Bleeding Hearts and Leaky Brains...

" I am often surprised by the cleverness, and now and again by the stupidity of my dog; and I have similar experiences with mankind..."-- Arthur Schopenhauer

The first indication that one may be in trouble is the sight of three youths, obviously not of legal drinking age, headed your way wearing suits and carrying clipboards.

You are either about to be accosted by a trio of Mormons or Moonies, a boy band, or someone seeking money.

Thankfully, it was only three stoners trying to make a very good impression for a very stupid idea.

Before I continue, I must make a confession: I have been confronted with this sort of situation before. Typically, those who accost you happen to be very cute young women, dressed to kill, who attempt to use their feminine charms in order to engage and distract you before whipping out their Sledgehammer of Fucktard to batter you into a living coma with whatever nonsense they were sent out to propagate.

The nonsense usually consists of three topics: Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change/Why It Doesn't Snow Anymore, some form of Socialism, or getting you to sign a petition for a cause you couldn't care less about, like free feminine hygiene products in every McDonald's rest room.

This is a tactic. It combines psychology, marketing, and salesmanship to push something, usually political, into some unsuspecting doofuses face, and get him to do something he doesn't want to do. Like sign the petition. Accept the literature. Make a donation to "the cause".

I guess they ran out of pretty faces at the local college where these three idiots were studying Living Rent-free In Mommy's Basement, and this was the best that could be done on short notice.

So, here I am, leaving the food court at the Staten Island Mall with two bags of food (there's a new Chik-fil-a, and I haven't had any for years, dammit, so I'm picking some up for lunch on my way home for myself and Mrs. Overlord), in the midst of an April rain shower. The Nissan Tie Fighter is parked 50 yards from the door, and all I want is to make the mad dash -- on rickety knees -- to the car, and go home.

But no.

Instead, I have to be endure Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in the rain.

I swear, they must smell me coming.

"Excuse me, Sir?" says the first one, peeking out from under his umbrella. Something gives me the impression that this pale imitation of Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High has just had his first haircut, and perhaps, is only moderately housebroken, despite Daddy's suit. "Can we have a minute of your time to discuss a serious problem?"

Oh, how could I resist? It's like that scene in Oliver Twist..."could I have some more, please, Sir?"

"Sure, what's on your mind, Junior?"

"You drink water, right?"

Oh, we're going this route, are we? Why, yes, I do...rather a brilliant lad, aren't we?

"Great...and you know, like, water, is like, vital to life, an' stuff, right?'

I nod in the affirmative, trying not to smirk.

"Awesome! You know like there's people like all over the like world who like don't have like clean like drinking like water like?"

(I have removed all the commas from that sentence because Pericles of Athens here has used the word "like" as if it were legitimate punctuation. I may stop using commas forever).

"You know (another form of punctuation) because it's like hard to like get like clean water an' stuff. It's a rare commodity."

I raise my hands and look skywards, from whence the raindrops are falling.

"It's falling out of the sky, Son."

Alarmed, Suited Dipshit Number Two senses he needs to throw his buddy a lifeline. This one is slightly more intelligent than the gerbil I had as a child. The one that escaped it's cage and attempted to dash to freedom through an electrical outlet with predictable results.

Added bonus: he appears Indian. Not "Tonto" Indian, but "Ghandi" Indian. I am about to get the "Clean Water for the Third World" pitch from an honest-to-God Third Worlder.

Diversity, thou art a confounding bitch!

"Excuse me, Sir, but I don't think he's trying to make a statement on where water comes from, but rather that some people on this planet don't have access to it in the same way you or I do, or in the same quantities, or even of the same quality."

It amazes me that foreigners always speak English better than Natives. The young man appears to have a brain, I will engage.

"I've figured that out, thank you. What is it you want of me? Make it quick; my waffle fries are getting cold."

"Well, Sir, before I get to that, we just wanted to know what your views are on The World-wide Water Crisis?"

I didn't know there was one. I wonder if he'd be willing to ask that question of some people currently residing in Nebraska, where there is a Water Crisis, for shit-sure.

"My View, Buddy, is this: water is everywhere. It flows through rivers and streams, it falls from the sky as rain and snow, it is trapped in glaciers. If people in Africa and Asia don't have "access" to any, it's probably because they live primitive existences trapped between the self-defeating forces of their own dumbass, their own regressive cultures, and their own inability to cease pissing and shitting in the same ponds and lakes they drink from. I assume this is what you mean by "The World-wide Water Crisis"; that people in all the backwoods shitholes from the Yukon to the Irrawaddy can't get a reliable supply because they lack the infrastructure to support plumbing, because they can't manage the comparatively simple task of catching rainwater, don't understand the basics of sanitation, can't dig wells for lack of tools, and do their laundry in the same sources they bathe in -- and did I mention they piss and shit in it, too? -- then my answer is this: it's a "crisis" of your own making, for the planet is 3/4 water, and lousy with it on any given day."

Mahatma Goofball is now non-plussed. He is flailing for a response, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. The final member of the trio now comes to the plate, bottom of the ninth, two out, down by a run.

"You know, you don't have to be a dick about it."

Struck him out looking.

"Great way to make your case and influence people! Your zeal and dedication are commendable; it is largely wasted upon this subject for a variety of good reasons, the main one being that when a First-World Nation solves a Third-World problem we're accused of Neo-Colonialism and selfishness and the beneficiaries are never grateful. We feed half the planet; now we have to give them something to drink, too? Won't matter: we'll still be racists and imperialists even if the little brown fuckers were drowning in Perrier. Aren't there already too many people on the planet? If some of them die, that means more water for everyone, so the problem solves itself. I'm not paying or being forced to live like a caveman because some inbred, brain-damaged little headhunter doesn't know to boil water before he drinks it, only to go unthanked, unrecognized, unrewarded, and unpaid for the privilege and being called a racist, in the process. We used to call this The White Man's Burden, you know, and it was considered racist then, and it's reverse racist now. Read some fucking Kipling."

And I managed to get home with warm, toasty fries, a delicious chicken sandwich, and a reinforced notion that most people are dumber than dogshit.