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Hilstonblog Archive • July 2004

Killer Whale "Does the Right Thing"

An ABC news story:

"Killer whale turns on trainer

"A killer whale has attacked its trainer during a show at a Texas theme park, as several thousand stunned spectators looked on." (See the whole article here.)

"I had full faith in this animal [named "Ky"], knowing him for 10 years, that he would do the right thing, and I think he did, says Sea World killer-whale trainer Steve Aibel. "He calmed down, we moved on and things are great."

Did he say "do the right thing"? I wonder if the Ky listens to Dr. Laura.

The trainer follows up with, "... and I think he did." That's where moral relativism ends up. On the one hand, Aibel wanted the killer whale to "do the right thing," but on the other hand, he wasn't quite sure about what "the right thing" actually was ("I think ...").

When asked to comment, Ky said, "Who are these humans to preach 'right and wrong' to me? After all, they can't seem to figure it out for themselves, let alone imposing it upon animals who are basically amoral entities. I mean, have you ever seen what a killer whale can do with a seal pup? We're 'wicked,' baby!"

Occupational Hazard of Being a Mugger

Someone was mugged coming out of my building last week. The company put up signs warning people who work late to reduce their risk by following a few suggestions. Among them: "Walk tall, like you know where you're going. If someone demands your wallet or money, you're better off giving them what they want than jeopardizing your safety," etc.

No one asked me for my suggestions, so I'll offer them here.

• Keep one hand on your firearm and be prepared to disengage the safety mechanism.
  
  
• If a stranger approaches you, disengage the safety mechanism.
  
  
• If the stranger demands your wallet or money, aim for the head.

It is an occupational hazard to be a mugger in a state that allows citizens to carry concealed weapons. The mugger can never know for sure if the intended victim is carrying a firearm. But if muggers regularly read the newspaper, they would realize that the press, on average, is dominated by anti-gun advocates. Not that journalists are biased or anything. Journalists can't be biased, 'cuz they're journalists.

A mugger could significantly lower his risk level by only mugging journalists.

While it may be true that "the pen is mightier than the sword," that maxim is unconvincing to the mugger. I'll take the 9mm "sword," thank you very much.

 

July 22 , 2004

Da Da Vinci Code: Why I Hate Mystery Novels, Part the first

New York Times bestseller, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, is a mystery novel. For that reason alone, had it not been for all the hype, my friends urging me to read it and the fact that I don't like being left out of any discussion (must dominate!), I wouldn't have touched it with the proverbial three-cubit hogspear [OK, it's not proverbial. I made it up].

I hate mystery novels. I now invite you, the kind and generous readers [both of you], to join me in my acrimony and animus for this loathsome literary genre.

It's not that I haven't tried to like them. I've read a few Agatha Christie mysteries and some others. It's been many years, but I recall always feeling cheated. I think it is patently unfair for the writer to withhold from the reader vital evidence that is required to solve the mystery. I don't mind the building of drama and gradual discovery of facts about the case, but I should not have to wait until the grand revelation, after all the suspects have been gathered in the same room, to find out that the killer had left his wallet next to the dead body. It's insulting.

I'm a careful reader typically. But moreso with those mysteries. I studied the clues, turned the data over in my mind, and tried to solve the mystery under the assumption that I was being given the same information as the detective. I felt as though I were working with him, side-by-side, looking at the same clues, interrogating the same people, working with the same set of evidence. I duly expected full disclosure from my colleague. But no, I get to the last chapter and Poirot, the pompous ass of a detective, turns to me and with that smug French (excuse me, Belgian) tone and acCENT says,"Oh, by the way, there's no way you were going to solve who the killer was because there's some evidence I didn't tell you about.

Me: Um. What?

Detective Poirot: Yeah, look. I found Laurent's wallet next to the body. He's the killer.

Me:

Detective Poirot:

Me: You mean, way back in chapter 1? You had it all this time?

Detective Poirot: Yeah. It contained his ID, drivers license -- everything to totally prove he did it.

Me:

Detective Poirot:

Me: Laurent, huh? After all this, I had come to the conclusion that it was Philippe.

Detective Poirot: I know. Without this piece of evidence, all the other evidence was pointing you to Philippe.

Me:

Detective Poirot:

Me: That's -- great. Good work.

Detective Poirot: Thanks. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but that would've ruined the suspense.

Me: Of course.

Then, in lieu of pummeling the imaginary detective into oblivion, I threw the book in the barbecue pit and set it ablaze, Fahrenheit 451*-style, whilst dancing the dance of disdain, thereby declaring to the inhabited world henceforth and forever more, mystery novels suck canal water.

[*Side note: It actually took me a few seconds to remember the original freaking title of the Ray Bradbury masterpiece. May Michael Moore grow an malodorous untreatable festering purulent fungus on the entire lower half of his head.]

So there you have Reason #1 why I hate mystery novels: The withholding of crucial evidence, by which they deceive, they lie, they cheat, they insult the intelligence and earnest mystery-solving efforts of the reader.

Next time: Part the second, Reason #2 for why I hate mystery novels (and more about The Da Vinci Code; I promise).

Heebie-Jeebies, Part I
July 14, 2004

I'm a grown man. I'm not supposed to get scared at night anymore the way I did as a little kid. But I do. I suppose I have an overactive imagination. Of course, the fear is not rational. Nor is it entirely genuine, because in the back of my mind, I find myself actually enjoying the feeling. Perhaps it can be compared to the kind of fear one experiences riding a roller coaster.

Here's something I thought was particularly scary.

My kids occasionally have bad dreams. They come into my bedroom and wake up my wife or me to tell us about it. My wife doesn't like to get up in the middle of the night, so she lets the child into our bed. Then, after a little while, it's off to his or her own bed.

Whenever I'm the lucky parent to be bothered, I take the kid back up to his or her room and talk a little bit about scary dreams and how they're not real. I encourage the child to think about happy things: our last vacation, a cartoon, playing Nintendo, whatever. Then I hang around until I hear the slowed breathing, indicating the child has fallen back to sleep.

The last time my daughter came to our room, it wasn't because of a bad dream. And the situation was not so easily resolved. Why? Because I got scared myself.

First of all, she didn't come into our room the same way she normally does. She showed up at my bedside and put her face really close to mine, and without even trying to wake me up first, she simply said, "Papa. It sounds like someone is walking around in my room."

Heebie-Jeebies, Part II
July 15, 2004

"Papa. It sounds like someone is walking around in my room."

Startled out of sleep by my 8-year-old daughter's face so close to mine, those words were somehow chilling to me. I was further struck by the calmness in her voice. It reminded me of the young girl in M. Knight Shyamalan's film, "Signs," who calmly and rationally explained to her father (Mel Gibson), "There's a monster outside my window. May I have a glass of water?"

The combination of being awakened that way and her words was enough to spook me, but I realized that I couldn't betray what I was really feeling. So I said to her, "Honey, it's probably just the wind outside."

"I could hear footsteps on my carpet."

"Well let's go have a look," I said in my cheerful, brave and reassuring voice.

I got out of bed and together we made our way to her room, Tabitha walking closely behind. Her room was softly lit by a nightlight on one wall. Together we sat on her bed and I asked, "What did you hear, honey?"

"Someone was walking from there," she said, pointing to the open door we just passed through, "to there". Her tiny finger made an arc through space and ended at a small door on the adjacent wall. It was the access door to the "attic" crawl space that shares an adjoining wall with my daughter's room. She said this as someone who was not dreaming at the time, but fully awake and aware of her surroundings.

Still trying to gather my wits, and not wanting her to be unduly frightened because of my overactive imagination, I calmly asked, "What did it sound like? Feet shuffling on the carpet?" She silently nodded, looking up at me with those big eyes, pupils at their maximum diameter due to the dim lighting.

As I looked over to the access door, I found myself startled by the light coming from under it. "Why would that light be left on?" I wondered to myself. I then realized, having come home from working the late shift just a couple hours prior, I would have noticed light coming from the attic window if it had been left on! I could suddenly feel my heart pounding in my chest. I thought to myself, "Is one of the boys goofing around here?"

"Wait here a second, Honey."

I got up and walked into the hall way and turned on the hall light so she wouldn't lose sight of me in the dark. Poking my head into the boys' room, I could see that both were sound asleep and tangled up in their blankets in the customary way.

"What's going on here?" I wondered to myself. I turned off the hall light and sat back down next to my daughter. I tried to give her a reassuring smile.

Heebie-Jeebies, Part III
July 17, 2004

With my daughter saying she heard footsteps in her room, and knowing the boys were sound asleep in their room, I sat there, puzzling over how the attic light happened to be on when I knew I would have noticed it when I came home just hours before.

Making every effort to stay calm, despite the thumping of my heart in my chest, I knew I couldn't just tuck my daughter in, give her a few reassuring words, and walk away. I wouldn't be able to sleep until I knew how and why that light came on.

Although, all along, the rational mind was telling me to calm down, that there would be a reasonable explanation that wasn't immediately obvious, the fear-driven irrational mind seemed to be going off in every direction, even to the point of telling myself, I would never be able to forgive myself if something were to happen to her. So, of course, I had to investigate. I had to open that door and look into the attic space to try to find out why the light was on. Then the irrational side would be satisfied, and the rational side could smugly say, See? I told you.

"I'm just going to have a look in here," I said to Tabitha, walking over to the access door.

Perhaps it's just a short in the circuit that made the light come on.

I recalled my first car and how proud I was when I wired -- jerry-rigged is more like it -- my own stereo speakers. When night fell, I looked out my window to see that all the lights in my car were on. Wondering how I somehow left them on, I went out to the car to find it filled with smoke. My wiring job had short-circuited and caused all the lights to come on.

That's probably what happened, I thought to myself. Of course that makes a homeowner nervous for reasons other than having boogey men in one's attic.

Heart pounding like a jackhammer, mouth dry, eyes wide open, and all the while not wanting to scare Tabitha by my behavior, I reached down to turn the latch.

What if this is one of those moments where all my rational faculties are wrong? What if some hideous, night troll is really in there, sewing pieces of skin together for his troll hat, making necklaces out of dead stink bugs and eating the dried carcasses of leftover spider prey?

Stop it! I chided myself, as I turned the latch. You're a grown man and that stuff only happens in movies.

Tell that to the characters in the movies that always say that stuff only happens in movies, I retort.

I concentrated on my breathing for a moment, only realize that I was exhaling in vibrato. A few quick breaths, and then I pulled on the door. Gently at first, then with greater force to get it over with quickly. It started to open, but then -- Resistance?! Why is it not opening easily?

It wasn't as if the door was stuck fast. There is no latch on the other side. It was opening, but not without great effort. What could be holding it back? The more I pulled, the more the door seemed to resist.

Visions of the hideous night troll came rushing into my mind: sharp, flesh-eating, caramel-corn teeth, clenched, trollish grunts and troll-spit spurting out between them. I could imagine his fat stubby troll fingers somehow restraining the door, perhaps his evil railroad-spike finger nails embedded in the wood, to prevent my opening it and exposing håis lair and mischief.

One hard pull, then another, and the door opened. Finally I had it open enough to see inside, only to find -- darkness?! Why is the light no longer on?! How can this be?

Heebie-Jeebies, Part IV
July 19, 2004

Having finally yanked the access door open wide enough to look inside, I at least expected to see the attic light on, with its pull-string dangling, and the disorganized clutter of boxes and baby clothes and baby accessories. Instead, darkness.

Darkness?! But I know that light was on just a second before. Did the evil night-troll reach his gangrenous hand up to pull the string and kill the light just as he realized he was losing the tug of war with the access door?

Stop that! I scolded myself. The overactive imagination is cute sometimes, but get a grip, loser! Your daughter is depending on you.

Tabitha. With that thought of my precious girl, I looked away from the darkness for just a second. She was sitting there, feet dangling off the bed. So trusting and innocent. I gave her the reassuring smile, and she smiled back. Then her smile seemed to literally fall from her fact as her eyes darted toward the dark opening, then widened. What? Then I saw her face of trust and innocence turn to that face of sheer terror, that look that forms just before its gaping mouth emits that awful shriek.

I only looked away for just a second. But that's all it took, and as her piercing shriek came, my peripheral vision saw what the dim nightlight had sufficiently illuminated for my daughter to see.

It stood there, unmoving except for its undulating, heaving, noxious breaths. Paralyzed, I just gaped at it -- the manifestation of my irrational fear -- in dim light, standing right there before me. The night-troll. Two stumpy legs, hog-like grunts, and a smell to gag a vulture. I studied what I could see of its grotesquely large head, bumpy face and wiry hair. This cannot be happening. Its eyes appeared to be solid black, with glints of night-light reflecting off of them.

Is this a dream? All the while, Tabitha was relentlessly screaming at that frequency that only a child can hit.

As that compessed moment of time began to rapidly expand and rush upon me, I could hear the boys clammering out of their beds and Laura charging through the hall.

Alright, that's enough of that. I made that last part up. Going back to, "I gave her the reassuring smile, ..." I was still puzzled about the light and why it had been on just seconds before, and now was suddenly off.

The rational mind kicking into high gear, it dawned on me that the door was difficult to open because the plush carpet restricts its swing. You really have to tug hard on that door to get it to open. That means no light could possibly come from under that door. So what was the source of the light? I saw that the night-light on the same wall was shooting a narrow beam across the bottom of the door, just above the carpet, giving the illusion of light emitting from under the door.

I breathed a silent sigh of relief and pushed the door shut, again, with great effort -- thick carpet.

It could be the night-troll is pushing from the other side!

Shut UP!

Kidding!

I latched the door, looked back at my daughter, and said nonchalantly, "Just checking to make sure no one left the light on in there."

I walked back over to her bed and sat.

"What you probably heard was the boys shuffling around in their beds. You know how weird they are when they're sleeping."

She nodded, "Uh huh. Sometimes Ethan makes a sniffle sound because of his allergies."

"Exactly. That's probably all it was. So there's nothing to be afraid of, honey. Would you like me to stay with you until you fall asleep?"

Again she nodded, and smiled. I tucked her in, making sure her blankets were snug.

"Remember when we went on vacation and you got to sleep on the bunkbed? That was cool, huh?"

She closed her eyes as I gave her a peck on the forehead.

"Papa loves you, honey. Have a good sleep."

As I sat at her bedside, watching her drift off amid memories of beach houses and bunkbeds, I quietly chuckled to myself, at myself, at my irrational fear and overactive imagination.

Then I heard a sound coming from the boys' room. It was Ethan sniffling from his allergies. It sounded strangely like feet shuffling on the carpet.

Night-trolls can turn themselves invisible you know.

Shut UP!

Kidding!

The end.

Fascinating story

Someone gave me a photocopy of an excerpt from a book. I don't remember who gave it to me. I don't know who wrote it, or the title of the book whence it comes, but the story is fascinating. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

:::::

I remember I was hammering on a fence in the backyard when Dad approached. He was carrying a letter or something in his hand, and he looked worried. I continued to hammer as he came toward me.

"Son," he said, "why are you hammering on that fence? It already has plenty of nails in it."

"Oh, I'm not using nails," I replied. "I'm just hammering."

With that, I returned to my hammering. Dad asked me to stop hammering, as he had some news. I did stop hammering, but first I got a couple more hammers in, and this seemed to make Dad mad.

"I said, stop hammering!" he yelled.

I think he felt bad for yelling at me, especially since it looked like he had bad news.

"Look," he said, "you can hammer later, but first ‹"

Well, I didn't even wait to hear the rest. As soon as I heard "You can hammer," that's what I started doing. Hammering away, happy as an old hammer dog.

Dad tried to physically stop me from hammering by inserting a small log of some sort between my hammer and the fence. But I just kept on hammering, 'cause that's the way I am when I get that hammer going.

Then, he just grabbed my arm and made me stop.

"I'm afraid I have some news for you," he said.

I swear, what I did next was not hammering. I was just letting the hammer swing lazily at arm's length, and maybe it tapped the fence once or twice, but that's all. That apparently didn't make any difference whatsoever to Dad, because he just grabbed my hammer out of my hand and flung it across the field. And when I saw my hammer flying helplessly through the air like that, I just couldn't take it. I burst out crying, I admit it. And I ran to the house, as fast as my legs could take me.

"Son, come back!" yelled Dad. "what about your hammer?!"

But I could not have cared less about hammering at that point. I ran into the house and flung myself onto my bed, pounding the bed with my fists. I pounded and pounded, until finally, behind me, I heard a voice.

"As long as you're pounding, why not use this?"

I turned, and it was Dad, holding a brand-new solid-gold hammer. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and ran to Dad's outstretched arms. But suddenly, he jumped out of the way, and I went sailing through the second-story window behind him.

Whenever I hear about a kid getting into trouble with drugs, I like to tell him this story.

On vacation
See ya on the 13th.

Late blooming flosser

I've become a flosser. Don't ask me how it happened. I don't pretend to understand it. After nearly 4 decades of intermittent flossing -- usually in three- or four-day stints after each check-up and flossing lecture -- something has changed. It's not a time issue, because I'm busier than I've ever been in my life.

I've always wanted to be a flosser. I would get the flossing lecture from the dental hygienist every time I went to the dentist for a check-up. I would heartily agree and promise to start flossing regularly. The hygienist would say, "Look, flossing is something you don't just have to do in the bathroom. You can do it wherever you want. Watching TV, especially suspenseful shows, is a good time to really work that floss in there." I would nod in acknowledgement, but I was secretly wondering, "Do you just ignore the fact that projectile food particles are being launched in sling-shot fashion every time you pull that floss out and move to the next tooth?" I also wondered if she ever flossed while driving.

It became more and more frustrating as an adult, knowing that I should do it, but never seeming able to consistently work it into my daily routine. At some point, about ten years ago, I decided that I just wasn't a flosser. It wasn't in my wiring. There are those who floss religiously. I wasn't one of them, and I would never be. Despite my envy of these people, I never could seem to catch the "flossing bug."

But suddenly, in this my fortieth year of life, I find myself flossing regularly and over the long term (several months now). I had resigned to being a certain way; of having this peculiar defect in my personality or character that accounted for my failure in this particular area of dental hygiene. And now, through no deliberate conscious effort, my desire and behavior have changed. Suddenly, I want to floss. I look forward to flossing. I like the feeling of having flossed (physically, and psychologically). I always thought change for the better required discipline and effort. In this case, I was wrong. People can sometimes change for the better, even when they're not trying.

I just need to stop forgetting to put the floss away.

"Manned" by aggressive drivers

During my daily commute, I've noticed a pattern on the interstate. Almost everyday, aggressive drivers come speeding up behind me and impatiently tailgate until I move over to the slower lane. Often, I cannot make room immediately because of traffic, but that doesn't dissuade the driver behind me from practically pushing me along, hugging my bumper and driving in an apparently annoyed manner. I try not to let this get to me, mainly because my values have changed in recent years. I'd rather control my anger and annoyance than have an altercation with a psycho and leave my children fatherless. So I bite my tongue and try to keep my gesturing hands below eye-level.

Usually, because of the direction of the sunlight at that time of day, I cannot see the driver. All I see is a glare on the windshield and this mean-looking car, nipping at my heels like some angry, desperate Discovery-channel predator chasing its victim on the Serengeti. It's intimidating, especially knowing that "road rage" is a real phenomenon and that people have encountered real idiots in such situations.

When I finally see an opening to my right, I pull over and watch as the predator motors ahead to its next unsuspecting victim. As the death machine passes me, usually with an audible roar of its pent-up internal combustion frustration, I have a good look at the driver. Because of my overactive imagination, I expect to see some buff bully-type jock just looking for an excuse to pound someone into the pavement, or some Mafia hitman on his way to do some "contract" work. But much to my surprise, I see that this angry, mean-looking, and intimidating machine is apparently "manned" by a college-age female talking on her cell-phone!

Now I readily admit that I then have the urge to move back into her lane and to follow her, to tailgate and push and shove her the way she did to me, and to give her a dose of her own medicine. Although I would never act on this urge (and I certainly wouldn't think of doing this to another male driver -- I could get my butt kicked), there are those who would. That's a bit scary. For me, there is a certain appeal to the idea, but mainly because I would hope that such an experience would help her to realize the danger of the way she is driving; to scare her into recognizing that one of these days, she may do that to the wrong person and end up with a stalker on her hands, or worse, a psycho-killer looking for his next "opportunity."

I can see why macho dudes would drive like this and not give a rip. I'm sure it's a similar mentality as throwing one's weight around in a bar, not worried in the least about starting a fight and ending up in a fisticuffs in the parking lot. But what compels a young woman to do this? Is there a certain irrational euphoria of invincibility and anonymity because she is "protected" by her vehicle?

Whatever the case, I'm noticing this so often now that I can see myself being less intimidated by drivers who come charging up behind me. If I'm having a bad day, I may just slow down instead of moving over, just to annoy the impetuous interstate-cell-phone-college babe with the itchy trigger foot. That'll probably be the day I find out the interstate-cell-phone-college babe is actually a steroid shooting anger-management dropout looking for someone to pound into the pavement.

©2004 James Hilston