Morning Thoughts: Distractions …

C.W. and I were talking …

“Amazing,” I said. “Simply amazing.”

He raised one of his heads from the newspaper it was reading and looked at me. It was the leftmost head, the one designed primarily for data retrieval. “What’s so amazing?”

“You’re reading the paper,” I said. “What do you see?”

“That your species has an uncommon fondness for handguns,” he said. The middle head, the one designed for logical analysis, nodded. “And PTSD.”

“What?”

“Personal telecommunication screen devices,” he said. “What you do without them?”

“You could ask Albert Einstein that,” I said, “if he were still alive.”

“Oh,” said the head on the right. “I think they are so precious.” He, of course, follows the emotional path. He held up his own cell phone to show us a picture of a cat striding back and forth on a piano with the opening lines of “The Moonlight Sonata” patched in as a soundtrack. “Have you ever seen anything so cute in your life?”

“My point exactly,” I said. “What are you reading about this morning?” I asked Left Head.

“Murder, war, hatred, distrust, partisanship, anarchy, genocide, and the obstruction of all altruistic tendencies. Normal stuff for your species.”

“Analysis?” I said to Middle Head.

“Your species is on the eve of destruction.”

I turned to Right Head. “Other than cute cats, what does your PTSD tell you?”

“Most everybody is exercised over some basketball game, whatever that is. That has even pushed the waltzing kittens and the belching puppies off.”

“See,” I asked Left Head. “How amazing it is that, with all that’s going on, a basketball game is our chief topic of conversation?”

He shrugged. “I only report. You’re the decider.”

"I think we have our collective heads in the sand."

“I don’t agree with your conclusion,” Middle Head said. “With all the negativity, your species needs a distraction. Why not let them have a basketball game? Better than a human sacrifice. It sooths them and takes their minds away from fear and loathing, except for the other team and those men in striped shirts, whoever they are.”

“Not so fast,” said Right Head. “I think your species is on the verge of being distracted to death. Want to hear about an experiment I carried out the other day?”

“Sure.”

“You know that college where you teach?”

“Of course.”

“I walked all the way across it in the shape of that wrestling man they call The Relatively Hard, Naturally Occurring Mineral.”

I thought. “Do you mean ‘The Rock?’”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Well,” he said with utmost gravity. “The Rock walked all the way across campus buck naked and how many students noticed, do you think?”

“I’d hate to guess.”

“One,” he said. “And he just looked up, sniffed, said ‘far out, man,’ and kept walking.”

“Maybe you should have tried Beyoncé,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “I bounced, wiggled, strutted, and skipped. Tried everything. Not a soul would look up. The PTSD was just too strong.”

“None of you are making me feel better.”

"We thought you would enjoy our 'Change the Shape' game," Middle Head said.

“I have a question,” Right Head said.”

“Okay.”

“What’s the vapors?”

“The what?”

“The vapors. That’s what Mrs. Big Dope said she had when I walked in as Matthew McConaughey.”

That created a smile.

“That’s better,” Right Head said. “How’d you like to meet Charlize Theron?”

Hey! Maybe the day wouldn’t turn out so bad after all. After all, beauty trumps fear and loathing.

If he won't get your attention,
what will? - C.W.