Buzzing Around Town

Driving out of the parking garage at my workplace this morning I happened to spy the nifty little warning light on my dashboard telling me that one of my brand new tires was suffering from low air pressure. Since my parking spot in the huge impersonal edifice dedicated to efficiently storing as many cars as possible is on a slight incline, I did not readily notice any sort of tilt in my car as I approached it minutes earlier. I would have liked to have pulled into another empty spot so I could have checked to see which tire was in trouble and just how low it had become but at that moment I was being swarmed by the nearly insane day shift personnel trying their best to all get parked at the same time. On a side note what is even more disturbing is the footrace that takes place after the oncoming shift gets out of their cars.

My very brief hesitation at studying my options so irritated a woman I knew to be a high-powered floor nurse with aspirations to becoming a war criminal she rolled down her window and screamed at me to move. Not wanting to draw anymore of her attention and possible ire, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and got the hell out of the way while saying a prayer she did not remember my name or ever came to night shift to work. The one piece of good news about the low tire pressure warning light was that it was glowing yellow, instead of red, which meant that I had a little time before the problem tire went completely flat.

It was then I decided not to fight the incoming mob, filled with similarly stressed out medical professional types and just drive straight to the nearest convenience store with a tire pump. Being on the west end of Columbia, South Carolina and near two Interstate roadways convenience stores are as abundant as stars in the sky and weeds in my yard so a few minutes later I was pulling up to a prime example of excessive capitalistic greed, the coin-operated tire pump.

 Few remember the now nearly extinct old-fashioned gas stations complete with service repair bays, staff mechanics, and attendants who pumped the gas for the customer as he or she stayed in their car. Not only were they businesses that for decades met the needs of the American car culture but in many ways they provided a degree of free services that while very small nonetheless have left a gaping hole in daily life.

Contrary to what women generally say about men, I remember my granddad pulling into a gas station plenty of times to ask for directions and not only receiving them but also walking out with a free map to boot. These days only people with little commonsense or a huge self-destructive streak would ask anyone in modern convenience stores directions to anything other than the filthy, and usually broken bathroom they offer the public. For me though, the one service I found myself missing this morning were the once free to everyone air pumps.

Now like any good former Boy Scout/United States Army NCO I prepared long ago for just such an occurrence and pulled out the three quarters I squirreled away inside my car for just such a predicament. Thinking I would soon be back on the road, I walked up to the oversized stainless steel cylinder and was surprised to find that inflation or greed had struck again with the tire pump now requiring $1.50 to be activated.

 “Son of a bitch!” I yelled loud enough to draw the attention of all the good commuters over at the gas pumps. Feeling tired from working all night and utterly disgusted over the fact that something once offered free as a courtesy now cost twice money as I had on hand I almost decided to put on the spare tire and be done with it until I remembered my new KIA Rio does not come with one.

Okay, for you folks who have not had the “pleasure” of buying a new car lately let me bring you up to speed on what is soon to be standard on both new imports and domestic cars. When my wife and I were going through the motions on our recent car purchase, we learned that to reduce the weight of cars to help increase gas mileage the entire industry was eliminating even the temporary spare tire for a small kit that essentially is a can of “Fix a Flat” on steroids.

I found the left, rear tire to be the problem child and since I did not want the hassle of using the new system, I felt around tread area hoping not to find a nail or some other piece of metals sticking from it. We learned from the helpful salesman that once you use the kit, for the wheel to be fixed it has to be cleaned out before it can be patched. With the tire appearing to be serviceable, my plan was to go inside the convenience store, purchase an item, and then explain to the cashier, who I knew in a limited fashion, how he could charge an extra seventy-five cents on my debit card so I could use the store’s air pump.

“Sugar, you want what?” The flamboyantly dressed dude said from behind the counter after I placed a bottle of orange juice next the cash register. At first I was rather puzzled, “Joe” the cashier is cool and I had seen him do the very same thing for others when they needed a couple of extra dollars after using their own credit or debit cards. It was only when he pulled down his certified Elton John Fan Club sunglasses and looked over towards the shiny new miniature ATM next the newspaper rack with a smiling Ricky Santorum clone in a suit standing beside it that I understood his reluctance.

“Never mind,” I said walking back to the freezer to put away the orange juice. I learned my lesson long ago about those small and inconspicuous, non-bank affiliated ATM’s which charge anywhere from five dollars or higher for their use. Santorum clone kept smiling like a pleasantly dressed but maniacal serial killer as I walked out leaving me with a slight concern for my safety but an overwhelming urge to wash my hands for some reason.

Back in the car, the low tire pressure light on the dashboard was still yellow as I drove away heading for the next convenience store a little ways down the road. After locating the air pump I was happily surprised to find it equipped with an actual debit or credit card reader, this would have bypassed my lack of sufficient coinage solving my problem in one neat swoop. Like the non-bank ATM at the previous store I was a little worried about what it might charge but the city traffic was getting exponentially worse as I was getting sleeper and figured it was worth the risk. Unfortunately, my luck remained the same and after sliding the card through, the little LCD screen did not change. Sliding the card a couple of more times only resulted in me verbalizing even more salty language to the point I was again drawing the attention of the nearby commuters at the gas pumps.

Because I was getting increasingly sleepy, a sort of obsessive desperation invaded my mind and I began driving around with no real plan on how I was going to fill up the tire going flat. If I had any idea at all, it was some thin hope of finding another air pump with a working card reader. Whatever the case I was simply not thinking coherently and over the next thirty minutes I stopped at three different convenience stores with no luck. After each stop, I somehow slipped further into the worsening flow of traffic going increasingly off course and deeper into the city. At some point the thought did pop into my idled mind that morning rush hour traffic in a big city had all the characteristics of a swarm of flies buzzing around a steamy pile of fresh cow shit.

Just when I began contemplating actually using one of those non-bank ATMs I pulled up to yet another coin-operated air pump the very same time as another guy. I jumped out and told this fellow I would be more than willing to go halves on the cost activating the damn thing as long as I could pump up my one low tire. The guy shrugged off my offer and paid for the whole thing himself and handed over the air hose after he was done.

With my problem solved, I began to feel slightly better but just to show how thin my marge of good luck was I had barely filled up my tire to the proper pressure when the pump shut down. Had I needed to reposition the hose to the other side of my car I would have probably not had enough time. Playing the good citizen I at least rolled up the hose and hung it on the hook when another person pulled up in a upper scale BMW. It was a lady with two kids in the backseat and she seriously looked about as befuddled as I felt a minute earlier.

Seeing that the pump had already deactivated after quickly stepping out her car she slapped one of her hands on top of the roof in frustration. “Damn.” she said, “I saw you from the road and hoped I could get here before it turned off. I don’t have enough change to start the pump but I have two tires going flat but I refuse to use those criminal ATMs in the stores.”

Feeling an unavoidable kinship at her situation, I laughed a little which did not sit well with her. “No problem ma’am, would seventy-five cents put you over the top?” I asked.

Another lesson I have long since learned is not to try and play the chivalry game in an urban setting filled with already mistrustful people. While the lady took my change, she clearly eyed me suspiciously as I had the Santorum-clone earlier. I drove away figuring I was fairly accurate with my idea of the true nature of a dense urban setting and the people driving around it.

Home Sweet Home

Life in suburbia is not supposed to be eventful; the very parameters justifying its existence revolve around it being a quiet and comfortable refuge from the stress and chaos of urban life. While I hate the very term “subdivision”, I nonetheless grew up in one but there were huge differences between the modest homes I was raised and the bizarre grouping of McMansions and the people that reside in them I now find myself living amongst. The biggest difference between the two is that the former was in every way a thriving neighborhood with the latter being a collection of miniature country estates filled with disgruntled individuals always spying on those that live next to them.

In the neighborhood I grew up there was a real sense of community with an elementary school and a few mom-and-pop stores within walking distance for nearly everyone. With a school inside the neighborhood on weekday mornings  kids rode their bikes or walked to it as their dogs followed along and then waited nearby until the bell rang in the afternoon and the process reversed itself. On free days roving bands of children would be regularly seen going up and down the streets playing in the various yards until they got bored and wanted a change in venue. Except for a few very rare exceptions, nothing was said as long as the kids behaved themselves and stayed safe.

These days’ developers spend a huge amount of money creating glossy pamphlets filled with pictures of how their subdivisions are little slices of pre-planned Shangri-la complete with community clubhouse, playground, and pool. The people in the pictures are always well dressed and smiling-and generally white with only a smattering of minorities-giving the impression of a vibrant community. For the most part it is propaganda meant to delude a banal and self-absorbed populations use to getting their own ways at everything.

The distance between the schools and subdivisions make it highly inadvisable to impossible for the children to walk there creating traffic jams in the morning and afternoon as parents and buses first rush in to get the kids in class then home. The mom-and-pop stores have long since been replaced with huge corporate abominations built on the outer edges of the suburban sprawl requiring a trip in the car for even the smallest items. Moreover and my favorite, the residents of these mutations of the American Dream believe their houses are their own fiefdoms always ready to make even the smallest perceived infraction a federal case, which brings me to what happened this week here in paradise.

Last Tuesday afternoon I went out to get the mail after dragging my sorry butt out of bed. It was the usual collection of bills, sale papers, and assorted junk mail but there was one exception. It was a small, obviously computer printed postcard addressed only to the resident of my house. It had no return address and on initial inspection I almost threw it away on sheer instinct, that is until I glanced at what was written on the back.

It was a “To whom it may concern” type of message that I assume went out to all the houses in the subdivision but the message was that at a particular address someone had constructed a chicken coop and now had chickens in his backyard. Even to me, the long established anti-social pariah of the subdivision, it was a violation of the homeowner’s association rules. When my wife and I signed the papers to buy the house, I vaguely remember the realtor stating the obvious the fact that we could not keep farm animals in our yard or have a “large” garden.  

Now what bothered me was that the person sending out the cards did not put his or her name on them, which I felt was more than a little cowardly. However, I am not surprised, I have had my own unhappy encounters with a particular neighbor who likes to hide behind anonymity or call the deputy sheriff on me over areas I would have happily rectified or explained if he had the cojones to come talk with me in person.

Since the person with the illegal chicken coop is one of those doomsday types with several screws loose and the likely anonymous snitch is my old friend I am staying the hell out of this conflict. While I would love to haul ass away from this surreal collection of surface dwelling Morlocks the housing market is still in the tank where I live so I am having to hunker down and make do. Plus, the community pool does come in handy this time of year for my son and daughter. This just reaffirms my ultimate goal to get the heck out of Dodge whenever the kids are grown because right now it would not take much to convince myself a suburb of Kabul or Mogadishu would have friendlier and more rational people.

F3 Cycle 75 "Washing away my sins"

Flash Fiction Friday Genre: Fairy tale/mixed
Word Limit: 1200
Cue: Take your typical fairy tale villain or monster and make them the protagonist. Must use “something wicked this way comes” as a line in the story.

The day everything changed for me I was sitting on a comfortable park bench looking like a homeless person enjoying the dichotomy of the crisp breeze alternating with the warm sun of a spring afternoon. To most who walked past my sitting place I was the very definition of anonymity they strived to ignore not wanting to acknowledge the fact that all is not well in their comfortable society. Others looked at me scornfully thinking the fault for my apparent condition must lie with some character flaw, that if I only had a bath, got a job, and acted like them I would soon join the ranks of other productive people and enjoy all the benefits money can buy. In both cases, they are wrong because, as the cliché says, looks can be very deceiving.

It was lunchtime during a normal workweek and Centennial Park in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia was filled with professional types dressed in fine business attire rushing around grotesquely gulping down some sort of processed food product while talking on a cell phone. It was clear every one of them believed the universe revolved around their immediate concerns and were oblivious of all the other people around them, the beautiful park, and the fact that I was a demon whose only purpose was to see them all spend eternity in hell. 

While they are guilty of ignoring their fellow humans and the beauty of creation, I cannot fault them for not knowing my true nature. Human senses are very narrowly defined and those they do possess are extremely limited because their animal natures generally overwhelm their meager intellects. The best explanation I have heard for this failure came in the form of a funny song I heard once that suggests the cosmic baker took them out of the oven way too early.

There are a few exceptions, some have the ability to see into the souls of others and discern their true natures. Most do it subconsciously and given the immature and corrupted nature of humans very rarely use it for constructive purposes. The most common occurrence of these special people comes in the form of politicians who gleefully find enjoyment in exerting this influence over their fellow humans making the job of entities like me far easier. A much smaller group has the ability to discern humans from demons like me and actively hunt us down. While few these Hunters are fanatical and with the advancement of human technology they have created an alliance that crosses all political and religious divides.

So, the struggle that began eons ago when the Fallen One became aware of this insignificant little world has intensified with humans and demons battling to decide its fate. Where is God in all this? He and his minions seem to be sitting this one out leaving the humans to their own devices. With humans so weak the struggle seemed a near certain victory for our side but I had long heard rumors that something was changing but I never believed them until the incident in that park which altered everything I believed.

My mission was a simple one, a prominent Chinese dignitary was visiting the city and through my cohorts arrangements had been made for his wife and young son to attend a welcome ceremony here in the park given by local schoolchildren. Under my control, the homeless man I possessed at the right time would rush the entourage and kill the son with a knife hidden in the sleeve of his coat. With any luck, it would greatly damage relations between the two countries leading to more hatred and suspicion.

Eventually my waiting was rewarded with the sight of the Chinese visitors approaching my position near the Fountain of Rings. I directed my attention to the small boy at the center of the group obviously having a great time as he held hands with his adoring mother. I could sense the presence of my cohorts and felt them urging me to act when I felt a small hand touch my arm.

I found myself looking in to the eyes of a little girl who while very young nevertheless had totally reduced me to a powerless state and was in the process of scrutinizing my soul. My first thought as I felt all my rage drain away was that the other side had interceded to stop me from my task but I have felt the presence of those entities before and she was not part of that group. This little girl was completely human but of such an advanced form that I felt like a virus being looked at by a more advanced being.

“You do not have to follow the path others want you to take.” The little girl said before walking away to disappear into the crowd.

Somehow, I not only sensed the core of my existence changed but I felt connected to life itself. While many humans think hell is all fire and brimstone, in actuality it is a cold and dark place where the torture comes from feeling alone and utterly abandoned. For eons after my kith and I were cast out of God’s light we languished in that place soaking up all the rage of the one who challenged the basic order of all creation. In the space of a few seconds it was all washed away and I felt how each of the humans around me had their own cares, fears, and hopes.

Despite being overwhelmed by these sensations I knew the small boy was in grave danger. The other, unaffected demons would not let my new awareness stop the mission from being accomplished. Without thinking I begin running towards the group aiming for the demon that I sensed would kill the small boy since I failed to act.

I was correct in my assumption on the secondary assassin when a demon possessed young women turned, pulled a knife, and screamed, “Something wicked this way comes.” I jumped, knocking her to the ground and inadvertently stabbing her in the chest with her own knife.

Chaos erupts with the bodyguards hustling the Chinese boy and mother away as everyone else in the crowd scramble to protect themselves. I look at the young women and the knife sticking out of her chest and see her life ebb away. My only consolation is that the demon in her will die as well because it lives off human consciousness and cannot disentangle itself quickly enough.

“Why did you do this to me brother?” The demon inside her asks.

 I find myself unable to explain to my actions and both the women and the demon inside her die seconds later. There is no reward for my saving of the boy because immediately after they pass I feel the presence of Hunters. I look up and already they are in the park approaching the crowd that surrounds us. With them and the sound of sirens growing near survival become imperative and I break through the  mass of people and run. I have to survive long enough to figure out if my new empathy is ultimately a blessing or a curse.

Tomorrow has been canceled due to lack of interest

Unlike most people that regularly haunt and espouse a position on the strange computer-driven ether called the internet, I pray that the opinions I hold are very wrong.  In many ways I have the same attitude about my observations that the great Groucho Marx did about a club that would accept him as a member in that I frankly would not associate with a person who believes my often depressing notions. Now you good readers might be wondering what in the hell I am talking about and for the most part since I am without any beer at the moment to lubricate the rusty wheels that constitute the inner workings of my brain so do I, but I will attempt to sum it as neatly as possible.

In short, when I look at the current societal, cultural, and intellectual structure that makes up the United States of America today I see no evidence that our people or government have a clue about how we are to be successful in the twenty-first century. Now, as always, exceptions do exist in the form of isolated private citizens, businesses, and politicians who see the flaws in how we conduct ourselves but they can be compared to the mythological Cassandra who despite the gift of prophesy is condemned to be ignored by an oblivious majority.

In general, those of us who do not like the way the country is operating see the American mindset as a dulled and closed thing that is comfortably secure in its own mighty awesomeness and that no other nation or people cannot touch us. Any nation foolish enough to try will see a rain of death and destruction strong enough to kill off the leaders and cower the rest of the population into dark corners seeking to forever hide from our wrath.  It’s a neat delusion and at this moment largely correct but it has a lot in common with similar notions held by the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Spartans, and Romans, along with other empires who are now nothing but footnotes in some dusty history book.

Now this sense of American global entitlement and outright arrogance just did not pop out of nothingness. Much to the detriment of the Native American population, our section of the North American continent was taken and settled allowing the construction of a nation that honored science and innovation and was not scared to try new things even though they did not work very well at first. This brings me to the tipping point of what caused this seditious rant.

As always, I was minding my own business this morning listening to the radio as I drove home from work, surfing the airwaves when I happened upon the Mike Church conservative talk radio show. Feeling slightly masochistic for some reason I decided to listen to what the man had to say. While it has been an overwhelmingly futile endeavor for many years, I do search for reasonable people who promote a different political view than mine so I can try to understand where they are coming from.

This morning Church was making the case that American oil companies are abused entities only thinking of purely patriotic ways to serve the nation. Even worse, despite their altruistic intentions Church made the case that they are regularly assaulted by nasty communistic leaning liberals and radical environmentalists out to force everyone to abandon their SUV’s for unmanly itty-bitty cars designed by the envious French out to emasculate American manhood. Frankly, the case he was making was so insane I thought it was satire for several minutes. Of course, they traced the nefarious conspiracy back to President Obama, who with his Islamic/atheistic/socialistic minions are out to corrupt the Jesus believing folks of the United States turning them into NPR listening, rainbow worshipping, tofu eating vegans.

To Church and his less than technically advanced callers, all research into alternate forms of power are utterly stupid and doomed to failure since mighty oil will continue to be the primary energy source for all properly God fearing and capitalistic peoples. Their ridicule was aimed at the usual suspects of wind and solar power, electric cars, and the new favorite for those without any science education, fuels derived from algae. I find this last one outrageously funny since ExxonMobil recently invested 600 million dollars to develop bio-fuels. For the other sources of alternate energy, the Chinese are madly rushing to dominate the technology in a blatant attempt to control the industry.

It does not take a rocket scientist to see the that most conservative-based opposition to alternate energy comes from both an instinctive knee-jerk reaction to oppose anything the liberals support and the desire to protect the sugar daddy relationship they have with some corporations. I would be delinquent not to add that Taliban-like Christians who believe the Rapture is imminent and that all science is just something Satan created to confuse people makes the situation far more difficult. The one exception to this rule is when it comes to killing and blowing things up. A lot of good Christians change their minds and love science when it comes to things like advanced cruise missiles, faster jet fighters, and increased firing rates on assault rifles and machine guns. It surreal to hear a believer in the teachings of Jesus joke about “kill them all and let God sort them out” and “turn the other cheek so you can aim with your good eye.”

If the opposition to science and technology only came from folks who love to wallow in ignorance or those out to protect their pockets books at all costs things would not be so bad. Except that here in America there is a pervasive apathy about the future and our place in it that crosses all boundaries. Science education in this country lags so far behind other industrial countries that we have become a laughing stock to many of our commercial and military adversaries. The news media and late night comedians will occasionally conduct random surveys with people on the street in which very simple science questions are asked with answers that are at best nonsensical to outright embarrassing. Consistency is a minor talent but similar surveys, which ask questions of history and current events usually produces the same results. This coming from a country that prides itself on being the most advanced.

Culturally it is even worse, cable channels originally developed to provide an intelligent alternative to the broadcast networks have largely devolved into airing reality shows devoted to the lowest common dominator of human behavior. The bizarre spectrum of reality shows that examines such things as “Real Housewives”, desperate failed celebrities, paranormal activities, to talk shows featuring human scum make the national broadcast channels look like a bastions of intelligence and sophistication.

If reality shows were not bad enough, some of the fanatical video gamers I have had the misfortune to talk with seem to live in a far more delusional world than any nerdy Trekkie could ever hope to match. After attending a Star Trek convention several years ago I was stunned at how fanatically serious some of the people there took the show. It is one thing not to miss an episode of one of the Star Trek series which on occasion can be quite good. However, when you walk around in a 400-dollar Starfleet costume and introduce yourself as an admiral with years of experience exploring space it is time to reassess your grip on the real world. Hey, I know the very concept of reality can be an extreme bummer but there is such a thing as going too far.

Anyway, Trekkies are nothing to how some gamers live their lives through their gaming systems. When I learned some gamers actually spend significant amounts of real money to purchase items that exist only as part of the “World of Warcraft” online universe and others like it I felt a sudden urge to apologize to those silly high-ranking Trekkies I silently laughed at during that convention.

Overarching all these developments is a general worldview expressed by far too many Americans that say everything of significance has been created and that our way of life will go on forever. I am not just picking on addled conservatives who are perfectly happy as long as the 52-inch widescreen television in front of them is showing a NASCAR race and they have cold beer in the fridge. Hell, I like to sit back and watch one from time to time myself and drink a few.

But I have to include many liberals and independents who cannot think beyond immediate concerns inside their comfy suburban residences. In a weird counter to conservatives who love to play ostrich and ignore the world by sticking their heads in the sand, liberals do have an unsettling tendency to think utopia can not just be be achieved but done overnight. As for many middle and working class families struggling to keep their heads above financial waters in this current socio-economic era making ends meet from day to day is bad enough. So there isn't any time to worry about what tomorrow might bring, which only makes things that much worse in the long run.

Simply put our lack of contemplating any type of future is an amazingly narrow minded perspective that is corrosive and ultimately self-destructive. Because no matter how much Americans may want to sit back and believe we are the pinnacle of human civilization, much of the world in the twenty-first century has already matched our nation and surpassed it.

Unless we pull our heads out of asses and recognize the world is rapidly changing we will join the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and others who could not adapt to that fact. Once comfortably on top they did not think about tomorrow or plan for the changes the future brings and look what happened to them. Like I said at the beginning, I do not enjoy these sober thoughts and have a habit of discounting them, until someone with real credentials like Neil deGrasse Tyson comes along saying something very similar:

Neil deGrasse Tyson: The ‘invention of tomorrow’ absent in American culture

Popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on Monday lamented that American culture no longer had a culture of innovation that prized scientific and technological discoveries. Tyson noted on MSNBC that space exploration no longer captured American’s attention like it previously had. He blamed the lack of public interest on the lack of advances in the space frontier.

“You don’t have to be the scientist or engineer,” he explained. “You could be a journalist, an artist, but you start doing more stories about the frontier and all of a sudden everybody participates in inventing a tomorrow.”

“It’s the invention of tomorrow that is absent in today’s modern American culture,” Tyson continued.

“Tomorrow was everywhere in the 1960s, wasn’t it? The World’s Fair was all about tomorrow. And who enables that tomorrow? It is the scientific and technological literacy of a nation that does it. It is those innovations that are the engines of the 21st century economy.”

He added that private companies could not lead the space frontier, because of unknown risks and other factors that were detrimental to business.

“That is why governments are the ones that do the big first steps.”

It's a bird, it's a plane, no its....WTF

Several years ago when my son regularly had sleepovers during the weekends he and his rugrat friends very often would surround me as I lay in my easy chair trying to relax and demand I make a Taco Bell run or suffer the consequences. Despite my pleas for them to leave me alone so I could watch the pretty pictures on the idiot box the idea of listening to five to seven kids upstairs destroying the family room to the wee hours of the morning was usually more than enough to motivate me to rush to my car and go buy twenty-dollars worth of crunchy goodness to appease the hungry mini-mob. Of course, I always got my cut of the tacos even though I paid the price by enduring late night heartburn.

Given the nature of using the late-night Taco Bell drive thru I always had to talk slowly and plainly at the speaker breaking down my words into single consonants so the person on the other end could understand me. Since my order was simple I would eventually make my intentions known but for the other late night participants of fast food capitalism they would often get caught in a nightmarish quagmire of trying to get far to elaborate with their demands. This usually resulted in loud yells at the speaker along with extended stays at the pick-up window as orders were corrected.

But thank God for modern American entrepreneurial spirit, while still just a concept, some bright boy or girl has decided to take unmanned drones into the business world of airborne food delivery. No longer would they be used just to fire Hellfire missiles at unarmed civilians making terrorists recruiting drives all the more easier. If everything eventually works out, one day the sky will be abuzz with unmanned insect looking helicopters delivery tacos at first but it will surely evolve into other areas like hamburgers and pizzas. We can't compete with the rest of the world in supplying health care, decent infrastructure, or civil rights but we sure can think of ways of getting our required fast food.

God Bless America!!!!!

TacoCopter Delivers tacos by quadrocopter: Is this for real?
[Updated]

 We at GeekTech love ourselves some quadrotors. We also love ourselves some delicious tacos, so when you can find a way to combine the two, well, you've got our attention. As its name suggests, TacoCopter is a new service that claims to let you order tacos online, and have them delivered to you by way of a quadrotor helicopter. An unmanned robotic quadrotor, that is.
If this is a real thing, holy carp.
According to the (very basic) TacoCopter website, you can order tacos using your smartphone, though it's unclear whether or not TacoCopter uses a native app or a smartphone-friendly website to accomplish this. TacoCopter is currently in private beta, and is currently only for those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area.
We don't know if this is for real, how long it takes an order to arrive, or--most importantly--whether the tacos are any good, but we're intrigued. It's hard to not be at least a little skeptical, though; I imagine there are all sorts of logistical issues that would have to be figured out for something like this to work. If it is real, though, and if we get a chance to try it out, we'll let you know how it goes.
Food delivery by flying robots: Good idea or bad idea? Leave a comment. And if you've done something ridiculously awesome with quadrotors or something similar, why not tell us about it?
Update, March 23: As we kind of suspected, TacoCopter isn't an actual service. Wired caught up with Star Simpson, the person who dreamed up the idea, who explained that it's just a concept. Still, don't let that stop you from picking up an AR.Drone, attaching a bag full of tacos to it, and flying it around your back yard!
[TacoCopter]
     

Managing my mid-life crisis

The male mid-life crisis is a difficult subject to bring up around some people since it exists primarily as a physiological condition. Yes, us guys have to deal with such things like an unwanted horizontal expansion at the waistline or an accelerated retreat of the hairline we at least can exercise to fight the growing bulge or buy medicinal remedies to battle an asymmetrical war to keep something fuzzy on our heads. No, this is something that affects guys on a far deeper level, see I will be honest here and write something that should be self-evident, adult males never really grow up. Society, our jobs, and more importantly our wives may say we have to behave and act dignified and responsible but deep down most of us would like nothing better than tell the established social order to kiss our asses and fly off on some juvenile adventure.

For some mid-life crisis suffering guys, adventure comes in the form of a fast sports car. The thrill of going down an open highway with the accelerator pushed to the floorboard brings back carefree teenage days when their highest priority was getting a cheerleader with big boobies into the backseat of his car. Speaking personally for myself, while at one time I did own, what was to me, a very special sports car I was far more into slowly cruising Ocean Boulevard of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina checking out the young ladies. For reasons I cannot really explain the second I went five miles over the speed limit every fat deputy sheriff and fanatical highway patrolman in Georgetown county would be on my tail flashing their blue lights. Anyone who has to pay car insurance would know speeding tickets have a way of severely cutting into a person’s spending money. Since spending money for me is a still a hard thing for me to come by, I still relish taking life slowly.

Other guys dealing their encroaching mortality choose to fling all decorum to the winds and hook up with a hot young lady who at the very minimum could be their daughters. These individuals are nearly always very rich and can deal with such things as vindictive ex-wives actively seeking revenge. Thankfully, I am immune, on many different levels, from ever having that sort of problem. The most obvious reason is that I am married to a wonderful lady who is a tax attorney with many friends in both state and county government along with several law enforcement officials. Hypothetically speaking if I ever got caught straying (I know a few of you all out there are laughing over that thought) my butt would not be worth a pile of cold cow manure.

The main purpose for this ambling collection of mental brain droppings is that I have recently found myself pondering my own mid-life crisis. The growing list of daily aches and pains that hint at real old age, the increasingly frantic pace of American life, and my steadfast hate of suburbia have pushed me more and more into dreaming about a way to escape from it all.

Fast cars and young women will remain strictly in the realm of fantasies unless I win the lotto and since I have not bought a ticket my odd of winning are even worse than they usually are. Even if I did win with my wife being an attorney, any winning would have to be signed over to her a nanosecond after I receive them. Leaving me to believe it might be best to for me to avoid the entire issue.

I could go the route of being a narcissistic asshole but there are a multitude of those types around these days that have raised the trait to such a high artistic level I willingly bow at their accomplishments. Plus, I am such an easy going and laid back guy I just do not have required energy to stay constant at it.

Recently this lack of mid-life crisis direction has begun to bother me, I can understand being a slacker with the more time consuming and boring avenues of life but even though my choices are limited, I cannot neglect this important part of my manhood. Thankfully, the answer up and slapped me aside the head a couple of days ago as I was brazenly wasting time surfing the internet.

I have often dreamed of buying a sailboat and catching a nice wind that will push me down to the Caribbean but the more logical part of my mind has always quickly reminded me I have absolutely no experience at the little things like navigating an ocean going craft. The lack of money to purchase and operate this hypothetical craft has also been a bit of a buzz kill on any plan to emulate my hero Jimmy Buffett. Despite my closely related wish to be a pirate they have had a lot of bad press lately so just taking the first sailboat I come across would not work.

What I have found is that if I lower my sights just a little I probably could manage a smaller, more affordable, sailboat that would allow me to putter around the intercoastal waterway that stretches from New Jersey down to Brownsville, Texas. Made up of bays, inlets, salt-water rivers, and sounds it allows a wannabe sailor like me to travel very close to the ocean without facing the full force of the whoop ass it can put on some silly fool in a small boat.

My ideal little sailboat appears to be one about eighteen to twenty-foot long that has a small cabin with a bunk inside where I could catch a nap. Like I have said, I am not looking to cross an ocean. Just a small sailboat I can putter around in during the day and if my frustration level begins to exceed my capacity to manage something that would allow me to find a quite cove, toss out an anchor, and forget about the rest of the world for a while. As I have perused the websites dedicated to the selling of used sailboats of the size I am now interested the prices can range well within something that is at least theoretically manageable.

Now there are a few obstacles that I will need to find a way around, first and foremost I have no experience or even basic knowledge of sailing. The local community college does offer a sailing course with lessons on a nearby lake so that does not appear to be a showstopper. Other small issues are the costs of marina fees, repairs, and upkeep for a sailboat that I would insist remain on the coast. Continued funding for those expenses are trickier since college is quickly approaching for my son as is braces for my daughter, which one of those will ultimately cost the most is up in the air right now.

A more esoteric problem might come from the lovely Dragonwife who even now thinks I waste too much time contemplating my bellybutton fuzz, the tragedy of empty beer bottles, and the eventual fate of the universe. I can imagine how she would react with me trying to slip away down to Charleston to go sailing while weeds in the lawn need cutting, shrubs need trimming; walls need painting, along with a thousand other chores that are always demanding my attention. On second thought, maybe buying a lotto ticket and hooking up with some nubile young babe ain’t such a bad idea after all.

At the turning of the page

Most people have forgotten about the lives they lead the day before the human species learned it was not alone in the universe. It’s understandable really; the world back then was defined along some very narrow parameters making it very hard for anyone to step too far out of bounds. The subject of aliens, when it was even mentioned, was something for science fiction movies or egghead scientists wanting to waste taxpayer money scanning the sky with expensive toys. It was a sensible ignorance based on history and common sense; humans had been to the moon and sent probes to all the other planets in the solar system. Aside from speculation and a few tantalizing hints of microbial life on Mars the universe looked cold and empty. If the cliché about ignorance being bliss was true, the world was living in a golden age about to come crashing to an end.

For those who resided in what was then called the developed world the concern of the overwhelming majority revolved around keeping their comfortable lifestyle and being entertained. It seems insane now but the system was built around people becoming permanently indebted to huge companies just to obtain new products also bought on credit that were purposely designed to be obsolete and be replaced repeating the cycle. The supposedly educated masses of the developed world willingly accepted this dictatorship of distraction.

Those living in the non-developed world largely suffered from the traditional human afflictions of poverty, famine, disease, and old style tyranny. In these old nations a ruling elite protected their positions by promising special privileges to one small group as long as it brutally oppressed others. It was dictatorship by old-fashioned brutal oppression summed up by a few doing unto others before everyone else ganged up and did something bad to them.

The one commonality between the two ruling elites was how they reacted to those that attempted to threaten the status quo. At the very least those that challenged the dominate mindset would find themselves ostracized by the ruling class, the media, and fellow citizens who liked how things ran. At worst, those that confronted the accepted way of thinking became enemies of the state, imprisoned, tortured, and eventually killed.

For many like me, raised up in the old United States our lives seemed predestined to be one of special considerations and near endless possibilities. My dad’s career as a high-speed attorney and my mom’s as a pediatric surgeon meant I saw nothing even approaching hardship as a child. To the best of their ability, they tried to impart a realization on me that other Americans were not so lucky but I was young and despite my parent’s best efforts more a product of an affluent culture than anything else.

In other words, the day before the world changed forever I did not think or care very much of anyone beyond myself. The struggle for survival after first contact radically changed my perceptions, as did it for the human race in general with genocide and extinction staring them in the face.

The day before first contact, I was a sophomore at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina with lazy study habits and an even worse attitude. It was the middle of March and the warm weather of early springtime was making me care even less about the few courses my parents had forced me to take. After finally dragging myself out of bed on a whim I showed up outside one of my girlfriend’s classes with what I thought was a great idea.

Sheri Hamilton strolled out of the Sanford Building oblivious to the fact that I was sitting in the iron bench beside the walkway. She was wearing the loose purple sundress that to my eyes had a habit of seductively clinging to her beautiful athletic body. Throw in how the late morning sun was reflecting off her blond hair and my over active hormones were screaming at me to pull her off into some quite and secluded corner of the campus. Instead, I limited myself just to sneaking up behind her and grabbing her butt to cop a quick feel.

Sheri and I had been dating for a month or two at that time and she was fully aware of my juvenile ways so her quick reflexes allowed her to easily pull away and slap my face in the span of a few seconds. “Jason Stevens,” she indignantly yelled back at me, “what have I said about you treating me this way in public.”

Being so full of myself at the time while I did care for Sheri, I had had no illusions about being in love with the girl. She was an incredibly attractive woman who I knew was crazy about me; I was just using her feelings to get what I wanted. “Sorry babe,” I said while giving her my most charming smile, “hey I was thinking, maybe we should star spring break early and head up to Virginia Beach right now and hang out at my folk’s condo? Tomorrow you and I can be making love on the beach as new day begins.”

“Jason,” she said with a sigh, “you know I have a philosophy class tomorrow. Can’t this trip wait until the weekend?”

Sheri was a charming and intelligent woman but I knew her schedule and could read her like the proverbial book. “Babe, I know old Professor Carter has a crush on you lets you skip his lectures when you want, as for the rest of your classes the semester is winding down and I know you are very comfortingly passing everything.”

I could see the wheels turning in her very pretty head. “What about your classes?” she asked.

My response was an incredulous, “Are you kidding me!”

Sheri turned away from me unexpectedly and began walking in the direction I knew to be her dorm. For a couple of seconds I was actually at a loss as to what her sudden departure meant. “Well,” she said still walking away from me, “are you coming? You can’t expect me to go around naked anyplace but the bedroom and some private spot on the beach now do you?”

Unfortunately, for Sheri, it was the worst decision she ever made.

***

We left the campus a couple of hours later in the Camaro my parents bought me listening to some radio show talk about the scores of strange objects that had been spotted in the skies all over the world. I remember looking over at Sheri and joking about how aliens always pick inbreed rednecks to have close encounters with, she laughed while looking at me adoringly and I felt like the king of the world.

We were on the road until our respective desires got the best of us early that evening. A convenient Radisson motel in Norfolk,Virginia gave us the to chance eat and rest. That night in our motel room, our young and demanding bodies clung to each other many times until we were both spent. We unknowingly awoke to a new world just now taking shape outside.

The Radisson we stayed at was just off the I-264 highway very close to the Norfolk Naval Shipyards. The night before the restaurant was filled with a bunch of navy personnel. Sheri, wanting to play some mind games on me flirted with a couple of officers last night as we ate our dinner. We learned they were in town for a training conference and took Sheri’s flirtations far too seriously, so much she and I decided to head back to our room after dinner instead of hanging out at the bar.

I never thought much about military types and when I did, it was not good. My assumption was that they were less intelligent than I was and far more prone to senseless violence. My parent’s moderate social and environmental activism had inadvertently bred in me the idea I was above war-like behavior despite the fact that my father had served in the army himself before going to college.

The morning Sheri and I left the motel room we were surprised to see many of those same navy officers standing out in the parking lot looking up and pointing at something taking place in the sky. The expression of utter shock on their faces was enough to penetrate my neatly self-absorbed world. Wanting to know what was going on we quickly joined them in the parking lot.

Up in the sky were what looked to be scores of jet fighters twisting and turning in the air trying to out maneuver some strangely shaped object. I honestly did not believe my eyes the couple of times it came close enough for me to catch sight of it. Whatever it was it was fast and could turn at right angles while the pilots in the interceptors pulled high-g turns just to keep pace. Desperate to understand I tried asking the navy officer nearest to Sheri and I what was going on.

He was talking on his cell phone and did not hear me but did state to the others officers near him, “Got Roger on the line and he says it got too close to Langley Air Force Base, a camouflaged air defense platform was able to launch several missiles with a few making direct hits. That seemed to damage the thing and allow fighters to be scrambled.”

Minutes passed with more fighters arriving on the scene. All of us on the ground watched missiles and cannons flash with the unknown craft taking more and more hits. A line was apparently crossed when it began firing back in some way, huge explosions followed with American fighters falling from the sky in flaming pieces. Just when the unknown craft looked like it might shoot down all the jets a huge roar began that caused everyone to finally take some sort of cover.

I pulled Sheri to the hopefully secure spot of a brick utility building whose door one of the naval officers had kicked open. I turned around just in time to see what appeared to be a large missile impacted on the ship. After the explosion, it tried to fly away but this time there was visible damage and smoke coming from it. A primal scream of victory came from everyone until we noticed the damaged craft was drifting our way. The surviving fighters continued to pound until the craft crash-landed into a collection of businesses about a hundred yards away.

The navy officers immediately ran towards downed vehicle and feeling I should be a part of what was going on, I joined them while leaving Sheri behind. I glanced back once to see her scared and standing next an old couple who had come outside after the craft had came down, it was the last time I saw her alive.

The craft had skidded to a halt next a gas station, part of me inwardly smiled at the thought of aliens jumping out and complaining they just wanted to fill up and buy a soda before going on to Mars or Jupiter. The naval officers I was in the middle of had looks of pure concentration and crept towards the craft as if it might attack them, a disturbingly possible thought since humans had done their best to bring it down. Righteous indignation flooded my mind, what I had just witness was the arrival of advanced sentient beings from another star system and the first thing we humans do was try to kill them. It was one last bit of old-fashioned innocence that along with many other things were about end.

The craft was roughly spherical with six similar shaped but smaller pods attached on the sides. Two of the six pods were destroyed with another heavily damaged. Somehow, I found myself surprised that the skin of the craft was not smooth and featureless but was made up of hundreds of detailed indentations and protrusions of various shapes. Someone muttered “possible sensor points” as if anyone of us had a real clue about the craft but it was the best explanation for that moment.

Sirens sounded off in the distance drawing ever closer and the small group I was with grew larger as basic human curiosity began to overwhelm the primitive desire to run and hide. A bizarre sense of expectation hung in the air with everyone knowing the hammer had not yet completely fallen on what had begun here.

Minutes passed with police and heavily armed SWAT teams arriving and taking up positions all around the alien ship. Realistically we should have backed away sense no one had any idea if there was a radiation danger but we were all dumbfounded at the impossible sight in front of us. With so many people now surrounding the ship a collective sense of security developed, so much some now spoke openly about the ship being an unmanned probe or the crew being dead.

When the hatch of the craft suddenly opened, we all instinctively jumped back, when the first rounds were fired from the inside many paid with their lives for not leaving when they had the chance. Several of the nearby cars and people dissolved in balls of flames and flying metal. I was able to take cover behind a neighboring building along with several others but still wanted to see what was going on so I crept close to see around the wall.

Two beings had emerged from the downed ship, they looked to be a little taller than the average person but had three legs and arms. The legs were attached to the torso like a tripod while two of the arms on the aliens were attached at the shoulders like humans, while the third spouted from the center of the creatures chests. The heads were triangle shaped and connected to the body with a segmented neck. The faces of the aliens were what chilled me to the bone; three large black eyes stared out at our world while where the mouth should have been was a collection of squid-like tentacles hanging down about six inches.

The aliens seemed unsure as to what to do next until the SWAT and police began to open fire on them. Each alien carried what looked to be a cannon connected by some sort of cables to a large backpack they carried. Human small arms bullets ricocheted off grey body armor they were wearing. A high-pitched whine began to be heard emanating from the cannons and when the sound peaked, the two began blazing away literally blowing everything they hit into tiny pieces. They even swept the building my little group was hiding behind and within seconds, it was reduced to rumble. Only a five-foot length of the back wall remained for us to hide behind.

It was clear even to a civilian like me we were all in deep trouble, SWAT team survivors desperately crawled to new positions and returned fire but the aliens began to move away from their ship and eliminate them when their location became known. They moved on their three legs with a curiously smooth motion making it clear that like humans they were apex predators of the highest order. My first thoughts about dying began to appear in my head figuring the aliens would eventually concentrate their fire on what small amount of weak protection we had left.

After what seemed like an eternity, the cavalry came in the form of six Apache helicopter gunships. The aliens actually seemed puzzled by their appearance and stopped firing long enough to look them over; it was a fatal mistake. After acquiring the targets, two of the attack helicopters opened fire with their 25-millimeter chain guns. The rounds landed center of mass on the aliens turning them into a fine paste. Whatever their armor was made from it was no match for what the Apaches fired.

***

With the aliens dead the first thought that came to my mind was Sheri, I went running back to the motel only find most of it destroyed. Sheri would later be found in the rumble; her body crushed when one of the explosive rounds the aliens fired detonated inside and caused it to collapse. Troops arrived as I was trying to dig her out and everyone in the area was quickly carted off, whether they wanted to or not, to some undisclosed location along with what pieces of the aliens they could find and their ship.

The United States government could not hide the incident even if they wanted to, as a stunned world watch amateur video of the battle and news reports leaked out of similar events in Russia and China. Some on the media did complain that humans had brought the destruction on themselves but deep down everyone knew the aliens never had any intention of coming in peace, something that was proven a little over a year later when their mother ship entered Earth orbit. Humanity’s age of ignorant bliss about the universe had ended in the space of a single day and another had begun where our future and the fate of the Earth itself was very much in doubt. 

(Author's note: What the Hell is this shit you may be asking. Well in the last six months I have seen two "non-fiction documentaries" on how the United States government and the rest of the world in general would respond to an alien invasion. Both shows had some serious real scientific talent speaking about how we could defeat a far more advance technological species trying to take our planet. One show was on the Discovery Channel and the other was on National Geographic. I have included You Tube videos to both shows so nobody will think I have gone completely off the deep end. This story is a prequel to a similar one I did for Friday Flash Fiction several months ago. On a deeper level I wrote this story just because I was stuck at the house and freaking bored out of my mind. Leave comments if you make it to the end of this incredibly ridiculous story.)