My Pal Artie and the Pesticides
November 13, 2020
ALAN writes:
Who should I meet the other day in the pesticides department of my neighborhood hardware store but my old pal Artie Schopenhauer.
“How ya dune, Artie?” I said to him.
“Could be better, Allie,” he said, adding that he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
“And what might that be?” I asked him, knowing that Artie had a longstanding habit of shopping in supermarkets and riding public transit vehicles.
“I’m looking for the giant economy-sized aerosol cans of Noise Neutralizer and Feminist Repellant, guaranteed to repel Feminoids, Noiseniks, airheads, gigglers, and other pests,” Artie said. “See those gaps on the shelves? That means they’re all sold out. I hope they get a new shipment in soon. I couldn’t survive more than a few days without them. They are two of the few remaining threads by which my existence hangs in the balance.”
“I take it that the Noiseniks and Feminist Harpies have been annoying you lately?” I said to him.
“Annoying me!?!!! Ha, ha, ha. That’s a good one! Foolish American men swallowing the poison called Feminism have given me many good laughs. You and I cannot alter that suicidal trend. But in the practical realm of daily life, we can try to repel the Feminoid beasts and neutralize the horrid noises they emit.
“I can remember a time—you may not believe this—when a body could shop for groceries without being assaulted every three minutes by recordings of Feminoid voices exuding LOVE AND COMPASSION and reciting Mommyisms like “WEAR YOUR MASK” and “KEEP YOUR DISTANCE” and “THANK YOU FOR LOOKING OUT FOR EVERYONE ELSE.”
“And then after being bombarded by such imbecilities while you are trying to select cereal and coffee, you are assaulted once again after you have made your purchase and are trying to leave the store by adolescents instructing you to “HAVE A GOOD ONE!” or “HAVE A GOOD DAY!”
“No one is to be permitted to avoid it.
“No one is allowed to walk into the store without wearing a mask.
“No one is allowed to shop without having Mommyisms pounded into his ear.
“No one is allowed to leave without being instructed what kind of day to have, as if MY day is any of their business, as if grown men and women would be mystified otherwise, as if such chatter is not merely the noise emitted by airheads. It is a wonder of wonders that generations of Americans shopped at neighborhood markets like Tom-Boy, A & G, and Kroger and managed to get through it without some flunkie telling them what kind of day they should have.
“Numbskulls who agree to enforce petty, arbitrary rules are extremely useful for preparing ordinary Americans to adjust to taking orders and accepting total surveillance of the kind to which they will be compelled to submit under the coming Tyrannical Regime. Tyranny and Mommyism will walk hand-in-hand. Bet on it.
“There was a time long, long ago when men understood and cherished the right to be let alone—especially by Do-Gooders, not to mention the particularly virulent subspecies of Do-Gooders called Feminists. But American men abandoned such understanding when they agreed to become feminized.
“Above all, the imminent Feminist/Communist/Bureaucratic Regime not only will not let us alone; it will deny that we ever possessed any such right. One of its preliminary goals is to destroy the interior life [“A Conspiracy”, The Thinking Housewife, August 8, 2017 ] —or whatever remnants of the interior life that may have survived the tyranny of noise that I described in my essay ‘On Noise’.
“Then while riding the bus back to my apartment, I am forced to endure—as are all passengers—still more Mommyisms recited in recordings by arrogant, adenoidal Feminist voices instructing me to pay the fare, how to board the bus, how to de-board the bus, to wear my mask, not to go near the “operator” or other passengers, and “use the crosswalks” for my safety.
“Some time ago, Allie, you told me that in the 1950s, the Public Service Company (it ran streetcars and buses in St. Louis) introduced piped-in music in some of its buses. But many passengers did not like it, so it was discontinued. They preferred to ride in quiet, to meditate, to daydream, to read their newspaper, or to gaze out the window. They did not want music pounded into their ear. That was then, when people still had some sense. Today, they get Mommyisms pounded into their ear. And who objects? Virtually no one—another proof of how far Americans’ character has degenerated.
“Thomas Bertonneau nailed it precisely in the essay in which he wrote: ‘…..the Voice of Woman was ubiquitous and frankly never ceased its nagging…..’”
“That is how the future is going to sound—and you won’t be able to turn it off or filter it out. Americans’ future will be that of Patrick McGoohan’s character “Number 6” in the totalitarian “Village” in “The Prisoner”, wherein at any hour of day or night, a sickeningly cheerful female voice may announce orders through loudspeakers or radios that cannot be turned off. As you wrote three years ago, the perfect symbol of the future will not be that of a man stomping on a human face but that of a smiling Feminist exuding oodles of LOVE AND COMPASSION and determined to Do Good to us, especially if we don’t want to be Done Good to.
“I concede the truth in what you say,” I said to him, “and of course I agree. But look on the bright side, Artie. There is always a chance that a giant asteroid will collide with Earth and render all of it and all of us instantaneously into dust. We can dream, can’t we?”
“Thank you for those encouraging words, Allie,” he said to me. “That’s why I’ve always liked you: You’re an optimist.”
