A Story That Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With Me

It’s hard to be funny when you’re surrounded by idiots.

I want to laugh today – I really do.
But I can’t. Because there are so many stupid people in this world, I can only assume that Natural Selection up and quit this bitch a long time ago.

That, or Darwin was wrong.
Which, really, would explain the duckbilled platypus.

And of course, I have to speak in these vagaries, because if I got all specific and shit, certain people might have my head on the chopping block.
Because that’s the problem with having a public blog, and as much as I sometimes want to make this thing private so that I can have a safe venue for ranting and raving, it’s just not going to happen.

Because I love you guys.
And I love the people who haven’t discovered my blog yet, but one day will. And they too will follow my ridiculous path through life, and it will inevitably make me feel a little less alone.

Which is what you guys do, and for that, trust me, there is much love.

So I guess today is kind of a wash, because I’m full of rage, but not in the fun way.
More in the defeated, throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air kind of way that Condy Rice must have felt when she was trying to have a conversation with Dub-yah.

“So, that meeting with Iran went pretty badly”
“What d’ya mean? Ah think it went fine. Jus’ fine”
“They refused to let us tour their nuclear facilities.”
“Oh, what’s the harm in a few nuke-u-lar plants anyway? They SAID they weren’t gonna make no weapons or nuthin’”
“It’s just that…oh, nevermind.”
“Besides, that Iraq leader guy seemed pretty nice to me.”
“Iran. We were speaking to the president of Iran”
“What?”
“Nothing. Nevermind. Look! Something Shiny!”
“Ooooohhh!”

So instead, I’m going to tell you a story.

It’s about a squirrel who works in a nut factory.

You see, Squirrel works in the Acorn department. His job is to find acorns and bring them to the factory to be processed. He’s always been good at finding acorns, and even went to school to learn how to find them better and faster than most of the other squirrels around.
So Squirrel is running around, finding acorns, and bringing them to the factory. He is doing a good job, and is content in his work.

Problem is, the foreman, Raccoon, doesn’t really understand what Squirrel does. He knows that the Squirrel works with other squirrels in the Acorn department, but beyond that, he doesn’t have a clue. To him, it seems like the acorns just appear out of thin air.

One day, and order comes to the factory. It’s for twice the amount of acorns that the Acorn department usually brings in.
Of course Raccoon, believing that the acorns just appear out of thin air, agrees to supply this order. He tells the Acorn department to produce twice the normal amount, and they protest, saying how they can only collect so many acorns in one day. Raccoon tells them to “figure it out” and goes home, leaving the squirrels to work though the night collecting acorns until they are exhausted.

One day, a few weeks later, the Raccoon goes to the Acorn department. He proudly announces that he has finally brought some help for the Acorn department, and introduces Rabbit.

Unfortunately, Rabbit has never collected an acorn in his life.
In fact, he’s never even SEEN an acorn.
And he’s certainly never been to Acorn Collecting School.

So they send Rabbit out on his first day, and by the end of the day, he has returned with a carrot.
The squirrels show him what acorns look like and try to describe the best places to get them, but Rabbit doesn’t understand the difference between acorns and carrots.
In addition, he doesn’t have the right kind of paws to dig up and transport acorns.
Because he’s not a squirrel.
He’s a rabbit.
And no matter how they try to teach Rabbit to collect acorns, he continues to bring back carrots.

Raccoon, noticing that acorn production has not increased and has, in fact, decreased slightly, furiously marches to the Acorn Department and demands an explanation.

The squirrels try to tell him that the Rabbit doesn’t know how to collect acorns, and in trying to teach him, they’re losing valuable daylight in which to search for acorns.

But Raccoon doesn’t understand why.
He doesn’t understand that squirrels are designed to collect acorns and rabbits are not.
He tells them to work harder and train Rabbit better, and then goes home for the day.

But all the training in the world won’t make up for the fact that Rabbit is not a squirrel, and will never be able to collect acorns as well as the other squirrels.

So, if you were Squirrel, wouldn’t you be pretty pissed off?

Yeah, I would be too.
In fact, I would be pretty damn sure that Squirrel needs a new job.
Good thing that I’m not a squirrel, right?….