Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
I’m a baby. I’m very immature. I lie around like a baby in a basinet. What is a basinet? It’s a small basin, I guess. If I had a large basin, I’d fill it with hot water and lie around in that. Maybe even mix in some lavender bubbling bath salts. I’m a housewife! A baby housewife! Calgon, take me away.
A baby housewife. Gross. That’s like being a Minotaur or Caliban or Alia Atreides. An abomination!
A baby housewife. A baby desperate housewife? Nope, that would take too much energy. A baby tranquil housewife. In the 1970s. With one of Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies on the stereo in the early afternoon, All My Children on the TV with the sound off. A glass of white zinfandel in my tranquil hand, even though that’s really an 80s wine. An 80s suburban housewife wine, to be more specific. So much so identified that it was also known as Cougar Juice.
What am I doing in a lavender-smelling bath at 1 in the afternoon in the 1970s, drinking anachronistic pink Cougar Juice out of stemware crystal? Whose ranch-style house is this, with all the shag carpeting and the sliding glass doorwall looking out on the backyard lawn? How am I middleclass? Must be some kind of Strange Magic. Or maybe I’m a murderer. Got the homeowners’ bodies wrapped in black garbage bags wound up tight with duct tape. In the kids’ room. Maybe I was desperate.
Now I’m tranquil.
Except for this Tweet I’m reading:
‘"Do you speak Chinese?" (un)intentionally erases the various forms of Chinese that Chinese people speak. It'd be cool if, "Do you speak Cantonese or Mandarin?" or "Do you speak any form of Chinese" were said instead.
‘Mandarin isn't *The* Chinese language, It's one of them. Thx ❤’
“(un)intentionally?” Do you really think that anyone who knows Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken among different populations in (and outside of) China would conceal that fact just for the purpose of micro-aggressing against you? That in fact they would refrain from pretentiously mentioning that fact in know-it-all fashion? How little you understand people. My suggestion is that you stay as far away from them as possible.
Why don’t we just refuse to talk to anyone who is in any way different from us until we can read their minds and avoid making any error that might offend them to the extent that they (un)accuse us of wanting to erase an aspect of them? That’s what I’m going to do. If people don’t know what the differences are between Yiddish, Hebrew, and Ladino, I’m going to accuse them of (un)being Nazis.
Isn’t racism already enough of a problem without trying to turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy? But I guess that’s what people thrive on, making obnoxious sounds.
You know who started all this, don’t you? No, not the critical race theory academics. No, not the slave-dealers of old, though of course they had a hand in it. No, not the patriarchy. No, not the merchants. Not the kings, not the scoundrels, not even the babies, although the babies do bear a terrible responsibility for the state of things today, I can tell you.
But it’s never just one thing, is it? I mean, economic inequality is about as close to the one thing as things ever get, but even that’s not the only cause of human folly. Sometimes it’s just an engine of human folly, a punishment for human folly, or a reward for human folly.
No, the real culprits are the observational comedians. The Seinfelds of old. The guys who did the equivalent of, “isn’t it amazing that Chinese people still use chopsticks?” back in the old days.
“Doth it not bring thy teeth to the gnashing point when the village idiot droolest upon the hasp of thy flarkin?” Or whatever. Shakespeare had a few takes he had the good sense to edit out: “To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come? I hope it’s not one of those dreams where your fingers are too slippery to get a good grip on the hilt of your sword while a herd of fretful porpentine are almost upon you. You know that dream? And your boots cannot find purchase upon the slopperdy Earth beneath your feet? I mean, what’s with that?”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Why do they make these crowns so heavy and pointy? What’s with that? Who are these crown-makers?”
Everyone thinks they’re a comic genius these days. Social media was made for the wisecrack. Oh, I’m guilty. No question. Smartass remarks and crotchety complaints were my stock-in-trade long before the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Now they’re everybody’s thing.
I’m not trying to say racism and xenophobia aren’t built into our communication habits in insidious ways. I’m saying, don’t increase the burden of such insidiousness while pretending to employ a corrective to it. You do nothing but add to the general a-hole quotient of the intraspecies conversation. Normally I just don’t listen to that crap, but every once in a while it’s just too god damn stupid.
I’m glad TikTok and Instagram came along, encouraging people to think of themselves as master photographers and filmmakers, so the people who really excel in those areas can shoulder their share the load of pretending everything’s fine in the midst of this Dunning- Kruger avalanche of human output.
Back to babies, who in so many ways are the real culprits. Let’s examine that word culprit, shall we? Culp, to blame, as in “culpable.” And prit, from the French prêt, ready, as in prêt-à-porter, ready to wear, ready to be blamed, ripe for the blame. Babies come into the world blame- ready.
People think they’re innocent, babies. Oh, nothing could be further from the truth, I assure you. That’s exactly what they want you to think. Babies are born liars. I know, it’s counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Well, that should tell you something. That should tell you that someone is a master deceiver.
If a baby makes a stinky release of odor, do you think that baby is going to admit it? Or are they going to play innocent, as if they’ve done nothing at all. What is this innocent act if not a denial? When we know: they that deny it supply it. It’s a denial of reality. It’s a denial of cause and effect. What is more destructive to rational discourse? What, I ask you? And I ask the baby.
And the baby doesn’t answer. Typical. Typical baby. Like a mobster exercising fifth amendment rights, the baby, if they answer at all, answers with a non-response. It’s disgusting. Have you no shame, baby? No, the baby has no shame. You know it’s true. The baby has no shame.
Stop having these shameless babies!
Humans are repulsive enough without being babies. A human is an oily, flakey, viscous, reeking, hairy, excreting thing. A baby is no exception. But they started it. Who was the first person to pollute the Earth with their waste? A baby.
Which came first, the mother human or the baby human? Obviously, the first baby human was birthed by a pre-human mother. The baby wasn’t even created by a human. That’s so much worse, isn’t it? And then after that scandalous beginning, the humans picked up where the pre- humans left off.
And the baby doesn’t care. This horrific history in its background, and the baby’s just la-dee-da about it, couldn’t care less. Shameless.
Would it kill you people to do a simple background check on the thing before you bring it into our collective home? I can’t really blame you though, you all used to be babies, after all, and you know what they’re like. Consider the source. Garbage in, garbage out.
Yes, the current humans populating, copulating, polluting and befouling the Earth were all recruited from a teeming mass of babies. I mean, what do I expect, huh?
I know some of you love babies, but even you must admit, there’s a lot of room for improvement. But that room usually gets filled with anything but improvement.
Now, I admit I’m a baby. But, unlike most babies, I admit it. I’ve got self-awareness. I live the examined life, not the unexamined life most babies are allowed to get away with. Who’s allowing them to get away unexamined? Other babies. Babies havin’ babies.
Babies havin’ babies.
Let’s have a little humility, here, people. Professor Magnificent with your Super-conducting Super-collider, your masterwork of civilization, your prize-winning piece of poo you’re so proud of.
We’re all frightened, wounded, posturing, insecure, defensive, crying, ignorant babies. And that’s who’s running the world right now, changing and manipulating according to our infantile whims. Oh, we pretend they’re well-considered, those whims. I’m sure there are those who even believe they’ve thought deeply and carefully about what’s best for all the other babies they’re imposing their wills upon. And, so far, we’ve let those babies have their bottle. Let the baby have his bottle. Let the baby have his way. We must stop that.
What could be more reckless than to let all these babies loose on our fragile planet? How could anything not go wrong?
And on that note:
This has been the Moment of Truth. Good day!