Tuesday, May 10, 2016

#chapter1.09 - radio haze (ii)


the mCsituation





'Excellent,' thought Miranda Lund (Senior Stewardess Extraordinaire). Her self-congratulatory stream of consciousness for accomplishing precisely nothing was quickly interrupted as National SomethingSomething Radio resumed over the aircraft's audio system: 'Welcome to Something Less Interesting', said a smooth, plangent voice. The motley crew and motley assorted passengers assumed positions of hopelessness and despair, ranging from the classic scream of "Nooooooo!" to resigned shrugs of "Oh fuck it."

"Oh, fuck it," muttered Miranda. She realized that the alliteration of herself 'muttering' was awkward, cloddish, and plebeian, but then she thought, 'Fuck that too, we're almost dead.' 


"So," continued the disconnected (in more ways than one) voice, "we're here with Profeessor Sally Exculpator, a leadshipologist of the University of--well who really cares? Now, Professor, you've done a good deal of research on leadership. So tell us: Will Secretary Bintonian be the best president ever? Or the bestest president ever?"

"The answer is obvious--she will be both. But make no mistake: A woman is judged more harshly for her past mistakes. And if she makes the same mistake over and over and over and over and, you know, over say a period of three decades, she is, for some strange and no doubt sexist reason--well I won't say it's sexist because I can't say with certainty even when it so obviously is sexist as hell that a woman is judged for this war or that war or leaving the garage door open, I mean no one complains that when a man leaves a garage door open but leave the door open and your child runs out into the street or somehow ended up in the washing machine or playing with the neighbor's pit-fighting dogs, yeah a woman does that and then it's all 'indictment this' and 'prosecution that' just because a little incident happened and someone's child sort of died. Well I'm sorry you don't have a granddaughter any more, Mom but boohoo life goes on, you know?"

"Wow. Just so much wow. How unfair."

"Precisely, and let's not forget that a woman is judged for her past and future mistakes. Mistakes that have not even happened!" 

"Wow." 

"For example you lose one or two children and suddenly people are telling you you're a bad mother!"

"Ah ha. So you are saying that Eeveellary Bintonian is being judged not only for what she has done, but what she might do? And men are not?" 

"Correct. Though we might judge them if we know what they will do. But that's a whole freaky area and can't happen. Unless the space-time continuum breaks down in some previously unknown fashion and the past and future start to collide in some crazy kooky but hilarious way."

"Well there you have it. Bintonian, don't judge her judgments, past, present or future. Forgive or forget or forget the future or whatever. So a few people died who shouldn't have. A few soldiers came back bit by bit in used matchboxes and sandwich bagggies. So I put a screaming child in the washing machine. That's no reason to become alarmed." 

"So true. Next up: Will rampant zombieism bring back vinyl records? One industry spokesmen says it just might. Really? That's our next story? Are you fucking kiddding me? Oh, is this still on? Sorry, listeners, it seems that our engineer just ate the producer and is munching on his intestines as we speak. Oh fuck I forgot the fucking trigger word. Zombies. There, are you happy, trigger people? Feel better now! Dammit all why did I ever go into radio?" 

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