G. K. Wuori

A Tsunami Of Advice

I had a nice talk the other day with my old friend, Pete the Pissed. We were sitting on the banks of the Little Poorchop, just below the Union Pacific trestle. With the right machine you could count the dollars as all that expensive fertilizer effluent began its trek down to the Mississippi Delta – there to engage its magical union with all that BP oil.

Pete was in something of a morose mood so I asked him what was wrong.

“Sarah Palin,” he said.

“Sarah Palin?” I said. “Why are you down about Sarah Palin?”

“I want to like her,” he said. “But I can’t.”

“You won’t get a lot of argument on that from me,” I said. “But if you want to like her and you can’t, why can’t you?”

“Because she’s always imitating Tina Fey,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “You don’t like Tina Fey?”

“I love Tina Fey,” he said. “I think she’s cute and I know she’s smart.” “Okay?” I said.

“For both of those reasons, then,” he said, “it’s not a good imitation.”

That, of course, is one of the reasons I like sitting down with Pete, if only for a few minutes.

“That’s not all, though, is it?” I said.

“I think we need to shut down the universities,” he said.

“That’s — huge?” I said. “Why would we do that?”

“I guess it’s because they just won’t shut up,” he said. “They do all these studies and the next thing you know I can’t smoke and I can’t eat donuts and I’m supposed to eat Brussels sprouts and if I’m not taking a dozen drugs a day for problems I didn’t even know I had then I’m pharmaceutically-challenged and I’m supposed to exercise anywhere from three to ten hours a week I guess while eating blueberries and swallowing Omega-3 capsules and holy shit staying away from high fructose corn syrup.”

Okay?” I said.

“Then I’m supposed to be working on puzzles to keep my brain fresh so that I can unlock the secrets of my retirement plan and achieve the right mix of investments they tell me I should have so that when I get old I won’t be poor with cat food breath and ailments they just might have to pull the plug on.”

“You’re on a roll, sir,” I said.

“Speaking of which, plugs, that is, now they’re telling me I should be unplugging everything in my house because they’re worried about what all that ambient electricity is doing to our bodies and that’s not much different from how we’re holding that cellphone, that radio transmitter, up to our brain for an hour or two a day and we’re not supposed to do that now, slap a Bluetooth on your ear I guess and even there you can’t talk or text on the phone if you’re near a school or a construction zone or in the airplane they just X-rayed you to get on, but don’t get me started on the prevalence of X-rays.”

“That’s all coming out of the universities?” I said.

“Most of it,” he said. “A lot of it comes from the legislature but there’s not much you can do about getting rid of those folks. They just keep reproducing themselves.”

“Still,” I said, “all that stuff from the universities – aren’t’ they just trying to show you how to be a better person? You know, maybe healthier, perkier, wealthier, lots of good things?”

“Are they supposed to do that?” Pete said. “I thought maybe they were just supposed to educate young people. You know, mathematics and philosophy and literature and chemistry and physics and biology and art and languages. I mean, it feels like they’re getting into our lives more than the government’s getting into our lives – and that’s a lot. It’s like a tsunami of advice where I’ve got to clean my gutters twice a year and put Stabil in my lawnmower for the winter and change the oil on my car every three-thousand miles and vote on election day and never give my kids aspirin but make sure I take one myself every single day and now I’m supposed to buy health insurance for my dog and long-term care insurance for my rickety years and floss my teeth every day and stay out of the sun because of skin cancer but make sure I spend time in the sun because of Vitamin D.”

“I see your point,” I said.

“Then you got your bosses telling you you’re too fat or you can’t smoke or your hair’s too long and where you’re supposed to be at this time and where at that time, and don’t say anything to offend anybody or wear perfume or bring a stinky lunch to work, and then there’s all those video cameras now in shops and stores and on street corners and at work, all of it telling people where you were and what you were doing even when you were nowhere and weren’t doing anything interesting.”

“True,” I said.
“And the preachers,” Pete said. “They’re nailing you on your language, sex habits, attitude, charitable giving, child-raising, who you should vote for, whether or not your Bingo card’s a winner, how much hair’s on your face, your hot or cold eternity, how much leg you can show, and how much money you ought to send to Haiti or China or Indonesia or New Orleans or Chile, and they’re always telling you to ask what Jesus would do when there’s a good chance Jesus would ask for a refund —”

“Pete!” I interrupted.

“Yes?”

“Lots of people telling us what to do,” I said.

“I believe that’s my point, sir,” he said.

“Do you think there’s anything that can be done about it?” I said.

“Maybe,” he said, “but if I say anything about it than I’m just adding to the things people should do.”

“Not good,” I said.

“Not good at all,” said Pete.

G. K. Wuori © 2010
Photoillustration by the author