208: Personhood

“You’re embarrassed?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know.” I was trying to calm C.W. but he was having none of it. He had just returned from a meeting somewhere with the other aliens from Falloonia, the ones that do the same thing he does, in different parts of the world. Since he had taken on the shape of a drugstore cowboy, with hat, boots, and a belt with a buckle large enough to serve lunch on, I can only imagine the spectacle presented at that gathering.

“This dude from Barcelona kept asking if I had dated any corporations,” he said. “Then the one from Moscow wanted to know how it smelled when a corporation broke wind. And of course Pauline the Parisian wanted to know where they shopped for shoes.”

“That was pretty bad,” I admitted. He was upset, naturally, at the recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court that indicated corporations were people with religious feelings. How was I to explain that to him?

“They wanted to know,” he said, almost in tears, “if, since they held religious beliefs, they were baptized, and how?”

I drew a deep breath and exhaled. He continued. “I’m the laughing stock of the galaxy.”

“Look,” I said, “you have to understand that we are a nation of laws, even if we don’t like some of them.”

“How can you pass a law making a corporation a human?” he said. “That’s piddelwadca,”

“It’s what?”

He thought. “That’s something like a cross between ‘brain of crap’ and mental masturbation,” he said. What you would call amusing or laughable through obvious absurdity, incongruity, exaggeration, or eccentricity.”

“I think,” I said, “you are trying to say it was ludicrous.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

I ignored him. “Don’t any of the others ever witness anything odd in their assigned locations?”

After a moment’s thought, he said, “Well there is this one stricture somewhere against copulating with an orangutan, but I think it is meant as a joke.”

“A joke?”

“I think so … something about producing too many soccer fans.”

I said, “I see.”

He said, “I don’t.”

At this point I tried to change the subject. “What say take a vacation down to the seashore soon? We could both use some rest. Maybe we could find us a nude beach somewhere.”

“That reminds me,” he said. “Do Jewish corporations get circumcised if they are male?”

“Say what?”



Could you have same-sex marriages between
corporeal humans and corporation humans?
Boy, am I confused. - C.W.

“Inquiring minds want to know,” he said. “That’s what my ‘pards’ kept saying when they asked me these questions. What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure, why don’t we see what my wife is fixing us for supper, Buckaroo?” I said, regarding his cowboy hat.

This only had the effect of setting him off again.

“Someone wanted to know if gay corporations can get married in our state,” he said, staring out into space and assuming the most forlorn expression I have seen on him since Big Bang’s Penny announced her engagement. “You can’t imagine the hell I have been through.”

 

“Come on,” I said. “Maybe we’ll go shopping later. You’ve been wanting to look for a new computer. Buying stuff always cheers you up.”

“Say,” he said, suddenly brightening. “Do you reckon a rich corporation couple could adopt me?”

Be sure to click some ads. I nearly have enough for that new computer. - C.W.
Oh, and check out www.wattensawpress.com