to pout. There were no limits to the uses of a van.

“Haw haw haw.” The Curmudgeon roared in laughter. “She’s Marlin Perkins and you’re Jim. Gonna’ find an anaconda in the Northern Rockies?”

“I had to pitch it that way to get funding. But I’ve got a real discovery on my hands and if this works we’ll make some serious bucks.” Brett whined.

Just then Cindy returned. Ignoring the Curmudgeon, she lit into Brett. “You’ve been in college too long. It’s sunk into your head and now you’re as stupid as the rest of them. I can’t believe I went into business with you only to discover you’re an egghead.” She paused. “And why isn’t there any candy in the van?”

Brett shrugged his shoulders, unsure what to say. The Curmudgeon reached into a pocket, retrieved a Halloween fun sized bag of M&Ms and tossed it to Cindy.

“Thanks.” She replied sheepishly. “I’m so sick of University bullshit. You know I got docked on a computer engineering project because I designated two hard drives as ‘master’ and ‘slave’? That’s the goddamn terminology, but some shithead who gets excited because her iPhone can paste kitten ears on photos got triggered. I had to spend two weeks in ‘sensitivity training’.” She downed the candy like a drunk swigging from a paper bag.

“Did you tell them the plug on the end of a cord is called ‘male’ and receptacle is called ‘female’?” The Curmudgeon joked.

“Yes, I had to have that discussion too.” Cindy shouted. “And don’t forget the racist coloring of neutral versus positive wires! It’s a shitshow. The way University runs we’re all going to wind up living in mud huts.”

“I think you mean ‘carbon neutral structures made of locally sourced materials’.” The Curmudgeon chuckled, then, seeing the color of Cindy’s face turning angry red, he tossed over another bag of candy, which may have saved his life and definitely saved Brett’s.

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Cindy Leachman tested the performance envelope of her recently acquired “News Van” in a manner that would make Chuck Yeager proud. The 1989 Ford Econoline was both a relic and an homage to a long forgotten world. In Cindy’s eyes, it was a war machine with which to fight the creeping dullness of modern life. With four on the floor, 3rd generation styling harking back to 1975, and a Gaia killing 351 Windsor V8 it was unlike anything on the road. Cindy loved it. The uninteresting puffballs that are modern vehicles might be suitable for clueless soccer moms, but Cindy still had the heart to yearn for more. And “more” was precisely what she was demanding of the aging van. It was holding up to everything she threw at it… barely. Brett, who had no complaints about modern cars, was unaware of anything in Cindy’s thoughts.

“Why does it sway when we take turns like that?” He shouted over considerable road noise.

“Because it’s a fuckin’ van!” Cindy enthused.

The beast swayed from centrifugal force as they whipped up a highway on-ramp and Cindy wondered how hard it would be to get it up on two wheels. They lurched off the ramp and into traffic where progress was slowed by an unremarkable minivan. It was driven by an unremarkable Karen who had just enough skill to keep her snooze machine between the lanes while texting. Cindy sneered as she stomped the clutch, downshifted into third, floored it, and overtook the wheeled mediocrity like a runaway steam engine about to flatten a dandy on a pennyfarthing. Brett, who was into steampunk, considered explaining the analogy to Cindy. “You see a pennyfarthing is a kind of bicycle and steam engines used to be the most powerful things of their day…” but he thought better. He liked steampunk as a theme, but was only vaguely aware of actual machines. Steampunk was imagination, not reality. Reality is where Cindy reigned supreme. Also, her views about traffic were decidedly militant. If he joked about a pennyfarthing in hopes of reining in the beast behind the wheel, it would surely backfire. Cindy would spend the rest of the trip bitching about bicycles and explaining why spandex clad nitwits should stay off the goddamn road.

The forgettable nobody driving the unremarkable minivan pointed accusingly at Cindy; as if this would somehow shame her. Cindy had no such shame. She was a real driver at the wheel of a real van and secretly believed she should be allowed to shove slow vehicles off the road… ideally off a cliff. She shouted “hang up and drive”, upshifted and stomped the gas harder.

“Shame this is injected.” Cindy explained as Brett clung to the seat. “Probably could retrofit for a four barrel carb. Wouldn’t it be classic? That would really get the party started.”

Brett understood virtually none of what Cindy said, but he was pretty sure he wanted nothing to do with any party that was started by a carb. He also resolved to never mention steampunk in her presence. Secretly, he wished he could drive like her (or at least he should know what a clutch did). Also he was afraid if she didn’t slow the damn thing down the van would shake itself to death. It swayed like a garden shed on wheels!

“Dude, we got a van!” Cindy grinned. “I wanna offer candy to children and make bad decisions! I’m gonna’ hook up a tape deck and play loud shitty music. I should be swigging a 40 right now!” Brett decided “van” was shorthand for a cult of some sort. Meanwhile he was trying to read his map, an act rendered nearly impossible by Cindy’s core philosophy of “drive it like you stole it”. Brett had carefully calculated buffer zones with likely stream characteristics and ran an intersection join on his GIS system to isolate preferable water access and boat ramps. It was a delicate navigational challenge, which Cindy was completely ignoring. He wanted to point out a necessary right turn but then judged against it as Cindy blew past the exit.

“Hey, remember that old show with Mr. T?”

Brett had no idea who this T fellow might be.

“I pity the fool that messes with my van!” Cindy voiced in a deep and rumbling growl.

Brett wondered if T was the guy from RoboCop?

“The A-Team!” Cindy grinned wolfishly. “We ought to paint this thing black and shoot stuff with machine guns!”

“Turn right here.” Brett shouted, having decided that sooner or later he’d have to get her off the highway.

Cindy downshifted, slammed on the brakes (which seemed to have no effect at all), swooshed down the ramp, thundered over a cattle guard, and came to a halt, four wheels locked, at the stop sign. Even before the bulk of the van had shifted back on center and let the aging shocks rest, she was off again. It was a dirt road, and this bothered Brett mightily. Formerly they’d been traveling at an unsafe speed, now they were traveling at an unsafe speed on a suboptimal surface. Cindy felt the need to take turns doing what she called ‘powerslide’.

“Let’s see if those Duke boys can get out of this one.” Cindy was narrating aloud.

Brett wondered if T had a brother that was a Duke?

There was a fishing access point ahead. Brett pointed and hoped to God she’d stop the beast before they were in the water. Cindy reeled it in and came to a halt in a cloud of dust. She’d generously allowed a foot to spare between the van’s front bumper and a six foot drop to the water.

In short, they arrived with the subtlety of an anvil dropping from the sky.

Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of “Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels“. Comments are always welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

High in the gorgeous Rocky Mountains, pure cold snowmelt gathers into rushing frothing streams. There, nurtured in the chaotic rippling current, trout live, grow, and die… never once filing a tax return. Basking in the thin clear alpine light and bursting with vitality of mountain life they attract the attention of overwrought ape-descendants who occasionally lumber about the streambanks. One such fisherman was having a bad day. The fish were outclassing everything he threw at them.

Temporarily blind to the heartbreaking beauty all around him, the grumpy, slouching, woodsman clutched a slender fly fishing rod with hands more accustomed to shrieking chainsaws than a shaft of spindly carbon fiber. He cast his line into spruce trees. He twisted his ankles on wet rocks. During one near miss, where he and the rod almost wound up in the stream, he inadvertently dropped a perfectly good sandwich into the rushing current!

In short, he sucked at fly fishing.

Having snapped his leader yet again, and subsequently gone half cross-eyed retying yet another painstakingly created fly (this one doomed to be lost just like all the others) he stumbled on poor footing and found himself deeper than he’d intended. Ice cold water splashed onto the already soaked denim. Stoic but not stupid, The Curmudgeon paused to rethink his life’s choices. When your nuts are exposed to icy water, it’s time to step back and regroup. He admitted defeat. These fish were just too smart. The current too strong. The sandwich… lost forever.

He cursed and made his way across treacherous rocks onto the firm shore. He could see the fish out there. But would they rise to even his best cast? No! The little bastards saw right though him.

He stomped back to his truck. Time to make a tactical retreat and leave these wild and beautiful fish to their mountain redoubt. He’d shift to a place he’d discovered not long ago. It was further down the mountain. If he was going to catch anything at all, it would not because he’d bested these spirits of the mountains. Instead he’d have to find their dumber cousins; stupid gullible fish.

As to be expected of any proper woodsman, he changed into dry clothes right next to his truck; in front of God and everybody. Lucky for him, nobody was around. Actually, not lucky at all. His sense of modesty was more a sense that his life was none of your damn business. If the vicinity had held a suburbanite Karen doing whatever suburbanite Karens do (yoga perhaps?) it wouldn’t have bothered The Curmudgeon one bit. He figured he was in “his” forest. Up here, among the spruce and rocks, if you didn’t want to see his hairy ass, you’d better have the common sense to look away.

Fortunately, for the man had a tendency to derail plotlines, nothing of the sort happened. Soon he was sitting on his tailgate, enjoying the glory of warm dry clothes, and scanning the horizon. It usually takes chemical imbalance, war, or genuine psychosis to make a man as wary as he’d become about scanning the horizon. He was a special case. A recent “exploding oak incident” had taken root in a mind already leaning towards tinfoil hats. He ceaselessly scanned the skies; like a mouse on the open prairie (though perhaps an aggressive and armed mouse).

The skies were clear and empty. That was good. He took a swig from his flask and mourned his lost sandwich. Between now and dinner, he’d have to subsist on bourbon and M&Ms; not that this bothered him much. He was as tough as he was grouchy. He’d arranged his life as a series of personal challenges that would kill a soft urbane twit at twenty paces. His greatest fears were soft pillows, easy desk jobs, and Government stormtroopers. So far he’d avoided all three quite handily. Besides, bourbon and chocolate go great together.

He caught a glimpse of something aloft. He grabbed binoculars that looked like they could pick out grains of sand on the moon. He watched carefully. He was observing flight patterns and motion even before he could get a clear look at the object itself.

It didn’t have the mechanical signature of a drone. Nor did it exhibit the innate mastery of thermals a soaring bird such as a vulture or eagle would display. It wasn’t a fluttering puffball of a songbird meant for treetops. It lacked the purposeful motion of migratory waterfowl.

It was uncanny, clearly of natural origin, yet it was wandering to and fro like a fool. It descended a bit and The Curmudgeon got his first good look. It was a hawk. It was natural in appearance if not flight.

“A hawk.” The Curmudgeon announced aloud to nobody (for there was nobody to hear it). He watched a bit longer and then concluded. “A stupid hawk. Probably an asshole.”

Satisfied, he stowed his binoculars and drove off. The hawk, erratically, followed.

It’s go time!

Another installment of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels will go live in a few hours! It’s my Christmas present to the world.

If you’re new here you might not know it, but the squirrel stories are a donation supported on-line serialized novel. Western civilization has been taking a dump and we’ve been forced to watch it on the internet. This is my candle in the darkness. I’m trying to use satire to remind us that the internet can be used for humor. Regardless of media, it’s my belief that the humor can and should be a beacon of hope.

Look around, we’re living the punch line of a world gone mad. Join me. Take a few steps back to see the forest for the trees. You’ll find yourself laughing too.

For the newcomers I’ll say the following right now:

This is satire. If you take this shit seriously you’re an idiot. It you get triggered, the problem is you. If you’re an idiot and problem; stop it. Level up and be an adult.

Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels is about 450 pages and the whole novel is yours to enjoy for free. It’s at the Lesbian Squirrels Main Page. It may look messy but that page has every part of the story in order. Take a break to laugh. You deserve it.

A quick reminder of the last chapter in case you forgot:

The last chapter in the story was Thunderdome. In that chapter, a MMA fighter named Janice (or Gerald depending on which way the drugs in its system were trending) came completely unglued and left the ring in mid-fight. Legitimate female athlete Mindy, who was otherwise sure to die, won by default; much to the chagrin of Winston Jones. Jones had lured the entirety of Dr. Simone Moonglow Lenin Rothschild’s Advanced Grievance Indoctrination class into unwise bets only to get shafted by fickle fate and a mean fiction author.

Janice (or Gerald) lost the match in his rage at Robert’s cell phone. From Janice’s (completely addled) point of view the phone was plotting against him. Robert, who’d been dating Billy’s ex-girlfriend, wound up pummeled, not by Janice but by law enforcement officers of every stripe. Robert’s Audi is now a smoking crater because the Tri-county Anti-drug Community Interdiction Special Programs Environmental Task Force Team Pilot Project let Boy Scouts get too close to Chigger’s old man’s competitive Gatlin gun.

Meanwhile, Gertrude and Edna, had taken advantage of Gerald’s absence. They’d unleashed significant criminal underworld connections and SMEEDA (a “SOLID MATTER EMULSION & EJECTION DISPOSAL APPARATUS”) on Gerald’s apartment. Their brutally efficient effort to flush anything remotely drug related resulted in a spotless apartment, minor work related injuries, and the loss of one of two cats. As a final topping on the cake, they left a fully primed female claymore mine on Gerald’s replacement couch. Gertrude’s hopes for a grandchild rest on the eager ministrations of a slutbuger who might woof Gerald back into sanity.

It is the death-flush of SMEEDA that drives this chapter’s mayhem. Please enjoy Chapter 8: Murdertrout!

Also, we have always been at war with Eastasia!

Some housekeeping: as a blog, each post will show in the order in which it’s released. The most recent post will be at the top and earlier posts appear beneath it; which is about the dumbest way to read a book since common core brought illiteracy back from the brink. For simplicity, I’ll link things in the proper order at the Lesbian Squirrels Main Page.

Donations via PayPal or Patreon are always appreciated. Anything you buy from an Amazon link on my blog results in a shaving of a percent back to me. I also accept silver, ammo, whiskey, old cars, compliments, and comments. I will not accept the Nobel prize in literature… not that they asked.

There are donation links at the upper right side of your screen. It’s a scientific fact (as much as any other scientific fact you’re likely to read on the internet) that donations make you more attractive to the opposite sex, lower your capital gains tax, and keep your cat from scratching the furniture. To paraphrase a modern narrative, if you don’t donate to me you’re against the science!

Finally, I’m a reasonable man. If you’re broke, I get it. Keep your money to pay the rent. Read for free and pay it forward when you can.

Merry Christmas.

A.C.