Murphy’s Law, the automotive edition

Here’s a saga of great suffering and lamentation that I couldn’t help but to share.

And so it came to pass that a week and a half ago, I was staying up late to edit an upcoming book.  It’s over 360,000 words – my longest ever – so this takes a lot of doing.  I was getting tired, but I had an appointment to take in Cat 1 for an all-day checkup at the vet.  So I set the alarm for an hour later, putting the clock next to my head so I’ll actually get up.

An hour later, I pry myself out of the bed.  Girlfriend 1 takes a little while to get dressed, but we can still make the appointment.  Then I get a message from Roommate 1.  Her car broke down and she’s stranded.  We quickly find out that my repair service won’t do squat since she’s not on the plan.  Great wo betide me, I’m not feeling in the most delightsome of moods.  I guzzle an energy drink, which is surprisingly effective since I’d been avoiding caffeine for a while.  Perhaps my bishop wouldn’t be too impressed by my backsliding, but that’s his problem.

So we drop off Cat1.  GF1 wants to go on a side trip to get a prescription.  I do so too.  (Damn allergies.)  Then we make a junk food run.  Then we figure out where RM1 is and drop by and let her have a go at the grub.  As for the car, it turns out that it popped the serpentine belt, running the alternator and hydraulics.  We hook up the battery wires so she can get the car started.  Because of some rather strange engineering practices, the battery is in the trunk, which necessitates unloading the junk in the trunk, some of which gets transferred to my car.  Her car starts – apparently the starter runs on a different belt – and she loads up the remaining junk again, but the engine dies out.  Well, that sucks!

We find out that a tow service would cost a base price of $75 for a haul of less than a mile, and that’s before they throw on all the BS charges.  There’s a mechanic shop only a couple blocks away, but it’s uphill, so pushing the beast would be a little much.  We drop by the mechanic – it specializes in oil changes, but they’ll put on the belt and make another minor repair.

Meanwhile, I go across the street, as Nature is calling pretty loudly, and the shop doesn’t have a bathroom for the public.  It’s a gas station, but fortunately the bathroom was clean, no piss on the seat even!  After that, since I didn’t want to be a shmuck who pollutes the bathroom and doesn’t even buy anything, I purchase an extra large can of Red Bull.  Five bucks and change!  I figure I’d need it soon enough, the way I was feeling…

So we return to the house.  On the way, RM1 drops off the junk in the trunk at her storage unit.  Back home, after a little more searching on the computer, it turns out that no reasonably priced tow services are to be had.  The plan is to tow it ourselves.  She does have a strap, though it’s conveniently located in her storage unit – yanno, the place we just were.  Much razzing follows.  I have one too, but there’s no way in heck that I’m going to find it in the disaster area I euphemistically call the garage.

GF1 dropped the can, causing it to spring a leak, but fortunately not a bad one.  The spraying can of Red Bull is now in a tall glass.  She wanted to go see her mom, so I sent her off in my birth control Chevy, and meanwhile I took her truck, which I’ve named “Old Paint” for reasons not too hard to fathom.  It’s like the Millennium Falcon – “doesn’t look like much, but gets you where you need to go”.  Anyway, so RM1 and I head right back to the storage unit to get the strap.  I figure, what the heck, all this is a deposit in the favor bank.

Then we return to where the car is.  I first have to pull it backwards out of the parking space, so then I can pull it forward from the parking lot itself.  While doing so, I feel a jiggle as if I’d hit a pothole, but there weren’t any potholes.  The truck is moving forward, but the car is no longer moving.  The strap broke!  I was babying it too, but even then the thing popped.

I got out, and it turns out the strap was a lot flimsier than I had expected.  Fortunately there are two others.  I advised to tie the broken one, then braid the other two to distribute the load.  The car is far enough out to bring it forward – barely – but will it make it up the hill?  It’s not a very steep incline, but what just happened didn’t fill me with confidence.  If there was a repeat and the straps broke, then I’d have to Donkey Kong her tank uphill.  Even in my advanced age, I still can deadlift six plates and two quarters.  However, I just wasn’t feeling the love, especially given my fatigue and the fact that this part of the country is hot as blazes during the summer.  Technically it’s the very end of spring, but close enough for government work.

So the cars zoomed by and finally I got a suitable opening.  I pulled out onto the road, with her tank following Old Paint, then up the hill, very slowly.  By some miracle, we made it to the mechanic without incident.  Unfortunately, the trunk would no longer open, as it has an electric control which decides to quit working.  (Why do engineers do shit like that?)  It’s more like an open hatch than a trunk, so we start pulling the stuff out over the back seat, and load up the back of the truck.

Then she goes into the office, and I notice something.  The tank is rolling backward.  If I’d just followed her without looking, it would’ve ended up in the middle of a busy street.  I put my shoulder to it and stop it, but I’m not feeling the love.  I gesticulate wildly.  Another customer sees me, and I tell him to get RM1’s attention.  She comes back out and puts it in “Park”.  Finally I get under the shade.

After arrangements are made, we head back home.  Then GF1 calls.  My birth control Chevy is overheating.  Two cars go kaput in the same day?  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?  I advise to check the jug to see if there’s any coolant, but she can’t hear a word I say.  She’s at some mechanic who wants to charge seven hundred bucks.  She makes arrangements to get towed back to Bubba, our local mechanic.  Since she’s on my tow service plan, they don’t give her any lip this time.

Roommate 2 wanted to do a booze run.  The day before, I’d promised her that I’d do that, so why not?  (She’s a gentile, so she’s allowed to be a wine snob.  But what’s my excuse for being a beer snob?)  I figured we’d multitask by taking Dog 2 to the vet, since she’s overdue for a shot.  I slurp down what’s left of that can of Red Bull, and somehow we all crowd into the cab.  Dog2 knows very well what the vet is all about, and she wasn’t feeling the love about that.  She’s a real sweetheart – an angel on four paws – but she starts flipping and tripping soon after we get there.  Bitch, please!  While there, I find out that Cat1 is doing well, but they need to observe longer so I’ll have to pick her up later.  Dog2 gets her shot and we drop her off at home.  Then we get enough wine to do a Sunday service at St. Peter’s Basilica.

With merely one hour of sleep since the night before, I’m not feeling too great.  I do another hour of editing, because if I go to sleep, I’m unlikely to wake up until the next day.  RM1 announces that her car will be ready soon.  I try to figure out how I’m going to pick up her car as well as Cat1 in afternoon traffic.  I call the vet, fortunately Cat1 is ready.  I go get the adorable little furball.  Then we go get RM1’s tank.  We split off and I go to Bubba’s shop – she’s made it there at long last – and I fork over some dough.  It turns out that there’s something goofy with the radiator fan.  Later, RM1 takes me and GF1 out to dinner, and upon my return, I pass out from exhaustion.

The following week, I try to get Old Paint inspected.  The place I took it to before, which has the only equipment that can test that type of engine manufactured at that time, had a malfunction on that tester, and nobody makes spare parts.  But it might or might not matter, depending on Old Paint’s month of manufacture.  (The state law on the matter gets a little Talmudic.)  I bring it there, and according to the omniscient computer, it won’t need the tester after all.  However, there’s a light socket on top of the cab that’s not working, and now it’s illegal for a third brake light not to work.  They put in a bulb, still no workee.  So it’s either the socket, or a wire, or a fuse.  I’m enough of an electrical engineering geek to figure that crap out, but I’m just not feeling up to messing with it.

GF1 and I take it to Bubba’s early the next day; I figure that he’s adventurous enough to Polack-engineer the light.  Unfortunately, he’s not there.  It turns out that he’s sick, which I find out later.  The accumulated stress made me declare another cheat day; junk food is consumed.  I go to another mechanic.  I get the same spiel about the testing equipment.  I inquire about the blessed light.  I find out that the socket is messed up, and good luck finding another unless I go to a junkyard.  Screw it – I go home and order one online, though it won’t be here soon enough to remain street legal until then.  As the French would say, “C’est la vie, c’est la guerre, c’est la grande pomme de terre.”

Later that evening, the birth control Chevy overheats again.  Looks like there’s something more to it than the fan.  I put in some fluid, as I see that there’s none in the jug.  Later I notice that it’s leaking somewhere, but I can’t see exactly where.  GF1 was planning to go to her mother at last; another trip thwarted.

She takes it back to Bubba’s shop the next day; fortunately he recovered.  He identifies a cracked thermostat housing.  As it happens, this was exactly the part he’d replaced nearly a year ago.  The good news is it’s under warranty.  The bad news is that there’s some other fucking part going (almost literally) haywire – probably a signal cable, because it throws random error codes if you wiggle the connector to the control system.  These are false positives, but I have to fix it to get it inspected in another couple of months. and it’s going to cost schweine Geld.   I’m rather tempted to find out what connector it has and rewire it with a soldering iron.

While there, I relate a cute anecdote about how my son just got expelled from day care.  (Long story.  He’s not really my kid, but close enough.)  I ask for tips on how to get him interested in being a mechanic – already at three, he’s showing subtle signs of aptitude.  All that turns out to be worth a good laugh.  I’m tempted to add another quip – “A bad mechanic screws you, but a good one buys you a drink and kisses you first” – but I hold my tongue.

The following day – yesterday, to be specific – RM2 wants another hooch run.  (I’m tempted to purchase large quantities of beer while we’re at it, but decide I’d better watch my calories.)  GF1 had to take Old Paint in to work, since the thermostat didn’t show up in time.  Soon after, Bubba’s finally done with the birth control Chevy, at least with the thermostat.  RM2 and I walk there, and although we were overheating, finally the car was doing so no longer.  I figure I’ll pop a gasket for sure when I find out about the signal cable.  Replacing it involves dismounting the dash and routing cables to every damn place in the car.

I might ask GF2 for some advice; although she looks like a Barbie doll, she’s the butch one and is great at fixing cars.  Unfortunately, she’s still out of town; otherwise we’d have a go at it together.  On second thought, maybe I should get a horse and buggy?  I think the Amish are onto something.

The Adventures of MP0werdW0myn and OmegaMan – Mission 2 – OMFG’s New Front Group

A sorry slob swiftly scrubbed the floor.  Meanwhile, the woman he loved kicked back in an easy chair, reading Das Kapital, familiarizing herself with the plight of the noble proletariat.

Twenty minutes later, he asked, “Done to your satisfaction?”

Muffy sighed and got out of her chair.  The springs creaked back, relieved of their 400 pound burden.  “It better be spotless.”  She walked up and sneered, looking over the floor.

“This is the third go-over, so it should be really clean now.”

She replied, “Well, that’ll do for now, but the next time, it’d better sparkle.”

Derp said, “Tell you what.  Maybe we can split the chores?  That’s pretty egalitarian, right?”

“What?  As if you’re my boyfriend or something?”  She made a disgusted face, as if he were a five foot tall garden slug.  That was pretty close to the truth, though she had little basis for looking down on him.

Crestfallen, he answered, “Oh, why absolutely not!”

“You know, you need to find a real job.  I’ve told you time and again, there’s no money in answering online surveys.”

“What?  And sell out?”

“Somebody’s got to get more cash, and it’s not going to be me, since I’m working so hard to bring about the Revolution.  I had to settle for store brand ice cream and soda on the last shopping trip.”  She made a disappointed face.

“Yeah, the government is oppressing us so badly.  It’s so hard to make ends meet.  Our benefits only go so far.  They’re so stingy with the food stamps these days especially!  It’s all Orange Man’s fault!”

“You’d be on the street if I didn’t pull some strings for us to get this subsidized apartment.  I’m telling you, you should check back into the mental ward.  Maybe they’ll up your crazy checks when you get out.”

“I’ve gone over and over with the disability office about it, and they refuse to pay me any more, even though I’m a sperg with seven APA recognized paraphilias and chronic bedwetting.  What I’m worried about right now is how I’m going to pay the thousand dollar fine for disorderly conduct.  They’ll put me back in jail if I don’t pay.  The food was awful, and I went into a horrible fit of video game withdrawal.”

She stuck her nose in the air.  “Well, the judge was nice to me.  She let me off with time served.  You just didn’t play your cards right in court.”

“I guess our career as thoughtcrime fighting superzeroes is over, at least until we can get past this tough spot.  I’m supposed to do 120 hours of community service too.  Picking up litter is slavery!”

“Well, genius, why don’t you think of something?  Then we can get back to being MP0werdW0myn and 0megaMan, the Dysfunctional Duo fighting for Social Justice.  Or is thinking too advanced for your male capabilities?”

“Okay, tell you what – we can start a foundation.  They have lots of money, don’t they?  We can use it to spread Social Justice too.  We can make it sound like something cool and wonderful, but push our own agendas with everybody else’s effort, and especially donations.”

“Cool!  Glad I thought of that!  Now get cracking in researching how you’re going to set up my foundation.”

One week later

Derp grinned goofily.  “Check this out!  The traffic for InDemFedLibFraEqPepT.org is really growing!  I got a couple of hits on our website already!”

“I still say you picked a suck name for it.”

“But it’ll be a name that goes down in history!  Seriously, the ‘International Democratic Federation for Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, and Peppermint Tea’ is the best concept I could come up with.”

She made a face.  “It has the word ‘fraternity’ in it, and those places are rape factories!”

“Hey, it’s got to be better than jail.  The first day I was there, I had to give four blowjobs to those lonely MS13 guys.”

“Think of it as repaying some of your unearned privilege points for being a cisgendered male heterosexual gringo.”

“I’m changing my orientation from ‘heterosexual’ to ‘questioning’.  I was starting to like it by the end of the week, but my butt is aching, and so are my tonsils.  And I’m really having a lot of trouble getting used to A2M.  On the positive side, I’m getting good at deepthroat, and I’m not a virgin any more.”

“Now you’re oversharing.”  She felt pretty sour about him getting more action than she did.

“Really, ‘fraternity’ means ‘brotherhood’.  That’s all I meant by it too.”

“And ‘brotherhood’ is exclusionary to wimmin.  That’s especially offensive to Yours Truly because not only I am a womyn, I came up with the idea for this foundation.  And the ‘tea’ business is way too similar to the Tea Party.  How awful!  There in that basket of deplorables!”

“But that’s just it!  We can sell it as a wonderful coalition across all ideologies.  I mean, who doesn’t like liberty, fraternity – oh, I mean brotherhood, uh, I mean comradeship – and also equality and peppermint tea?  We’ll attract supporters all across the political landscape.  If the teabaggers give us their effort and donations too, why not?  And they’ll just happen to serve us and our purposes.  I’m still trying to figure out how to make us a 501(c)3 nonprofit.  Until then, I’ll just tell everyone we are.  I’ve put that on the website already, since it’ll attract more donations that way.”

“Fine, but don’t waste your time with the IRS, and that’s an order.  They’re just a bunch of Fascists.  Anyway, you better make my foundation work, or I’ll take away your Xbox and Playstation again!”

He gasped.  “Oh no, I’m quite certain this is going to be huge!  I sent seven hundred query emails, and I got a couple of responses already.”

“Oh, those are probably just spams.  Have you taken your meds today?”

“There’s one from someone called Maximum Leader Rosso.  He says he can make us a deal.”

“WHAT?!?”  An expression of joy crossed her face, and Muffy looked like she was about to faint.

“Who’s he?  You know him?”  A pit of fear seized his guts.  Could he be an ex-boyfriend of hers?  As far as he knew, she never had any, but the possibility existed, and it scared the daylights out of him.

“Derp, you’re a much bigger idiot than I thought you were.  He’s a billionaire who heads the Open Mankind Foundation Governance, one of the biggest and most important organizations, the foundation of foundations.  Everyone who’s in the know knows about it.  OMFG hands out the Benjamins like confetti to front groups like mine.  I’m rich!”

“Um – awesome.  Does this mean I get to keep part of my crazy checks now?”

“And as a side benefit, they run one of the foremost transmission belts for Social Justice Warriors like us.  We’ll be tuned into the latest inside information!”

“It’s even better than Tumblr?”

She sighed.  “Did I mention that you’re an idiot?”

Week two

The International Democratic Federation for Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, and Peppermint Tea set up its table once again on the corner of Main and Elm.  Curious passersby walked up and checked out the literature.

“You need to engage with these people!” hissed Muffy.

“I’ve been trying.”

“Well, try harder!  Maximum Leader Rosso expects some results!”

Derp replied, “Well, mostly he wants us as a conduit for funding.  I had to wire most of our cash to my MS13 boyfriends so they can buy more AK47s.”

“You wired it?  You idiot!  That’s traceable!”

“But if I went to the bank to withdraw it, I could get mugged on the way to delivering it.  Besides, I have proof that the money went where it was supposed to go.  Rosso made it very clear that I’d get cement overshoes if it got misplaced.”

A couple of people walked up.  She whispered, “You engage these people, get them to sign up and make a donation, and I’ll criticize how you do it.”

The first was a middle aged lady in a suit.  “Hi, I’m Libby Liberal!”

“Good afternoon, Ma’am, glad to see you here.”

Muffy hissed, “That was a gendered word!”

“I mean, good afternoon, Citizen Person.  How can I help you?”

Libby replied, “I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but lately I’ve come to the conclusion that my party only works for the globalists and not the constituents.  Whenever we’re in office, we never get closer to eliminating poverty and war.”

Derp smiled.  “Well, you’ve come to the right place.  We’re all about liberty, comradeship, equality, and we even love peppermint tea!”

“Super!  I can’t wait to sign up and make a generous donation!”

“That’s wonderful!”  He turned to the other one.  “And how about you, sir?  I mean Citizen Person?”

The other fellow, a guy in grease-stained overalls, spoke up. “I’m Joe Sixpack.  I’ve voted Republican all my life, and it always astounds me that even when my party is in office, we never change anything.  Then I found out that most of my politicians work for tricky globalist foundations, and so do the Democrats.  Even the ones that don’t belong to these outfits themselves can’t do anything.  There are so many dadgum globalists in Washington that no matter who you vote for, you get the same thing.”

“Well, we’re all about the liberty, comradeship, and equality, so we want to change things for the better just like you do.”

“Did you mention ‘comradeship’?  I don’t suppose this is some kind of a front group, by any chance?”

Derp squinted.  “You could also call it ‘fellowship’?”

“Like ‘fellow travelers’ you mean?”

“Tell you what.  We’re totally about the peppermint tea too.”

“Hey, I like what the Tea Party was trying to do, so count me in!”

Libby Liberal and Joe Sixpack smiled at each other and shook hands, a touching show of bipartisan solidarity.

A tall guy, built like a linebacker, walked up.  “Hey, I noticed your table here the last couple of days and I’ve been doing a little research.”

Derp said, “Oh, hi, Citizen Person.  Want to sign up too?”

“I think that this might be a front group.  Are you affiliated with the Open Mankind Foundation Governance by any chance?”

“Uh – what makes you say that?”

“For one thing, the stuff on your website looks like boilerplate they use for other front groups.  There are some things you should know about its founder, Maximum Leader Rosso.  Did you know that he made his billions crashing economies around the world?  The common people suffered, all so he could get his percentage.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  OMFG specializes in getting idealistic people to support globalist agendas, and all the while they think they’re fighting The System.”

Libby Liberal had a pained look on her face.  “You know what, I think I’ll save my cash for my cat food bill.  I have twenty mouths to feed at home.”

Joe Sixpack said, “I’ll use my money to buy a case of Duff, and some football memorabilia!”  He rubbed his hands together in glee at the thought of wearing another man’s uniform.

Muffy whispered to Derp, “This new one looks awfully familiar.”

He whispered back, “He sure does.”

The big guy replied, “You two look familiar as well.”

Muffy slunk away to the nearest unisex bathroom.

Derp fired back with one of his most potent thought terminating clichés:  “Check your privilege!”

“So you thought you could fool the common people, get them to do your work, and take their money?  Kid, that’s pathetic.”  He pointed to the two walking away.  “That lady is an office worker, and that guy is a mechanic.  You could be doing those things, instead of being a parasite.  Come on, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

He stood and raised a clenched fist, causing his pudgy arm to jiggle.  “Power to The People!”

“On that note, you could be an electrician too.  That’s something productive.  Pull yourself together, dude!”

The door to the unisex bathroom opened.  Out came MP0werdW0myn in full superzero costume.  Her problem glasses glinted in the sun.  The sidewalk shook as her thunder thighs treaded the ground.  “So it’s Bright Spectrum, the superdeplorable!  I knew it was you!  I’ll make short work of you, you… you blond beast!”

“Oh, it’s you again?  Lady, you need to apologize for the scene that you and your lapdog caused last time.”

“Ha!  You assume gender!”

“Tell you what,” replied Bright Spectrum.  “As long as you have your table set up, I’m going to stand right here and tell the truth to all these people about what you’re doing.  And for your sake, I sure hope your IRS papers are in order.”  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten a bounty for snitching on tax cheats.

A policeman walked up and pointed to her.  “Hey, you look awfully familiar.  I picked you up for disorderly conduct a while back.  Don’t you have anything better to do with yourself?”

MP0werdW0myn replied, “Uh, okay, I’ll be packing up and leaving right now.”  She continued in a snippy tone, “Any perception of inconvenience is regrettable.”

“And that other troublemaker looks familiar too.  Hey, where did he go?”

Bright Spectrum said, “He jumped down that manhole.  I’m guessing he lives in the sewers.”

Week three

At ten in the morning, there was a sharp knock on the door.

Muffy quit snoring and opened an eye.  She called out, “Answer it, bitch!”  Unlike her, Derp couldn’t wake up; he was passed out from a Warcrack poopsocking session that had lasted until 6am.

The knocking resumed.  She let out a long string of profanities, and pried her oversized butt off of the easy chair.  Muffy waddled to the door.  A couple guys were standing there.  One was old and bald, and another was younger and had a grim expression on his face.

“Didn’t I tell you Mormons to go away and never come back?  You’re part of The Patriarchy!”

The older guy said, “I’m Special Agent G. Gordon Lützow with the FBI.  We’re here to investigate the International Democratic Federation for Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, and Peppermint Tea concerning illegal fundraising, tax evasion, money laundering, and assisting the MS13 international crime cartel.”

She pointed down the hall, where Derp was sleeping.  “He’s in there!  It was all his idea!  He’s a menace to society!”

Work versus prison

I didn’t come up with this one, and I’d credit whoever made it if I knew who it was.  That said, enjoy!

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Work vs. Prison

If you ever get these two environments confused, this should make things a little bit clearer.

IN PRISON……you spend the majority of your time in a 10X10 cell.
AT WORK…….you spend the majority of your time in an 8X8 cubicle.

IN PRISON……you get three meals a day.
AT WORK……..you get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON……you get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK……..you get more work for good behavior.

IN PRISON…….the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK………you’re carry a security card and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON……..you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK……….you get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON………you get your own toilet.
AT WORK……….you share the toilet with some people who pee on the seat.

IN PRISON……….they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK………..you’re not supposed to even speak to your family.

IN PRISON………all expenses are paid by the taxpayers.
AT WORK……….you pay all your expenses to get to work, and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON……you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out
AT WORK …….you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON…….you must deal with sadistic wardens.
AT WORK……..they’re called managers.

Your mother always told you life wasn’t fair………..

Book Review – Mister by Alex Kurtagic

If you’ve ever been on an overseas trip where everything goes horribly wrong, Mister by Alex Kurtagic is all that, along with devastating social commentary about Europe run into the ground by globalist misrule.  The book turned out to be a fascinating read, much recommended.  Even despite a few slow spots, I found that I couldn’t put it down.  The title references the protagonist, who throughout the book remains unnamed.  Perhaps not giving him a name (and thus a fixed identity) subtly suggests that THIS COULD BE YOU one day.  It’s much like how Orwell’s character Winston Smith is evocative of a British Everyman.

Still, “Mister” isn’t quite Everyman.  He’s an IT consultant with two doctorate degrees, became a successful self-made businessman, is cultured and refined, and he has a very high IQ.  Moreover, he fully realizes that he’s exceptional, which makes dealing with stupid people all the more grating.  As it happens, the stupid have been proliferating quite rapidly.  As I read it, it wasn’t clear if this was a biting satire of what Europe had become at the time of writing, a grim prognostication of the not-too-distant future, a sequel to Jean Raspail’s prophetic 1975 book Camp of the Saints, or a prequel to the movie Idiocracy.  Really, it’s all the above.

Blade Runner without starships

Furthermore, as an early member of Generation X, he remembers when Britain used to be British.  (So do I, which I’ll discuss in a later article.)  Because his country has been going to hell, he moved to the countryside in a pleasant but fortified house to escape encroaching vibrancy.  More to the point, since the book is set in Spain, he remembers the Franco administration as the good old days.  He sees that not only did the globohomo Eurocrat government wreck the orderly and functional country he remembered from a visit during his youth; they even had the bad taste to destroy monuments from that era.

The Madrid he finds himself in during his ill-fated business trip is Spain by geography only.  As for the population, it’s a chaotic multicultural goulash full of urban Orcs gnawing on the carcass of Western civilization.  The novel’s description is not so different from what major cities in Western Europe already are in the real world.  Years back, I saw the Paris subways for the first time and immediately wondered, “Where are all the French people?”   On the same trip, I visited Barcelona too.  Although I was greatly impressed with the architecture and the native culture, I was taken aback to see so many undesirable migrants who didn’t belong, didn’t fit in, and were there to mooch off the welfare system.  Francisco Franco wouldn’t have put up with that for a minute.

Further, society as depicted in the novel has become a dysfunctional wasteland from “tax and spend” bureaucrats gone wild, the economy going down the toilet because of that, totalitarian political correctness (they even made Christmas illegal), crumbling infrastructure, security theater, and mass surveillance.  Simply put, it’s anarcho-tyranny.  Moreover, he encounters rampant crime, food that’s barely edible (at best), overcrowding, pollution, epic traffic jams, and massive incompetence due to declining IQs.  In other words, all this is basically what Euro-Absurdistan is quickly becoming, because the EU is being run by crooked politicians who get their “campaign contributions” from the globalists.

The narration from the protagonist’s point of view is highly politically incorrect and minces no words.  For example, the following is a description of some MS13 gang members who look like trouble.  Indeed they are trouble, because they rob him soon afterward:

From an evolutionary perspective, XIXth century physical anthropologists would have deemed the faces to have evinced a number of archaic traits:  prominent supraorbital ridges; maxillary prognathism; strongly proclined upper and lower incisors; projecting, zygomatic arches and alveolar ridges; and low, sloping foreheads, fronting brachycephalised skulls with negligible cranial cubicage.  These traits appeared in a chaotic array of inharmonious configurations, suggesting that they were a product of irresponsible miscegenation among developed subspecies of humanity, and, within that category, among the most degraded, and least promising, specimens from Central America.  Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso would have found in their traits – the atavistic stigmata affecting their physiognomical, phrenological, and craniometrical characteristics – brutal and inequivocal confirmation of his theories on the heritability of criminality.

This is from the perspective of someone far on the right of the IQ bell curve, viewing a teeming cityscape full of morons.  As one can see, this isn’t light reading, though it’s not as dense as Middlemarch.  Also, much of the dialogue is in Castilian Spanish.  I was surprised to find that I could read those parts, although I’ve merely picked up an elementary understanding of Southwestern US Spanish via osmosis.

Then things really get vibrant when he has to venture a couple of times into one of Madrid’s “no-go zones”, a common feature of European cities lately.  Throughout the book, he’s disgusted and horrified by what he experiences and endures.  In personal interactions, he expects basic respect and decent customer service, and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.  On the other hand, he’s quite timid about confronting the problems facing society.

Inactivity is death

For years, the protagonist has known that things were going deeply wrong.  However, he’s merely Purple Pilled, and believes that his affluence will insulate him from Euro Clown World.  He hasn’t lifted a finger to change things, which proves to be his tragic flaw.  His approach thus far is:

Best to keep quiet, make money, and live well, and be safe.

This does not end well.

Eventually he finds himself in political trouble, and is arrested and treated worse than a common criminal.  Prosecutors who get a hard-on for someone are nothing new, but the munchkin who interrogates him is a real piece of work.  The more that the protagonist tries to explain himself, the more the interrogator reads volumes into it.  Even St. Thomas More wouldn’t have done much better a job of defending himself.

Note well, if you ever find yourself in the judicial system’s meat grinder, the bad cop isn’t there to “give you one last chance to clear things up for yourself”, and the good cop isn’t your friend.   Save any explanations for the courtroom.  The purpose of interrogation is to get you to give information to build a case against you, even if this means twisting your words.  Therefore, the only rational thing to do is KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

The scenes that follow would do Kafka proud.  It turns out that they have a mountain of dirt on him, thanks to police state domestic spying that’s already in place in the real world.  (Did I mention that THIS COULD BE YOU one day?)  However, almost all of it is guilt by association, and very tenuous at that.  Still, they made a mountain out of a molehill, and he contemplates being sent to a gulag to be released when he’s elderly if he’s lucky.

Following this, he has his moment of clarity.  He made a mistake not having children, so that he and his wife could enjoy a higher standard of living.  Their high IQ genes will die out with them, and meanwhile the morons have bred like rabbits.  Unfortunately, it’s a common mistake leading society down the path of an Idiocracy scenario.

Furthermore, he failed to stand up and do something about Euro Clown World taking shape back when there was a chance to reverse course.  He could’ve used his intelligence to strategize about how to thwart the globalists.  He could’ve connected with like-minded people.  Instead, he’s put up with every encroachment without raising hell about it.  He feared that taking a stand would cause him to lose respectability as a businessman.  It’s a legitimate concern, and a very common one in the real world.  Still, if nobody has the balls to resist, then things only will get worse and worse.

Learning to live with the state of the world, and insulating himself as best he could from its continuing deterioration, had been the least risky and therefore the most rational choice.  He had reasoned that, provided he did not rock the boat, kept his grumbles private, and voted with his wallet, he would be able to live his life in relative comfort, irrespective of how bad things got out there.

That’s not how it worked out, did it?  He’s filled with regret that he did nothing to try to save his civilization.  I’ll add that if you do nothing, THIS COULD BE YOU one day.

Who stands against the globalists?

In the novel, there actually is some opposition.  It’s not clear how powerful they are.  The media talking heads frequently blame them for The System’s own failures, though it’s pretty clear that they’re overstating things.  The resistance does have some resources and are mostly successful at outwitting all the domestic spying measures.

Other than some colorful individuals who make brief appearances, the dissident right includes Pagans in the tradition of Miguel Serrano, as well as fans of neofolk, martial industrial music, and black metal.  Serrano’s basic doctrines are mentioned in the novel.  He created a rightist interpretation of theosophy and had much to say about German Haunebu saucers and Antarctic bases.  I’ll add that this version of UFOlogy has considerably more panache than the well-known crystal weenie New Age variety.  I don’t believe in any of that, but I sure had fun bringing it to life in Space Vixen Trek Episode 17; my fellow deplorables, whether or not they’re into Serrano, will love that one.

This rightist opposition as depicted seems to be an atypical one.  I’ve never met any of the Serrano crowd, although I became deplorable three decades before Cupcake called us a “basket of deplorables”, bless her heart.  As for the black metal folks, they do have a following in Europe, but it’s UKIP, AFD, FN, and so forth who are at the forefront of resistance to globalism.  Given the setting in Madrid, I would’ve anticipated some others in the resistance too, such as Falangists and fans of Rock Against Communism bands from Spain like Estirpe Imperial, Division 250, Celtica (Mara Ros for the win!), Iberian Wolves, and so forth.   I jam out to their tunes all the time, which perhaps accounts for my unexpected comprehension of Castilian Spanish.

Finally, once again I’ll highly recommend Mister, if you can locate a copy of it.  Hopefully there’ll be a reprint, or a move to print-on-demand.  I’ve spoken out often to show that apathy and retreating from problems doesn’t get you anywhere, so it’s always good to see efforts along similar lines.  For Purple Pilled folks who know that something’s wrong but think that resigning themselves to their fate is an option, or Yuppies under the illusion that moving further out to the suburbs will insulate them from Clown World, this will knock them off the fence.