OK, gentle readers. There’s a picture to the left of this text. Unless you’re using a Microsoft product to view this webpage. If you are, all bets are off. The picture could be anywhere. Or nowhere. The Gates Foundation be …

Where was I? Oh. Yeah. That picture. What do you see?

A rose? You’re sure, now? Last chance to change your vote.

That’s what I was afraid of. The Thought Police, not to mention the botanists, have done their work too well. You have all been completely indoctrinated, and you are now (bwahahaaa!) in their power. The Thought Police’s, that is. The idea of somebody, anybody, being in a botanist’s power is just too funny. Take a look at a botanist’s paycheck sometime. Bring a good microscope …

Excuse me. Where was I again? Right. The thing you think is a rose.

Because, you see, Gertrude, that rose is not a rose.

It’s a poppy.

Really.

Let me show you.

You all know about poppies? Oh, c’mon. You’ve seen the Wizard of Oz. If you haven’t, you’re probably still in middle school. Go ask your grandmother. If she hands you this big clunky black thing and calls it something that sounds like “VHS”, just take it down to the computer store, there’s probably some wheezy old geezer in the back room who still remembers how to convert it to Blu-Ray for you. Watch the movie (or, shock horror, read the book), and come back. I’ll wait.

So here’s Dorothy, running through this big field of poppies on her way to the Emerald City, where she figures, if she works hard enough, one day she’ll get this wonderful executive position with a big salary, stock options, perks … Right. Poppies. Large, showy flowers, rather like what you think are roses, eh? They’re pretty, and they smell nice, and Dorothy slows down to notice them, and, well, you know what happens next …

If it hadn’t been for that do-goody-good Glinda, showing up with that freak snowstorm in the proverbial nick of time, Dorothy would have been carried off by the flying monkeys, and by the time she fought her way out of their clutches and got to the Emerald City, the Munchkins would have beaten her to all the top jobs, and she would have spent the rest of her life flipping burgers at Professor Marvel’s Marvelous Drive-In.

Right?

No, let me ask you a question. How many times has somebody told you to “stop and smell the roses?” Huh? Have you ever wondered what whoever it was meant by that? “Oh, that’s just a wonderful soul who wants me to slow down and take care of myself”. Indeed. How do you know that “the wonderful soul” is not a Munchkin who’s getting you to slow down, maybe even sleep, so he can pass you?! Or a Wizard who’s trying to keep you from threatening his position without actually kneecapping you …

The business-suited young man strove,
His smooth face creased with care;
The old man came with kindly mien
And said, “Young man, beware -

“The race you run is strewn with bones
Of those who tried and failed;
Take time, rest easy, be one with the world,
Lest you perish through travail.”

The young man stopped, and smiled, and let
The flowers bloom in his hair;
He traded in his suit for jeans
And ran concessions at the fair.

The neighbors clucked and gossiped long
‘Bout promise ne’er fulfilled;
The old man laughed in inward glee,
His seat on the altar secured!

Poppies … poppies …

  - O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

She came home from work one day, looking rather disgruntled. He, wondering what he’d screwed up this time, asked (somewhat nervously), “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t understand people ’round here”, She lamented. “Some of them don’t have two coins to bless themselves with, but God help you get their attention, never mind their respect, if your blouse or your bag doesn’t have that label on it!”

OK, dear readers, hands up. How many of you expect the next line to be, “And when am I going to get a bag with that label on it?”

Nope. Didn’t happen. Sorry to disappoint you. But if you’ve been here awhile, you should oughta know what a remarkable person She is by now. And just to reinforce the point, there’s the story (and maybe one day She’ll tell it better) of when some of her Las Vegas fifth-graders showed up in class wearing a particularly worrisome set of T-shirts with labels on them.

“What’ve you got those on for?”, She asked.

“Because they’re cool, Ms. A.” was the reply.

“So”, She continued, “you’re telling me that you don’t have any cool of your own, so you had to go out and buy someone else’s?”

Silence.

Well, hey. Think about the last time you walked down a street in these Untied States of America with any number of people on it, or across a school yard or college campus or (shudder) shopping mall. Don’t all those people look like this?

OK, there’s a difference. Today, the advertisements for beer or fashion designers or tractors or whatever are printed on hats and shirts and purses and backpacks instead of on some funny-looking sign.

Make that two differences.

Once upon a time, advertisers paid the guys and gals in the sandwich boards to carry those ridiculous things around.

Today?

We pay the advertisers for the privilege of doing their selling!

Hello?!?

Just to set the record straight. He has no objection to having things with this label or that on it.

Any time those labels are prepared to pay up for the privilege of touting their wares.

- O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2008 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.