We Are Forced to Take a Stand

Hard Water was going around because some of the local kids got hold of oodles of erectile dysfunctional pills and climbed the water tower, opened the testing hatch and “Voila!”

Blame Amazon, again. 

So the entire town is on lockdown now because Mr. Westly at the bank likes to walk around with his morning coffee. His wokeness was right in the face of a kid waiting to see if their parents got an extension on their mortgage. The kid screamed, Mr. Westley dropped his coffee all over the spots that got McDonald’s sued for hot coffee. The bank tellers thought it was a hold-up and hit their cabinet buttons. The predominantly male police force came in with the wrong guns blazing. The fire department came because 911 likes to send them in a swarm. You can argue that bank robberies might need the Jaws of Life or use of the fire ladder for the S.W.A.T. to throw in their cameras but it’s really difficult to get anything done when guys can’t even crawl on their bellies to an active shooter scene. 

We have those town horns from World War II which are all rusted and haven’t blasted an emergency broadcast in years. They suddenly began long yelping, more like a yodel that comes from the moon and gets louder and louder the closer that thunder claps. The voice said: “Citizens of _xxxx_ please go to your homes and await further instructions.” 

Suddenly the cell phones were taken over by local administrators. “DO NOT PANIC. RELIEF STATIONS ARE BEING CREATED.” 

Relief Stations? There’s no relief from a forever pimple. You can pop it and it grows right back. You can drive to Nevada and after careful negotiation it still grows back. These guys were just going to have to deal with the situation or buy a hat. 

I use my trusty Wyoming Bronco embroidered baseball cap to whistle as I cover the offending region and walk around with terrible hair. Most people don’t notice the hair. Also, as you walk past a neighbor who has also figured out how to cover their centre with a hat, you don’t have to tip the bill to show them respect. It’s just a simple ‘Hi Neighbor so-and-so’ without all that extra energy spent on tipping the hat. 

The latest reports say that we are going to be very blood flowing for around thirty-six hours. Some of the dust of the drugs was caught in the venturi effect of the water tower and so we aren’t sure it diluted at an average rate. There are whispers. 

Some of the old people are good citizens and want to stay home during this epidemic and turn to their loved ones. There are young people making fun of other young people's situations. It’s like we are all at a nude beach with our neighbors and the tan lines are showing and we try to look away but there are tents popping up everywhere. 

“Hi Mr. Rogers.” 

I wave at my family ice cream dispensary worker. He’s trying to kneel down while he scoops but obviously the situation is changing the landscape of business. I mean that guy is overly endowed. I blame real cream and the obvious ratio of calcium to mammary vitamins. He’s the opposite of a carnivore slinging all those ice creams for years. It’s the first time I had seen an over-thirty crowd giggling at the stools before the counter. The man needs to pay his bills like everyone else and the ladies should just back off and quit asking for seconds and thirds. They have a little competition about how high Mr. Rogers can mound his scoops. They say they will pay if Pisa collapses. They will pay if he has to wipe up the sticky mess from all their flirtations. 

I scowl. Poor Mr. Rogers. He doesn't deserve that. 

Since our town of _xxx_ requires a city vote before they can force us into our homes as cages, most people continue working to the best of their ability. Horace at the cafe is positively singing. He’s decided to turn off his griddles at waist level and hides behind the counter as he pours boiling water over coffee beans singing some song from MoonStruck. 

Each “pour over” takes around forty-eight seconds if Horace isn’t distracted. The men cannot pace around the cafe waiting for their noon coffee without the excellent use of Saint Martin hats, Greek Fisherman caps, someone even brought the Stetson back. We dip our head instead of tipping the hat. We might take a seat and cross our legs but nothing stops the indignity of being lighted without privacy shades. We didn’t understand at that time that Horace was giving his shoppers a double dose of the disease. 

In fact, at that time, we decided the Russians or the Chinese had finally figured out how to invade Middle America. I mean Bill Gates had been buying farm land for years in Nebraska, Kansas and all of the flat states. It’s like the man doesn’t love the great mountains of the Humboldt Chain in Elko Nevada. The way the Great Basin stretches out its arms to embrace tiny people while holding the nation’s largest water supply in its belly. 

“Hey Milt, how’s that yacht refurbish going?” 

Milton was working on sanding a 1950s yacht with his boys and going to take it out on the lake like Caligula. He might invite his wife though she was always yelling in public that he should get a second job. Caligula didn’t bring back his mother to port. We all understood. 

Milt said he had to wait to get back to it. “Times are hard.” 

You got that right, partner. 

I kinda felt like maybe finding a date all of a sudden but the average date with fancy dinner, flowers, and travel was around two hundred bucks to make something pop. It’s disastrous to spend that kind of money when there is a perfectly good McDonald’s with happy meals and chokeless toys. 

Seems like times are always hard. The inflation. The complexities of computers taking over your job and artificial destimulants like tariffs and excise taxes to change behavior. I mean they been saying “times are hard” from Regan to Clinton. They said it was natural that the 2009 real estate bubble burst just like the 2000 tech bubble, just like electricity windmills crashing down after giving five years of their life. The salmon aren’t spawning if the ballast waters brought bugs from Asia. The space debris in orbit requires Heavy Occupancy lanes and space nets and space janitors. 

Maybe times aren’t hard. 

I mean there’s an entrepreneur who screams that he loves inflation. He says when prices goes up he makes more money because he KNOWS how to make money. He says that only people who stagnate are going to lose. 

“Only people who are _stagnant_ are going to lose.” 

I must have mumbled this aloud. 

“You Ok there, Tom?” 

Nah. I didn’t feel ok because our parents forgot to teach that Harland Sanders only invented KFC after the age of sixty. Mr. Folgers went bankrupt like seven times before he found the missing wood chip ingredient for his world famous coffee. Napoleon Hill writes ten chapters to people who think they are too old, too dumb or too weak to become wealthy. The man running for president in Nigeria once told me that his country was happy being poor together until ten percent of the population got large jobs with an English Mining Concern and then all hell broke out. 

He said it's hard to be happy if your neighbors make you feel poor. We're all in it together.

“Times are not that hard.”

All the men of the town might complain about the pelvic pressure but times are not _that_ hard. 

Old Milton laughed and sipped his cappuccino and begged to differ. 

I stood up and took my hat off my dong and put it on my head, screaming: “Times are NOT hard!” 

If life gives you lemons… build a lemonade stand and charge tips on a Square Card Reader with a minimum of twenty percent gratuity for acknowledging the customer. 

If your kids move out: SELL THEIR ROOMS! Let’s those brats know that you have been losing 5-1200/month to allow them to have a museum to themselves. A person can legally put 6 convicts or old people in a room by California standards and net out 800$ after feeding them spaghetti. Some say don’t give the convicts spaghetti because it will invigorate their craving for bloodsport. That’s 4800$ per room you make to send your kid off to college or get a job. 

Hardness was invigorating. 

“Hey Milt! Why aren’t you renting out your yacht while you paint the outside? You can park that thing one block away from Willy Mays Stadium in San Francisco for 400 bucks a month. Consider that the average rent is 3,000 and you can charge extra for the sea experience…” 

“I don’t like San Francisco, Tom.” 

(It’s just an example , you minion.!)

“Horace! I sure hope you are selling that thousand pounds of spent coffee rinds to gardeners.” 

My mass was gleaming. 

“Mrs. Jaqua! You get worried about paying all that death money on your sister’s estate and you could just run a charity foundation and net down to 5%” 

I didn’t have time to explain to Mrs. Jaqua the meaning of charity. 

I ran around town telling these cobwebbed mainstreeters that their big problem was competing with the box stores over parking. “Don’t you dare put in a bike lane because them damn hippies will just bike past your business. Go check out the problems with Valencia Street… Now you can beat Walmart and Costco if you start a Stop-n-Go boutique! Get one of those Japanese car elevators for people who want to hold and touch your goods without buying it on the internet. CHRISTMAS IS COMING!” 

No matter where I went, people wanted to talk about the erection beneath my navel instead of staying focused on our true passion: the future. These were a hard headed people. 

They whined that a surgeon cost three thousand an hour. “Home surgery, duh.” There are dulas and physician assistance and people stuck in 2 years of residency who will gladly practice their surgery on you or your loved one for like a tenth of the price if you sign away your right to sue. We need MILLIONS of third party negotiators, to keep the courts unclogged, because all the tech companies want BINDING ARBITRATION and the reason that many municipalities are failing because someone sued.

You can’t give dead people any money.

(Fun fact: arbitrators don't currently require a law degree just like a US Senator).

“WHO WANTS TO PLAY SOLOMON OF THE BIBLE??” 

These guys really needed to pay attention more in church and understand that Solomon was a judge. Didn’t they remember the two prostitutes with one baby and Solomon offering to cut the kid in half? That’s binding arbitration. My blood flow was strong. 

Now I had amassed a certain crowd who liked to hear financial preaching. Some still looked at my center and believed times were hard, while others understood we could revoke the Cruel & Unusual portion of the Constitution and get really crafty with our 8 million person inmate problem, with our need for a computer application to simultaneously file our grievances. I am so sick of Sammy at Starbucks expecting a tip for taking my order. I DON'T TIP WHEN I STAND, Samantha baby.

Angelique Donaldson points to her autistic son and says, “Are you going to fix him?” 

I ask her what’s wrong with the boy. Elon Musk says he’s autistic. Neurodivergent is the new superhuman and a guy with ALS wrote ten books while my grandma with the same disease got sad and wrote nothing. 

“BUT but but but…” 

This is not the day for big BUTs. This is the day to take a stand. I got on a concrete tree retainer because no one uses a soap box anymore. Not even Costco. A modern soap box is made of paper. 

I raised my hand and said “This life may be hard but you are infantly capable of hitting all of your dreams.” 

Horace didn’t like it when I told them to all go home and get some REM Sleep and meet me in the town center at 10 pm. I told Horace he could sell more of his coffee if he made his hours go with people who need coffee. Stop forcing us all to work 9 to 5, that means you still pay your commercial lease for half the day while making nothing. 

The world spins for twenty four hours. We should go to sleep with our problems, our hard-ons, and give these things to the sleep juries of Steinbeck. Wake up with intestinal satisfaction. 

The peak of Man’s Existence might only last a day and a half on the cosmic scale. 

It is good and well to drink water. Even erectile dysfunctional water so that we can all be stimulated in our growth spurts.

We will all grow alongside one another. 

We need an attitude of gratitude.

A posture of prosperity

A cake so sugary that icing is rarely wanted.

Amen.