I’m having surgery Wednesday. The procedure is minor, to be sure, but the idea of being unconscious while someone sticks a tube into my urethra so they can cut into my bladder doesn’t bring me to memories of joy. The fact is that I have never had surgery of any kind, and the prospect terrifies me. All I do is think about all the horrible things that can happen. When I ask the doctor about the risks, all he can do is tell me not to worry about the pain. Well…I wasn’t really worried about the pain. I’m used to pain. Pain is why I’m seeing the doctor.
What I’m not used to is being given Class A narcotics by someone I’ve never met, or by anyone else for that matter. Not to mention giving over control to an establishment, that truth be told, has a horrible track record of keeping people alive, but a pretty good one at taking all their money. Everyone is telling me not to worry, but as someone whose entire career is based on my ability to worry about the things that might happen and prepare for them, I’m going to prepare for the worse case scenario.
So, since that’s the case I want to bring up a few things. The first is that I want to have my funeral in Colorado and Iowa. In Colorado, I don’t care where, but pick someplace where at least a couple of people from work can attend. I love the job I do and all the people with whom I work, even the annoying ones. I’ve rarely worked with a group who is as dedicated as they. Even the ones that are annoying are only that way because they feel so deeply about the importance of what it is we are trying to do. When everyone has the same goals, it’s hard to be angry, even if you do occasionally fantasize about giving a couple of them a swirly.
In Iowa I want to have it at Capitol Hill Lutheran Church to be exact. Why you ask? Because I was Baptized, Confirmed, and Married to the most wonderful woman in the world in that church. And while I’m by no means religious at this point in my life, that place is very dear to me. I was raised there, and I made friends there. Just like my family and my schools, that church shaped who I am as a person and as a man. Besides, I just like to be consistent.
So now that the particulars are out of the way, let’s talk about religion for a moment. While I was raised in the church, I have lost my ability to follow that, or any other faith. Why do you ask? Because while God is a creation of nature, religion is a creation of man. There are people who argue that man is the tool by which God provides direction. But let’s face it. The key word there is “tool.” Man is certainly a tool, and in my opinion not a very good one.
I think we can all agree that whether you call it nature or God it is the thing that binds us and the universe and all things together. However, I don’t think that what people call God is aware of us. Just like the sun rising in the sky, ancient people used to worship it because they didn’t understand that whether they worshiped it or not, it would still rise in the west and set in the east. The same is true of God, or what many people understand to be God. It doesn’t matter if you worship it or not, it will still be there. By man applying some perceived consciousness to it is an invention of man. And since man is the aforementioned tool, I’m taking the safe bet that spending my Sundays listening to an idiot tell me how to live my life while paying them 15% of my weekly wages makes me an equal idiot. As Bono said “The God I believe in isn’t short of cash, Mister!” So, I’ll keep my money. After all the doctors want it.
Now a bit about politics. Trump is an idiot, and Republicans are cowards, is too easy. What’s happened is that an entire generation has lost the ability to communicate, think critically, and question the information they are provided regardless of the source. “Mom said it. This agrees with my world view. This is obviously fact.” Nope. People need to learn to question their perspectives on EVERYTHING. I actually listened to an interview yesterday from a guy who said he’s tired of being called “racist,” and then spent the next 20 minutes talking about how he didn’t trust Muslims, Jews, Asians, or Black people. Also, can’t we just agree on things like, you know, facts? What’s going on in this country today is a Farside cartoon gone too far. Can we bring it back to Family Circle?
Liberals are not free from hypocrisy either. They will spend hours talking about how kind and gentle they are, and how the world just needs to be nicer. Then when someone shows up on a college campus to talk about something they don’t agree with, they shun them, drive them from the campus and hold rallies to prevent them from exercising free speech. The double standard is astounding. My favorite one was a girl in the audience when another woman was talking about how “Me Too” had gone too far. She cried and spoke about being “micro raped.” The speaker asked her “What is micro rape.” The girl said “A boy put his hand on my thigh without asking.” Oh just kill me now ya fucking snowflake. No wonder we have a failed gameshow host as President.
Liberals talk about how mean the right is, running to their “safe spaces” on college campuses and covering their ears when they hear an opposing opinion rather than listening. They need to spend less time on MSNBC, and more time listening to Chris Wallace, or, I don’t know, learning math? If you think Bernie is going to get Medicare for all, you’re living in a fantasy world. It would be nice, that’s for sure. However, the only way for that to happen is to convince an entire industry of healthcare professionals and executives (a.k.a. criminals) that they need to make less money. Good luck with that. I mean if I had a 6000 square foot home in Beaver Creek Colorado, I’d be hard pressed to say “Sure! I’ll give up my seven figure salary and now make 50k a year!” Good luck with that!
OK…now that I got all that off my chest, I honestly don’t believe I will die tomorrow. I’m really more worried about waking up and puking my guts out. To be honest I’d almost rather die. In fact, if given the choice between the two, I can tell you I’m not sure which one I would pick. This is why I never drank as a teenager. I preferred to get stoned and place my face in a a gallon of Orio ice cream than spend my evening with my face in a place that was never meant for my face. So just take this as the rantings of a terrified 54 year old man with an 85 year old prostate. I’m more likely to go with my bicycle wrapped around a pine tree, or if my wife has her way with a shovel wrapped around the back of my skull. For as she says, it’s not a matter of “if,” but a matter of “when.”
I love you all,
Rex