I've got some big stuff going on in my big life and I'm still feeling big sick, yet I have an urge to amuse someone. I fear I may have posted this at some point, but I did a search and couldn't find it.
So my assumption is that I did not post it. This means that I can tell a story and give you funny things to smile about.
I was once sent to sales training for work. (Notice the word once. There is a reason for it.) It was a few months after September 11, 2001, and I was feeling worn down by stupid people who had been molded into big stupider people by other entities who need not remain nameless, but I can't spell Cheney or Rove or Bush or Scooter, so I guess that's the way it's going to be.
The people I was with, managers of stores like mine, were largely foolish. They didn't know how to take notes. (How can you not know that?) We did some math stuff so we could learn how to figure profit margin. These lovely ladies wrote down the numbers, but gave no indication of what the numbers might mean.
Yes, I'm still irritated by this, but I give you this example to show the grand absurdity that seemed to be trickling into their brains.
Our vice president for new business development, now president of the U.S. part of the company, began talking about how September 11th influenced our lives as people selling sewing machines. (?) (!)
He began with a little blurb about terrorism. He asked, "What are terrorists trying to do? Why are they trying to do it?"
Now brace yourself for some things you haven't heard in a few months.
"They want to scare us!"
He says, "Yes, yes."
"They hate us because we're free!"
"Good," said he.
"They want us to be scared!"
"Yes, they do," he said.
"They want to take away our freedom!"
"Mmm hm." Guess who said that...
"They want to scare us!" (I know I wrote that before, but they said it more than once.)
He said, "Yes, they want to frighten us."
I had been trying to keep my mouth closed. Really I had. That time was over, though. From my troublesome lips came these words, spoken with distain and cynicism.
THAT'S WHY THEY CALL THEM TERROR-ISTS?
Vice President Hoohah looked at me and said, "Oh, very good!"
I looked back at him with an incredulous look on my face. He realized that I was irritated, but he also realized that you can't make everybody happy.
The woman next to me said something like, "We have to bomb them. We have to make them know that what they do was wrong."
Once my words had started gushing, I couldn't stop. "There's no reason to do that! Those are innocent people! The people who did this are dead. What more do you want from them?"
"What would you do, if you're not going to bomb them?"
"Nothing. You can't respond to an irrational act of a few people by bombing an entire nation! You just can't!"
And she didn't get it. Not one little bit did she understand what I meant. And I got upset. I had tears in my eyes. I know I was stressed out and distressed by the episode. Nevertheless, I'm embarrassed that I cried. It's necessary to the story, though.
He said, "If anyone is really upset by this, they can leave and come back later. That's fine."
So I sat there for what was an eternity but was likely two minutes, then I got up and hurried back to my room to call BrilliantEditor and confess my sins. As I recall he said something like, "It's not really that bad. You'll be fine."
And I was. Am. I'm not really sorry about what I said, either. I'm not sure I would be sorry if I threw things at these people. Small things. Like a spool of thread or vegetables. Useful things. Useful to me because they would hurt them a little. Useful to them because, hey, who doesn't need more thread? We all need more vegetables.
I'd be helping.
The part I really wanted to get to, though, are these quotes. These suggestions were solicited in light of the 9/11 Commission's inclusion of "lack od imagination" among the reasons the World Trade Center attacks were not averted.
-Terrorists might incite trampling in crowded churches.
-Terrorists might start lots of fires.
-Terrorists might fill a burlap sack with bullets, climb a tall building, and throw the bullets off in handfuls.
-Terrorists might work to slowly erode the racial harmony that makes our country strong.
-Terrorists might use life-sized plastic explosive sculptures of homeless people in cardboard shanties.
-Terrorists might poison drinking straws at the factory.
Yes, indeed, terrorists might hate us just because we have freedom and they don't! They want to scare us; that's for sure. Or they might think we're a bunch of stupid people who use poison drinking straws. That's got to be what they're thinking.
Posted by dotty at November 10, 2005 11:37 PM