Ew, a political post

I know after all the horror and headache of the last few years, many of us want to just ignore politics for as long as possible.  It seems like every election in the past ten years has been called “The most important election in a generation,” which, sadly has mostly been true.  And it would feel so nice to just not have to deal with any political crap for a year.  But unfortunately, the forces of the status quo, voter apathy, and literal evil aren’t taking any downtime.  They are plotting and scheming, not just for 2024, but for the handful of governor elections this year as well as for all the mayor, school board, and other minor, local elections. 

What can we do?  Well, if you know anyone turning eighteen, make sure they register.  And be sure to check your registration status, especially if you’re in a state run by those who like to purge the voter rolls and not tell people.  Also, you don’t have to wait until the ballot box to make your displeasure of politicians known.  Keep an eye on what laws they are voting on and contact them to let them know your position.  Of course, since most politicians these days vote along party lines, one person telling them to vote otherwise might not work.  But if tens of thousands tell them to vote one way … who knows.

And if you have the stomach for the making of legislative sausage, perhaps consider running for office yourself.  Unless you’re independently wealthy, it will take time to raise the ungodly amounts of money needed to run for even the simplest office.  See what you need to do to run, and start laying the framework. 

Maybe, if we all work together, we’ll one day be able to ignore politics for a while without the fear of it all going to hell.

Short story – “Going in a New Direction”

“Going in a New Direction”

Breaking News – January 6, 2038

Elon Musk reportedly dies onboard Mars-bound Starship. 

We here at Melete.com are still awaiting confirmation, but reputable sources have reported that the controversial businessman died earlier today in what was described as a “freak airlock accident.” Musk was onboard his flagship Maye leading a group of settlers to begin the colonization of Mars.  The ninety settlers – onboard six Starships – are two-thirds of the way to Mars. 

If confirmed, it is unsure how his death will affect the mission.  Just yesterday, in a cost cutting move, Musk had fired all the engineers on the mission….

***

First off, I’m not advocating any violence towards Elon Musk.  I hope he dies of natural causes, alone and bitter in whatever retirement home his kids stick him in.

The idea for this came when I saw someone’s post along the lines of Musk’s erratic management of Twitter is just the kind of “stable genius” leadership needed to colonize a new planet.  I wanted to reply that he’d probably fire all the engineers halfway to Mars, and this story was born.  I typed it up and was thinking of posting it, but then between “assassination coordinates” and Christmas, I figured I’d wait a few weeks. 

Random Story – My ninety-minute, half-hour lunch breaks

This is just an odd little story from my life.

Several years ago, I worked for a company that made metal cutting fluids and other related stuff.  Most of my time there, I was the lab tech for this one guy.  One of the main things we did was to make slight modifications to the formulas of our products, and see if there was a change in their effectiveness.  Maybe there was some cheaper alternative for one of the components, or maybe one of our suppliers was going out of business, or maybe they were just reformulating their product and we needed to see if we would need to change ours.  Whatever the case, I’d usually spend the morning mixing or dissolving twenty or so chemicals to make a liter of Product X, and I’d either start testing it in the afternoon, or I’d make a second batch of Product Y.

A couple times a year, my boss would go on these weeklong business trips to various conferences.  Before he’d leave, he’d write up stuff for me to do during that week.  And several times he would be gone for five days, but all he would leave for me to do would be to make six batches.  Again, I could easily do two batches a day without straining myself.  If I did rush myself, I could do three batches a day.  So I’d clean the lab, restock supplies, odd little busy work.  But I’d also take very long lunch breaks.

The way I did this, is I’d start about half-an-hour early.  And if anyone came in, I would say that I was in-between things, and I was hungry, so I was just taking an early lunch.  But people rarely stopped by, so usually when the normal lunchtime came around, I’d still be at my desk reading, or working on a story taking my “normal” lunch break.  And if nobody saw me that first hour, I’d take another half-hour, and if anyone came in, I’d just say that I had been running late and was just taking a late lunch.  I probably took three or four ninety-minute, half-hour lunch breaks the weeks my boss wasn’t there.  I do miss those.