Next Time, I’ll Scrape The Blue Fuzzy Stuff Off Before Eating The Expired Tofu
Published by Quin July 8th, 2008Hooray! It’s time for another edition of… STRAINED ANALOGIES!
You’re driving a truck full of your own loved ones– children, significant others, your mom, pets, and whoever else is important in your life– over a treacherous mountain road. You’re determined, at any cost, to get to the scenic village at the peak. Too dangerous for a family outing, everybody said? HA! You’ll show them. No backing down now.
Every tight corner features a thousand foot drop with no railing. At first you overcompensate by veering away from the edge, hugging the inner rock wall. You reconsider this tactic upon passing a low row of white scrapes along the wall, and then an outcropping where a pair of tire tracks bounce away into the void. The children’s eyes are saucers, and your mom’s lips are moving wildly as she beseeches her God in silent prayer. Even the pets are shitting themselves.
Your significant other clutches your forearm and speaks in hushed tones. “Listen, hon, let’s just slow down and turn around. We can just stay at that motor inn we saw at the base of the mountain, right?”
Ashamed of your selfishness, you realize that maybe that this trip wasn’t such a good idea after all. Just what were you trying to prove, anyway? You are just about to apply the brakes, when…
…your heart jerks in your chest… there is a massive shape in the road dead ahead, only yards away… time slows to a crawl… is that what it looks like?… YES, IT IS…
You are milliseconds away from colliding head on into an ELEPHANT and a DONKEY. Just sitting there, in the middle of this narrow mountain road. Who knows why they are there. Perhaps someone is filming a clever political ad. Does it really matter? The fact is, there they are. A donkey, an elephant, and the likely death you and everyone you love.
Moment of truth time. What is your reflexive response?
- A. Swerve right and dive straight off the side of the mountain. Pretty much certain death for everyone, but at least you might have a fun ride for a few seconds on the way down.
B. Swerve left and take your chances with scraping the rock wall like the car whose tire tracks you noticed before. Thing is, there’s another left turn just ahead, so if you don’t regain control fast, you’ll dive off the mountain anyway. But come on, at least there’s a CHANCE of survival.
C. Aim to kill the animals by barreling straight into them, hoping that the impact of their destruction will stop the truck before it goes over the edge of the road. After all, there’s not only a donkey, there’s a frigging ELEPHANT in your way. Choose this way, and regardless if anybody is still actually remaining on the road at the end of it all, the highway will definitely be running with blood.
D. Take your hands off the wheel and shake your fist at the sky, screaming, “Quin, this stupid little story of yours sucks ass. What am I supposed to be gaining from it?” Now, now. Let’s try to be constructive. You can be petulant if you want, but that’s not going to save you and everyone you ever loved from horrible grisly ends, will it?
E. Stop the truck, park it, sidle ’round the animals (”nice beasties”) and proceed to the peak on foot. Or: stop the truck, park it, back away gingerly from the animals (”nice beasties”) and head back downhill. (Once again on foot.) Either way, you won’t be doing what you were doing, which is the reason you ended up in your fix in the first place.
You know, I do truly wish stopping were an option at this point. If those damn animals weren’t there just five feet in front of you, no problem, but… you just have too much momentum.
Ah well. Maybe no matter which way you choose, you’re doomed to die in a fiery conflagration. If only you’d decided to go by foot from the get go!
(By the way, did I mention that both animals are being ridden by several old men in silk suits and smug smiles? Five on the elephant, three on the donkey. The poor donkey seems crushed by under their weight, but is compliantly allowing one of them to stuff a carrot into his mouth.)
Okay, if you say so: it’s your blog. But I would like to point out one thing. I live within the veritable shadow of the Cascades and I’ve been up more than one crumblly mountain road, both on foot and as a passenger in other people’s cars. And it’s been my experience that people who are trying to make their way up such roads in cars or trucks usually end up driving kinda slow. Besides, according to the story the way you tell it, your foot’s already poised over the brake. There are lots of people, you know, who would brake instinctually under circumstances like the ones you describe, and even though it might be the last decision they ever made…it just might not. Whereas all the other options you provide entail either certain destruction or near-certain destruction. Let’s see…possible death versus certain/near-certain death…nope, I still know which one I’d pick.
:-)
Well, actually, Bekabot, I suppose you’re right. Unfortunately, by admitting it, I completely undermine the purpose of my analogy. I suppose I could make it even more strained, and put a jeep full of honking frat boys tailgating you from behind so you drive faster than you should or somesuch, but… perhaps better to just take this analogy, roll it into a ball, and toss it over the cliff.
I trust you did understand where I was really going with it? I thought I was laying it on pretty thick with the donkeys and elephants and whatnot. We’re at a time where if we support our Republicans, it’s suicide; but if we support our Democrats, it’s also PROBABLY suicide. With a few minor exceptional individuals who have been laughed onto the sidelines, both parties are made up of people who might (possibly) have good in their hearts, but are willing to sacrifice the good that their power might be able to achieve in order to keep hold of that power.
The donkeys and elephants are beasts of burden being steered NOT by the American public, but by a coterie of psychopathic business interests– the true Alpha males of the Patriarchy. Furthermore, what with the one-two-three knockout combination of global warming, peak oil, and a ruling class who completely disregards the future of anybody except their own kind, I think we have reached a point in our history where there is no longer a choice “E” as you suggested earlier.
Of course, analogies of this kind are rarely going to convince anybody of anything unless accompanied by actual facts of some kind. Which I have not yet presented. Consider this strained analogy just an opening salvo. If I ever become motivated enough to contribute more regularly to this blog, I’ll develop these ideas further. In a way which can’t be destroyed just by pointing out the internal problems in a somewhat unapt inept analogy.