A true statement

The other night at work, I found something interesting on a shelf.

Not the dime, the message taped to it.

Even thought I’m one to pick up any change I see, I put this back on the shelf in the hope its true target would find it.  I live in a very red part of the state, so the odds of a Trump voter finding it are pretty high.  And I wonder what they will do.  Will they not even bother to read it, will they get super angry, or will they dismiss it only to be reminded of it months from now when they’re paying $20 a gallon for gas while dumbass claims the way out of the recession is another tax cut for billionaires.

A couple weeks ago, there was a customer in a Trump hat complaining about how expensive stuff was.  He then looked at me and stated, “It’s only going to get worse.” All I could do was clench my jaw and nod to keep from saying, “No shit Sherlock!” Of course, it’s possible the guy didn’t feel any remorse, and is one of those that is happy to crash the economy because “It will hurt the woke/trans/Mexicans – or whoever their boogeyman/scapegoat is this week – more.  Somehow.”

I don’t know if putting out such a message will make a difference, but I might try it.  Although, I may have to only use pennies.

Fake dreams

I know people don’t care to hear about someone’s dreams, but I recently had an interesting experience I wish to share.  And a dream is a central point of it.

Anyway, I recently had a dream where some of my siblings found some badminton equipment.  My mom suggested having some sort of family tournament, but my brother pointed out that the last time we played tennis, Tim beat us 26-1.

A couple things about this.  First off, it has probably been forty some years since I’ve played badminton, and I don’t believe I’ve ever played tennis.  Secondly, I had the feeling that this was a cousin Tim and this happened at a family reunion, but I don’t think I have any cousins named Tim.  I went to school with a Tim, but I barely spoke with him then and haven’t spoken to him in thirty years.  The only other Tim I can think of, is a few years ago the manager at work was out for a few weeks for a medical issue, so the corporation sent in this other manager to cover.  This was a Tim, who was a bit of an asshole.  And lastly, in regards to the dream, I couldn’t care less about tennis, but 26-1 doesn’t seem like a tennis score.  Which leads me to think that “cousin” Tim was also a bit of an asshole and just kept playing until someone managed to score a point.

Now that that is all out of the way, the interesting thing I noticed was when I was groggily half-awake after this dream.  Because I had the overwhelming feeling that the whole “cousin” Tim story came from another dream I had like a month ago.  A dream I have no memory of, except as this vague reference.

This leads to two possibilities.  One, there is a part of our brains that remembers our dreams better than our awake brains does.  This doesn’t seem likely, because what would be the point.  So the more likely second possibility, is that when we dream of real events, our brain can pull from our real memories of them, but whenever a dream comes up with a “cousin Tim beat us at tennis at a family reunion” type event, the brain sort of panics when it can’t find the memory of that, so it just goes, “Oh, that was just a dream.”

I was really interested in this, because it seems once a month or so, I’ll wake up with the feeling that the dream I just had is a sequel of sorts to some other, forgotten dream.  I never looked too far into it before, because I think it always happened when I’m half-awake and things are always a blur.  But this time, for whatever reason, I was just awake enough to notice something was weird. 

I’ve spent the last five minutes trying to work “It was all a dream” into the ending of this in a satisfactory manner, but “It was all a dream” is rarely satisfactory.

Short story – “Someday”

“Someday”

David and Rob sat on their couch, each on their phone.  Occasionally, one would sigh or mutter something under their breath.  Then the doorbell rang.

David looked at Rob.  “Were you expecting something.”

“No.”

David started to get up, but Rob stopped him.  Setting his phone on the arm of the couch, he said, “I need a break from doomscrolling.”

Rob walked from the room, but a few seconds later, David heard a muttered, “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“It’s John, from across the street.”

David jumped up and started towards the door, but stopped.  He quickly started recording a video, and then held his phone by his side, ready to bring it up if he needed to document the encounter.  At the front door, they nodded to each other and then Rob opened it.

John stood a foot or so back from the door.  He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands which clasped and unclasped multiple times.  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said.  “I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry.  This was never my vision for America.  I was conned.  I-”

John stopped and took a breath.  “I know we’ll never agree on … a lot of things, but I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I no longer support Trump.  He … he needs to be removed from office.  I know that won’t immediately fix all the damage he has done, but it’s a start.”

For a moment, the three men just stood, looking at one another.

John coughed.  “Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry I ever supported him, and hopefully someday, years from now I’m sure, we could all just have beers.  As neighbors.

“That’s all I wanted to say.” John gave a brief smile, then turned and walked away.

Random Story – Infinite coupons

This is just an odd little story from my life.

It was probably fifteen or so years ago, I got a coupon for these trail mix type things.  It probably came in one of those envelopes of coupons – 99% of which I had no interest in – that places sent out.  I don’t know if they still do that or not.  Anyway, there were five or six pouches of trail mix that came in a cardboard box.  I was on the lookout for something new, so I tried them and enjoyed them.  What was nice was I could have a few pouches at my desk at work, and if I got a little hungry, I could just eat one.

I can’t remember if it was with that first box, but very soon after I started buying them that they started putting coupons on the inside of the box.  I think it was a save a $1 when you buy two boxes type.  Since I enjoyed them, that’s what I started doing.  I’d use one coupon to buy two boxes and get two coupons.  Use one of them, and get two more.  At first, I figured it was a short run promotion, and eventually they’d stop putting the coupons in the box.  But it kept going.  The first coupons were good until the end of June, or whatever, but then they became the end of September, and then December.  And they just kept going.

I had a little table by the door where I kept my keys, and I kept a pile of these coupons.  And every time I went to get groceries, I’d take one and buy two more boxes.  For I don’t know how long these pouches just became my generic snack.  When the coupons were getting old, I’d take a handful of them and leave them on the shelf at the store to maybe start someone else down this road of madness. 

Eventually, I stopped buying them because, well, I got tired of them.  But a year or so later, I was nostalgic for them, but I couldn’t find them in the store.  I can’t remember what their name was, so I don’t know if they went out of business or what.

What I hope happens to Musk and Trump

To try to post more blogs, I made a schedule I try to keep to.  Like, on the first Tuesday of the month I try to post a “Whatever I want to talk about” blog.  When I saw that the first Tuesday of April was on the first, I wondered if I should do a themed post.  But our country is currently being destroyed by fools, so I wasn’t in the mood.  But it did lead me to this post.

In the last few months, I’ve written a few stories about Musk and Trump.  (I even made a page that lists all of them.)  A few of them are actually about one or the other being assassinated.  Given how things are going, in a few months they will probably be grounds for me being sent to a gulag.  I was thinking I should do a post about why I don’t want either of those assholes assassinated, just to make my position clear.  And figured this was as good a day as any to post it.

What I hope happens to Musk

I do not want Musk to be assassinated.  Ideally, he should be investigated and if – as is a near certainty – he’s committed any crimes, he should be tried.  And if convicted – as he probably would be in a fair trial – he should rot in prison.  But since that is unlikely, my hope is that whichever of his kids is stuck with him, just puts him in a rundown retirement home.  Hopefully, most of the staff are black, and his neighbor incessantly talks about their favorite granddaughter, who used to be their favorite grandson.

What I hope happens to Trump

Trump belongs in prison.  Period.  The fact that he isn’t, let alone that he is destroying the country from the Oval Office is an utter failure of our justice system.  The only way to repair the system would be to remove him and all his cult assholes from the government, hold the Mar-a-Largo Trials (like the Nuremberg Trials) and throw most of them in prison.  But since that is unlikely ….

Ten years ago, if you had asked me if assassinations should play any part in a functioning democracy, I would have said, “Absolutely not!” But I think it was 2018, or 2019, when I caught myself thinking that, “Assassinations shouldn’t play any part in a functioning democracy, but I’m starting to see the appeal.” Just to be clear, I am not planning the assassination of anyone, let alone Trump.  I also have no knowledge of any assassination plans.  I don’t want to know of any assassination plans.

But the system has failed.  Repeatedly and horribly.  Which raises the question, do we need to go outside the system?  I don’t want Trump assassinated, but I feel that is his likely fate.  If he is assassinated, I’d say there’s a one-third chance it’s by someone on the left for a multitude of reasons.  There’s probably another one-third chance it’s by someone on the right whose kid was needlessly killed in some pointless, bullshit invasion of Panama, or Greenland, or wherever.  And there’s a one-third chance he’s assassinated by the dark powers tired of putting up with his shit.  And then Vance – who they can handle better – can blame transgender, immigrant, Tesla-haters or whoever so they can forge their Crap World Order. 

The only real negative of Trump being assassinated is the damage his cult will do to avenge their Dear Martyred Leader.  Picture sports hooligans when their team loses the big game times a thousand because it would be across the country instead of limited to one city.  It’s possible they might actually do more damage than a living Trump would. 

The fact that his actions have made me more concerned about what his cult would do if he was assassinated than the horror of a politician being assassinated, is one of the reasons I absolutely hate Trump.  When he dies – however – I will not shed a tear.  But I will not cheer, because I fear it will just be the start of a new battle to save America.