Metastatic Carnage: Another Meatspace Adventure - Part II

If you haven't do so already Read Metastatic Carnage: Another Meatspace Adventure - Part I

Part II begins here.

***

Trembling as I step out into the 20 degree night I almost pitch forward and fall out of my car. My gut heaves acid into my lungs and I am half blind with Subcon trying to crunch the particulars. Half of my thinking parts are still screaming that I was already stopped and that it wasn't fair.

Part of me wishes that my mind would howl with lusty violence and make me grab something sharp so I could hack up the nearest thing with a pulse. There's no point in lying.

All I feel is the cold jagged edges of the world tugging at my skin. I'm a puppet, dangling from garrotes just over the brink of a poisoned world.

"Are you ok?" That's Bill talking. He was in the Red Charger. The front of my car just got real intimate with his back end. He's unhurt, doesn't even seem shaken. Lucky for him someone else absorbed the brunt of the impact.

Yeah, me.

"I can't stop shaking," I tell him but even I don't seem too interested in that. Instead I look at the guy who hit me. Some dumb fucking redneck in his 40's or 50's. His big white truck, a dualie, is dark and quiet. Both his headlights are toast and the engine is off. I found out later his battery cracked and they had to tow his truck all the way to Mooresville.

Poor thing. Bless his heart.

One quick word about Southern expressions. 'Bless his heart' is as much a condolence as it is a knife in the back.

Before freak out any harder I pick up my phone and tell Natalie that I am not dead and that I will call her later. I glance at the trunk and realize that even if I can open it that it will never close. All my tools, parts and my gun are back there. I walk back to the driver who hit me.

"You ok buddy?" I ask. He just looks at me with disgust, like somehow it was my fault for being the car in front of his slow ass reflexes.

"I'm fine," he gripes at me. "Wish I could say the same thing for my truck." Nice. Real nice.

Don't ask me how I am you piece of shit. Someone needs to call the cops.

I ask around. Of course no one has called the cops. Interestingly enough there's a wreck ahead of our 4 car smashup. Both of the drivers are doing just fine. They haven't called the cops either.

"I'm gonna let you do it," one of them says to me. To me. I just got the most brutal treatment out of all 8 cars and I have to call the cops. Lovely.

The 911 operator takes down my info. It's heartbreaking, she tries to patch me over to Highway Patrol but can't. After 5 minutes of trying she just decides to call it in herself. I wait as the others piece together what happened. Eight cars are arranged in linear misery along the highway. Just as I feel like the piano wire holding me together can't cut any deeper a passing trucker pulls them taut.

"Y'all need to slow down," he screams. His big ass tanker grumbles along up the road. Later I'll think about putting holes in the big tanker with my 10/22. For now I just look at my smashed up trunk and feel like crying.

EMS and the Linwood Volunteer Firefighters beat the highway patrol on scene by about ten minutes. I have to sign a paper saying that I decline medical treatment. There will be time for later if need be. I can barely hear or think or do anything except convulse in the freezing cold. When the cops do show up they start from the front and work backwards collecting ID's and registrations as they go.

While we wait Bill confides in me that he's taken a picture of the redneck's license plate.
"So if that fucker takes off he's not getting away," he says. Bill is pure venom. I envy his reaction because he just seems cranky. He's as defiant as I am defeated. Some part of me feels dead and my Subcon seems to have taken a long coffee break. We wait and wait. Natalie calls and I have to try and explain what happened through crackling static. It's the only time I
feel like screaming that night.

Minutes pass, some of the firefighters take an interest in my car. I give them my perspective of the wreck.

"So you were already stopped with your foot on the brake when that guy hit you?"

"Yep." They look meaningfully at the 8 feet streak of rubber on the highway.

One of the cracks up and slaps a hand on my shoulder.

"I know you're pissed, man. But as hard as you got hit . . . Just be glad your brain is still in your head." Oh, I am. Doesn't make the world a nicer place. We have to move off the road soon. The engine seems fine, one of my lights lost its housing but none are out.

The cops block off traffic and we move to exit 85 then park in order we all got fucked. White truck has to be towed so that stays behind. There are two cars behind me, 4 in front.

Now here's the kicker, and it took much discussion between me and the gentlemen in front of me to piece together what happened.

Cars #1 and #2 bumped into each other as traffic was slowing down and the lane count shrank from four to two. Car #3 saw the first accident and pulled over so he could be a witness. Car #4, the Red Charger driven by Bill, had to stop suddenly to avoid smacking into Car #3. I had to stop to avoid Bill and the White truck, Car #6 pushed my car into #4 which collided into #3. Behind us a young girl stopped to avoid our pileup and was rear ended by an older gentleman. No one from me forward bothers talking to them.

It's fucked up that it happened and more so that the initial accident propagated a series of events leading up to our crash and the one behind us. Worse the wreck happens at 6pm and we don't get to break off until 830pm. Both of these do not compare to the real shit kicking detail in this whole mess.

Accidents happen and the world does not always punish the wicked. Just before the wreck another vehicle swerved 3 feet into Car #1's lane. In order to avoid hitting this person Car #1 had to slam on his brakes and let car #0 pass him by. Car #2 was unable to stop although he and the driver of #1 swear he hit the brakes as hard as he could.

So three discrete accidents involving 10 other people (Cars #3 and #8 had two occupants each) were caused by someone's mistake or malevolence and this person did not even slow down. There is no justice in this story, no grand comeuppance or any flavor of narrative goodness. All we got was fucked in the cold dark night with absolutely nothing to show for it. No one says it but misery is a socially transmitted disease and people are pretty promiscuous with it.

Natalie hugs me as I get home, 3 hours late. I notice that putting my arms around her causes a sharp pain in my left arm. I try to ignore it as she tells me everything will be ok. I know eventually this will pass into legend but for now the cancer is already spreading.

I have to work for three hours before I can sleep. Medusa's PC is a real pain. At least it works. Ironically the noisy hard drive won't even spin up but otherwise it's ok. Reloading XP at 1am after being up for 17 hours is a pretty fucking rotten way to cap it off. I barely hit the pillow before it's morning and I have to drive back up.

***

Paperwork and ugliness latch on and ride the miserable wake of the accident. Filing the claim is dreadful and of course I opted not to go with the rental car reimbursement. Curses. Lucky for me the white truck driver's company accepts the liability so I just have to drop my car off and wait to speak with the adjuster.

Christmas and Christmas day pass sometime between the wreck and my trip to the collision center. At least the guys are nice and professional about it. I'll be getting a call in the next day or so. It's Friday, December 26th. Work is hell but I still have some sympathy points since my life got fucked with in such random fashion.

I punch out early and take Natalie's car out to The Land.

Yes I capitalized it, The Land is a figure of legend.

Before I was born Mom and Dad bought 50 acres of woodland out in the countryside of Concord, NC. They were going to build a house and someday retire out there but haven't committed to it yet. The Land is a refuge and wilderness.

Trees grow thick and every Fall a carpet of orange and crimson covers the rotten brown mat from last year. In Winter it's just brown, cold and wet. Loose dirt and leaves are like teflon under my tread free sneakers.

There's an entrance from a country road but you can't drive more than 30 feet before dismounting the vehicle. I sling the rifle over my right shoulder and haul my shooting bag in the left. It's stuffed with goodies and targets. Over a thousand rounds of ammo lay nestled among various odds and ends I have collected for destruction.

Several years ago when my younger brother and his friends would throw bonfire parties at night there was a clear and well kept path down to the bottom land. Now I have nothing but gravity and memory to guide me. No one really needs a path to find the right area you just walk perpendicular to the road until you hit the creek. If the water's high you hang a right until you hit the fire pit. If it's low you travel upstream, past the beaver dam until you reach the pit.

My first shooting trip was a bit like the kids coming back to Narnia for Round II. Everything had changed. Lines we left were gone, trees we felled had rotted away and even the fire pit moldered into lumpy ring of quartz jutting out of the layered biomass. There are pictures from my childhood, just after hurricane Hugo (circa 1989) of me and the brothers standing on a huge thick tree that fell across a broad gully. I recognize the tree, though it's nothing but termite food and heartwood now.

Christ I feel old.

Reaching the bottom land at least puts the brain at ease. All the woods, the former path included, seem anonymous and nondescript but the bottom land carries a lot of memory. It was leveled 20 years ago and you can still tell.

Ground cover isn't quite as thick, grasses grew tall and wild where the sun fell between the few remaining trees.

You could tell there had been a flood recently, the leaves here are piled into drifts where water cut paths along the flood plain. It's not a big creek, call it 12 feet wide and as many inches deep. (That's a little under four meters by 37 centimeters for my international fans) Maybe that's why Mom and Dad never built a house here.

Stranger still on the opposite bank of the creek a strangely regular looking pine forest stands about 20 feet off the ground at a weirdly uniform height and spread. Some kind of blight necessitated harvesting the timber from that side of the stream. My last experience on the other side was a stroll through tall brush and tiny trees. You couldn't find anything taller than a runt christmas tree just a few years ago.

Nature owns everything we have ever done or will ever do until the Singularity.

I find comfort that until the sun goes red giant and cooks the water off our little planet that life, in some form, will continue to thrive and persist until it is literally impossible for it to do so.

These thoughts bring brief comfort, I start loading magazines and thinking about what I want to shoot at first. The local beaver did me a courtesy by proving a most convenient bench to work on. (Perish the thought of me doing harm to any woodland critter) My middle and forefinger on the right hand turn gray with lead residue and later blacken with spent powder. I always notice but forever forget to care.

Rimfire cartridges, which is all I shoot because 3 cents for a bullet versus 40 or more is the only way to shoot the kind of volume that I prefer. I usually shoot copper jacketed high velocity but today it's nothing but dirt-cheap jacket-free Remington Thunderbolts. Take a good look at one, the projectile is a perfect miniature of something our great great grandfathers shot at each other with during the American Civil War.

Finding myself the victim of a violent act and then turning around to violence on the world strikes me at an odd angle. While I feel no desire to do harm to the guy that hit me, or rednecks in general I still feel an urge to smash and destroy something. The accident sobered and scoured me clean. Oh but the treatment is already sliding back to entropy. I feel the primal voices welling up like adrenaline laced bubose that froth and roil like boiling bloodthirst. Part of me wants to smash something with a club and then fuck it.

But I already mentioned that the local beaver came to no harm. Interpret that as you will.

I load 110 rounds and set up the first round of targets. Among the first are a handful of christian dating advice CD's that I procured at the YMCA courtesy of some local ministry. I've only tried to listen to them once but after a few minutes of laughing disgustedly I got bored. Preach abstinence to me and your media gets penetrated with high velocity lead. Shut it, Freud.

Also included with today's lineup: Five head-sized paper targets featuring Sarah Palin's stupid shit-eating mug. I hang them in front of an old 35 MPH sign that somehow ended up in my parents' shop. It's nice because I get to shoot holes in one of the dumbest women alive and hear a nice metallic thud. I imagine a small caliber bullet bouncing off her head would sound more like shaking a paper bag with a small rock inside. After a round of shooting the paper targets are nicely perforated and the back of the sign is puckered enough to grate coconuts.

Time for the main event.

After another reload I roll out a trio of beat up propane tanks. These are not the grill sized monstrosities, just little tanks with busted O-rings so they can't safely power a cooking stove or blowtorch. The metal's about the same thickness as the sign, maybe thinner but it's steel and not aluminum. I fire a single shot from about 40 yards and giggle at the spray of liquified hydrocarbons as they burst forth. Boy am I glad I brought the camera.

Bolstered by the success I decide to escalate. Well first I put about 40 more rounds through the now empty canister because it sounds awesome and the swinging canister makes for an unusual challenge. I still hope I never have to shoot at *moving targets* but you can never be too prepared for the apocalypse.

Now that I know even naked lead will sail through a propane tank I hang up another, newer can with a blowtorch head affixed to it. I light the torch. Seeing the flame causes the fiend to pop his silly head up for a moment. I scream him off and and set up my shot and the camera.

Ever since I was a kid I wondered what would happen if you shot a hole through a blowtorch as it was running. The obvious answered seemed to be: it blows up. But I always wondered if the sudden drop in pressure would cause the flame to go out before it could ignite the escaping gas.

Curious?



It wasn't anything too spectacular but still pretty gratifying. After letting the tank cool down I pulled out the last tank and decided to modify the setup.

Surprisingly the torch still bellowed out blue fire so I slung it up and let fly.



Bingo, one huge fireball. You have to love that. It really beats the shit out of shooting clays, bottles and monochrome portraits of the dumbest woman in public office. Oh and for the record I would no sooner shoot that moose-fellating bimbo than I would do harm to the local wildlife.

And now we do the post climax tidying up.

I bust up some more clays and a few beer cans that are still lying around before packing up. At this point I still don't know that my car has just been declared a total loss, that the amount they will pay me is not enough to cover getting the same model without spending extra cash, or that I will have to drive back out to see Medusa in just a few short days.

For now I have a fleeting grip on contentment and enough to make a few youtube videos and complete my latest story.

So I leave The Land with a smile on my face and a weird sensation at the joy a little destruction I got to mete out on the inanimate world.

When it comes to destruction I find that it's better to give than to receive. And though I doubt you will ever find this in a psychology text but a little violence can be quite therapeutic.

The ride home is a little scary I am still paranoid about following too closely and every car in the rear view might as well be flying the jolly roger. Fear aside it's beautiful rural countryside and the setting sun turns the scattered clouds into a bolero of pink and orange radiance.

Glorious.


***

Be sure to check back in the next few days for another Meatspace Adventure. Who knows what will happen next.

Too funny to pass up

A quickie anecdote from my day. An office was having printing issues and it's a pretty big place (30+ computers, so it's not huge but it is big for us.) The following happened during the initial part of the call.

Jennifer: Thank you for calling how can we help you?
Me: Hi this is Seth with calling about the printer issue.
Jennifer: Sorry, what was your name?
Me: Seth
Jennifer: Zack?
Me: No, it's Seth. Like Beth with an S...
Jennifer: There's no one named Beth working here.
Me: I'm calling for Carole. She left me a message about the printer.
Jennifer: Oh. Are you a printer repairman?
Me: No, I work for your IT company.
Jennifer: Oh, I didn't know have an IT company. I'll get Carole



Carole: Hey Zack, we actually don't need a printer repair man we called our IT company and they are going to contact us.

What a day. I've been laughing about it on and off for two hours now.

Spiritual Awakening = Cognitive Lethargy

Hi again. Now I admit to being as much of a sucker for inspirational platitudes as the next guy but some people take this way too far. I'm referring of course to the dreaded 'X things to find/explain Y' internet list.

X is a number, usually ranging from 7-100 and Y is any number of problems or conditions inherent to the human condition that some kind soul is willing to caricature for you. Here's a list of common Y examples:

Inspiration
Faith
Artistry (creative isn't an ice cream flavor, you bastards)
Revelation
Truth
Old Age
New Experience
Unity
Creativity
Love
Attitude (towards life)
Money
Success

One such list I stumbled upon recently. I linked to it in the first paragraph but here's another.

***Post Begins

30 Things I've learned in 30 years

Now I couldn't let such a thing slide so here's the list with added commentary to show what a bunch of nonsense this list (like so many others) really is.

1. The Beatles were right, at our most fundamental level all we need is love. Wrong! At our most fundamental all we need is air, food, water, shelter, sleep, sex and social interaction.
   

2. Fear is a big old illusion. What you fear is NEVER as bad as you imagine. Easily disproved. A few weeks ago I feared that I would be getting home late due to traffic. Then I got creamed on the highway and it delayed me 3 extra hours, wrecked my car and left me sore and disgruntled for a week.
   

3. Everyone talks from their own limitations and beliefs, you do not have to take them on board. So you freely admit that accepting this list as nonsensical is ok because it draws from your limitations and beliefs? Done!
   

4. Intuition is king, listen to it. Social commentary about obeying any king aside, intuition is not to be served without reason and rational discourse as garnish. Common sense and intuition play their role in daily life but should not frame our worldview or override empirical data that 'goes against common sense.'
   

5. Playing it safe is anything but safe, you end up in constant fear of being unsafe. Depends on how far you take it I suppose. There's no reward without risk but that's no excuse to drive without a seatbelt or not wear a condom.
   

6. Don’t compare yourself to others, everyone has their ups and downs. From a social psychology perspective this is impossible. If we do not compare ourselves to others by what standard are we supposed to aspire to? Without contemporary analogs how is anyone supposed to succeed or aspire to anything more than dragging around like a third- worlder with cable?
   

7. Follow your dream no matter how unrealistic it may appear. You never know where it may take you. Now I'm not so cynical to just crap on this outright but certain people, no matter how determined or persevering will never achieve their dreams for two simple reasons. 1) Everyone has to deal with circumstances beyond their control. 2) Happiness is relative. I'll explain more in the next item.
   

8. Happiness is a choice. Happiness is a series of choices, and compromises and sacrifices. Material gain may provide temporary happiness but we all know how transient and fickle that can be. Likewise true happiness does not depend on attaining a set goal and then living with it but rather the pursuit of slightly better circumstances until death.
   

9. Blaming is immature and soooo unattractive. Blaming who for what and in what context? Your education seems to have been awfully vague. Unwarranted blame might carry negative consequences but other people will screw you over at some point and that doesn't deserve tolerance.
   

10. There is learning in absolutely everything. Except for this list! Ooh, better call the burn ward.
    

11. Everything comes and goes so let it flow. Rivers can be diverted, dams can be built and when all else fails then rivet a bridge together and go about your way. How can a life coach advocate being subjected to the whims of the world when so often this leads to being smashed upon the rocks? It is human nature to break and blunt the fangs and crags of this planet. To do otherwise, well it wouldn't be civilized now would it?
    

12. You can’t bury emotions forever. I actually agree with this. Huzzah!
    

13. Accept your family and loved ones for who they are. I would agree with this but with a caveat: Accept your family except when it comes to compromising yourself or your convictions. If your family does not agree with you or your worldview don't hold it against them but don't cave for them either.
    

14. Whatever you can’t stand in others you have within yourself. Everyone is human, statement contains no additional info.
    

15. Whatever you admire in others you have within yourself. See #14.
    

16. Your life is a sum of your thoughts and beliefs. Wrong! Your life is a thread on a tapestry that's been woven for 4 billion years. Everything you've every thought, said done or questioned is built upon the framework of your biological, psychological and genetic forbears. I'm not saying don't fight the tide but remember you're mostly water and bacteria and that should influence your decision making.
    

17. Don’t underestimate the ripple effect. Your one good act can have a more far-reaching effect than you could ever imagine. I wonder if the opposite is true. If I accidentally drop a quarter could this neutral action lead to disasters of epic proportions?
    

18. Allow people to grow and they will allow you too also. I'm not sure how to respond due to the ambiguity. However if you steal all their food you will grow bigger so it seems to be contradictory.
    

19. Miracles happen everyday not just in the Bible. Sweet hashish-smoking Buddha that is wrong. Miracles happen NOWHERE except in human imagination. Not even in the bible or any other holy book. Statistical outliers and fantastic coincidence DO happen but calling them miracles leads nowhere but inanity.
    

20. It’s pointless to waste energy whinging and moaning. I couldn't find the definition for whinging so I'll assume 'whining' was the intended word. While I agree that whining often just delays actually improving circumstances or solving a problem it does help to examine a problem by verbalizing. Then you still have to fix it.
    

21. Stop defending your bad behaviour, you’re just lying to yourself. That should have been either two sentences or featured a colon. I'll forgive the British spelling of behavior (since the author was born in England) but the grammar is intolerable. I would assert that inflating the importance of our good behavior is just as dangerous. However if bad behavior involves pedophilia then by all means jump off a bridge. But are we to judge what we consider bad behavior ourselves or that which is ladled lovingly from our peers and parents?
    

22. Some people mis-use the word love and these people could be the ones you love the most. Some people misuse the word 'misuse' but we forgive them and move on. Again, vague statements, are we to love people who like us but call it love or refuse to call it love or what?
    

23. If you hear the same compliment repeatedly, there’s probably some truth to it. Or you are hanging around with a bunch of liars.
    

24. There is a lot more in your control than you realise. What!? How do you know about my locus of control? Get out of my head. Get out!!
    

25. One person changing can affect the dynamics of a relationship. I change my boxers every day (sometimes twice if it's a Taco Bell night) and this hasn't affected my marriage yet. While I can't disagree with this statement I also can't disagree with 'people are different' or 'fish live in the ocean.' More importantly sometimes when one person does NOT change it can affect the dynamics of a relationship. Have a kid to test this assertion if you don't believe me.
    

26. Some people don’t like happy people simply because they are happy. Happiness is not the issue here. No one says "I hate Bill Gates because that MF'r is SO HAPPY! I can't stand how HAPPY he is compared to me." Try substituting the words rich, famous, successful for happy and you can see what people really hate.
    

27. Judging says more about the person judging than it does about the ones being judged. Let me rephrase how I understand this item: Judgement reveals more about you than the person that you judge. Not so hard, right? I judge that you wrote this list in haste and without proper spell checking? Does that make me a bad person?
    

28. There’s always another way. Unless you're dead.
    

29. Don’t lose hope, even when you don’t know how it always works out. A noble sentiment, which I wholeheartedly agree with.
    

30. The darkest part of night is just before dawn. Actually the darkest part of night depends on the position and phase of the moon. I get the metaphor but come on, a little science wouldn't kill you. I would prefer to say 'Even the darkest, emptiest part of the universe contains cosmic background radiation and therefore is not entirely empty.'
    

In love, light and abundance x x x

***Post Ends.

Well, there you have it. 30 mindless tidbits for the mindless readers in need of a mindless pick me up. I don't want to sound overly harsh but this is the sort of intellectual terpitude that people wallow around in their whole lives. Now I am going to commit a grievous act of character treason by providing a counter post. Look for it soon, title is tentatively:

26 Things I Have Discovered in 26.92 Local Solar Cycles

Here's a taste.

1) Sooner or later you are going to have to deal with assholes. This process begins early and will remain a struggle throughout your life. It's a condition that has plagued your ancestors and will continue to plague your descendants until the extinction of the human race. You cannot cure people of this condition. All you can hope to do is pick your battles and hope to take a few of them down before they get you.

2) It always pays to read the first letters in vertical lists. You might find a secret message tucked away in secret.

An oddity in the Youtube algorithms

The other day I posted a video of me walking around my car pointing out just how badly it had been smashed up during a recent accident. You can check it out by clicking here or by reading the latest Adventure in Meatspace.

Now it's only got two dozen views at this point but Matt and I both noticed anomalies in the 'related videos' section.

These are all taken directly from 'related' videos.

Danielle



Ebony Shemale Flaunts Her Fresh Painted Toes! Sexy Feet!



TV Reporter Gets Feet Tickled



Backdoor lessons for erotic young strippers in sex school



how to make a super mario mushroom



Now I am not an expert in youtube video comparisons but NONE of the tags or title words match up. Not even 'of' or 'the' are in the related videos. I just don't get why the hell this happened!?

Funny though.

Pitiful!

Link to Original Article

This links to a story of an 'angel' that miraculously appeared at Presbyterian Hospital recently in Charlotte, NC. My wife recently forwarded me an email containing the backstory and a super bad quality image of the purported angel. Email follows:

From: WhereAngelsFly
> To: Shirley8648
> Sent: 12/6/2008 10:29:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
> Subj: Angel in ICU
>
>
> So many of you have heard me tell the story, but I
wanted to pass it
> along anyway to those who didn't hear it and for
those who wanted it
> in email.
>
> A couple of Wednesdays ago, I got an evening phone
call from the
> pediatric ICU at Presbyterian Hospital, where I work
as a child life
> specialist. Usually when they call at night, it
means something bad
> has happened. This, however, was different. My
coworker told me that
> the most amazing thing had just happened and she
just had to call to
> tell me.
>
> We had a patient who has really grown up in and out
of the hospital.
> All the staff knows her and her family. She had been
in the Pediatric
> Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for about a month, and
had been intubated -
> on life support. She was not doing well. The doctors
had approached
> mom about taking her off life support the Saturday
before. Mom was
> okay with it, and said that she'd been through so
much and if was her
> time to go she wanted to honor that. So they had
taken her off.
>
> It was Wednesday and she was still alive. Amazing.
The doctors
> approached mom about taking off her oxygen mask. Mom
was supportive,
> and began praying over her daughter. The mother of
another young
> patient who was in the bed next to her began praying
with her.
>
> The nurse practitioner went to the nurses station to
chart that she
> had taken off the oxygen mask. While doing so, she
looked up at the
> security monitor that videotapes the double doors
leading into the
> PICU. It records anyone who may be waiting outside
the doors to get in
> since it is a secure unit. She saw a man standing
there, and it looked
> a little funny to her, so she decided to walk down
the hall to open
> the double doors personally. When she opened them,
no one was standing
> there.
>
> She walked back down to the nurses station to finish
charting,
> assuming he had walked away, but saw him still
standing there on the
> monitor. So she opened the doors with a button near
the nurses station
> and leaned over to see him walk in, but no one was
standing there.
>
> She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring
at this man on
> the monitor and opening the doors to find no one
there. The nurse
> practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on
the monitor and
> said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his
wings!'
>
> They said that the sun starting shining so brightly
and the whole PICU
> was strangely filled with light. They said he was a
tall man and you
> could see wings behind him.
>
> They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the
two praying mothers
> and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor
and opening the
> doors to find no one there. Crying, everyone pulled
out their camera
> phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to
show up on their
> camera. The mother of the girl pulled out her camera
phone and finally
> got a picture of the angel who was guarding the
doors to the PICU. He
> turned out as a man of light. I have attached the
picture from her
> phone.
>
> The girl was later discharged from the hospital to
go home.
> A Miracle.
>
> This story makes me so grateful for the way that God
reveals himself
> to us, and the how Great He is really is. We have
much to be thankful
> for this holiday. :)
>
>
> --
> Katy L. Field, CCLS
> Certified Child Life Specialist
> Presbyterian Blume Pediatric Hematology and Oncology
Clinic
> Charlotte, NC

And here's the angelic being itself:

Here's a better quality image, I haven't had much luck finding the original security footage but take a look at this pic and tell me what you think.

Now take a long hard look at the blue floor directly underneath the alleged seraphim. Doesn't look all that angelic or even personlike under scrutiny. I bet it'll take you one full second to make that observation.

See it's harder to tell in the ultra grainy cellphone pic that accompanies the email but the high quality version CLEARLY shows not an angel but Windows. That's right, sun shining through the windows.

In another account the details are a little different. Here's a quote to, shall we say, highlight the kicker.

She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. The nurse practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on the monitor and said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his wings!'

They said that the sun starting shining so brightly and the whole PICU was strangely filled with light. They said he was a tall man and you could see wings behind him.

They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the two praying mothers and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. Crying, everyone pulled out their camera phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to show up on their camera. The mother of the girl pulled out her camera phone and finally got a picture of the angel who was guarding the doors to the PICU. He turned out as a man of light.

Emphasis in the preceding was mine but how hard is it for people to piece this sort of thing together? You people make me sad.

I'll quote Matt for the conclusion:

Matthew: Occam's razor. The sun was out ooooorr

Matthew: Jesus himself rode down on wings of happy to save you insignificant mortal shell

Me: and let a ton of other kids die because he was too busy to get to them

Metastatic Carnage: Another Meatspace Adventure - Part I

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From Mundanity to Metafiction: An adventure in Meat Space (Part II)

If you missed it, check out Part I

***

Enough of this traveling shit. I am happy to shake the pins and needles down my khaki's as I pull into job #2. Five seconds in the door and I have identified my first problem, the office manager

It's not something personal, furthest thing from it, she's just playing an archetype. Hell, they all are. Having a big personal stake in something that's inherently problematic and without a heavy lid to keep the outbursts down always leads to trouble. Trying to manage an office either leads to futility or tyranny when dealing with employees. I do not envy anyone charged to this responsibility.

In this case the OM wasn't the root of the problem, the problem's true name was Carl.

Carl is not clever. Carl is just a dumb fucking voice attached to some pitiful short timer shackled to a desk in a big room full of cubicles doing thankless tech support for a single shoddy product over and over until his own fiends and subcon convince him to leave or blow his brains out the side door.

Misinformation abounds in my line of work. This retard made the mistake of selling a one-time configuration change as something the office would have to do every time they wanted to look at an x-ray. It was total bullshit, we just needed to activate some license keys. Five minutes later and I am done with problem one. Fuck Carl, he can suck the devil's cock in hell.

Problem #2 is the occupational equivalent of misinformation. We'll call it Sleaze. Consider your desktop's Ethernet cable. Whether you know it or not the exterior cladding conceals exactly 4 pairs of twisted wires. 10/100 Ethernet only uses 2 of these pairs for data transmission. Gigabit Ethernet uses all 4 pairs.

Now here's a dilemma for the guys who ran the office cable. One of the network drops needed to accommodate an additional computer. The normal protocol demands running an additional wire from the upstairs patch panel, down to the existing drop, and adding a 2-port plate instead of a 1 port. This is necessary so that both devices have their own jack, their own wire and their own connection to the patch panel, and from there the switch, router, modem and finally the Internet.

It's a pain to run the cable so you might be tempted to cut a corner and just slice open the existing cable and split the wires so each new jack uses two twisted pairs instead of the full four. You COULD do that but if you actually DID do that then you'd be employing Sleaze and guess what.

A little screwdriver work confirmed it. I showed the OM what was up and got to listen to a shrill and piercing phone conversation. Joyful.

Problem #3 was the Big One and it depended on a Switch that was, as yet, undelivered. While the OM worked on filing I retired to the upstairs lounge computer and remoted into the server to do some maintenance and check on the general network status. Packets were colliding like proton streams in the LHC for no sensible reason.

Hammering on the network turned up little hope. I would need the switch. That meant waiting. It seemed like a perfectly acceptable time to drop one on the deuce bowl.

I often reflect, when excreting waste of the solid or liquid variety, how strangely humans react to this sort of endeavor. Despite it being a normal part of everyday life the simple process of entering a bathroom to drop trow to relieve some biological burdens changes things. If someone watched my life all day and all night this part of my day would have gone from G-rated (barring internal dialog) to X-rated in two shakes. Literally.

I attribute this, perhaps too generously, to simple physics. After all exhalation is a form of waste management not so different from urination or defecation. However exhaled air, as with burps or flatulence is easily dispersed. I wonder if we were an aquatic species if taking a leak around others would cause any sort of offense or discomfort.

Too many imponderables to consider.

It wasn't that big of a shit, only 3 main pieces and all floaters. I absentmindedly reached out to flush and . . . (click)

Imagine you've spent your whole life tracking down the guy that killed your dad, raped your mom and burned your whole town into smoking cinders. You grow up consumed with hate, training your body and mind into killing implements and hunt your prey over the seas and across the mountains. And then, villain's head planted firmly in the iron sights, you pull the trigger . . . (click)

Panic doesn't come naturally to me. I deal with bits and electrons and something so crude as water and pressure, despite being infinitely simpler, still baffled me. I applied troubleshooting methods to see what I could do. The water was turned on but not refilling the empty tank.

Something ticked off in my brain from a previous install. Most dental offices shut down their air, water and vacuum lines when the office isn't in use for safety reasons. I stepped cautiously back and strolled downstairs as casual as can be.

"Say, do you mind if I turn the water on I need to use your restroom," I say to the OM. Easy money, just turn the water on and problem sol . . .

"We can't," she tells me. "They are working on the pipes this weekend and we can't turn the water or air lines on. You can try next door if you want."

"Oh," I say. My poker face cracks a little as my left eye begins to twitch. "No big deal, I can wait until lunch." Inside my mind alarms and sprinklers are spraying wildly. The Fiend reminds me of a nearby gas station and its well advertised cigarette prices. I trod upstairs thinking wild thoughts of how to fix this problem.

There's a couch so I sit. The upper floor is a lounge/attic/storage space/meeting area. I do a mental inventory and spy a sink. Taps turn out nothing but a slight creak. There's a stove nearby, some kitchen miscellanea and an unopened case of bottled water. That's a start, I think to myself. I just need to get a hold of about a gallon of water.

Therein lies the problem. I can't very well go breaking into the bottled stuff, the doctor's tight enough to know that would cause trouble. I notice a side door that leads to an outside stairwell. Peaking out my head I see that the snow's really picked up. There was a light dusting when I rolled in and now about three inches of the pure white shit are all over everything. Water is running down the hood of my car, feeding the icicles around the base.

Bingo. I step back inside and find a few useful implements then get to work. I yank the bag out of a small plastic trash can and head out into the flurry. Shoveling the loose, powdery snow brings me to the brink of frostbite in seconds. I alternate hands trying to fill as much of the can as possible. It takes about 3 steps and some fist packing to add some solidness to the trash can. Once inside I can look for further help.

There's a big glass bowl full of moldering chocolates on the table. I empty it and beeline for the microwave. I know that I need to make the snow as compact as possible before I add it. Some more digit-chilling work yields about a dozen small snowballs, each as close to solid ice as I can make it.

It takes two trips and some leftover snow to fill the tank. Finally I have enough tepid slush to do some damage. Finger twitching on the trigger I depress and . . . (whoosh)

Fucking aces, I think. The poo is gone and I have one less problem to worry about. Now once the damned switch arrives I can put this place in the rear view. Twenty minutes later and I can't stand the waiting a second longer. I hit the Chinese buffet down the road, I don't even need the GPS to find it.

Now Boone's a pretty small town and less than a linear mile separates the office and the eatery. Along the way I witness one of those 'if only I had brought a video camera I could have taped this shit and it would have gotten 9 million hits on Youtube.' Alas, I have but memory to replay the event.

Some dip shit kid, maybe 16, is sitting in the passenger side of his friend's car. At a stoplight this wonder boy waves to an acquaintance across the intersection and then reaches up to the rooftop to harvest some snow for a snowball. The crafting of the spherical ice missile goes well and dandy, the execution falters a bit.

As wonder boy launches his snowball he has to lean out the open window. Some aspect of the throwing process causes him to lose balance and he slides out the window up to his waist. As this is happening the friend behind the wheel notices that the light is green and the car jumps forward. Wonder boy, still out the window, screams and tries to climb back in. His driver stops and the smart, smart boy decides he'll just climb out the window and then get back in.

I watch wonder boy fumble for the exterior door handle, he pops it and the door swings out enough for his feet to come crashing down onto the road. As he shimmies backwards out the window he slips and fall backwards into the road which is covered in an inch think slurry of dirty-as-shit snow, dirt, salt and buddha only knows what else. I laugh at the retard all through my lunch. Kung Pao chicken, excellent.

Back on scene we have a 24 port gigabit switch still warm from the truck!

Another run in with sleaze, the cunts who installed the existing network hardware used the cheapest shit on the market and it shows. That's the main reason why I am here. Also I don't have any screws that I can attach to the plywood sheet holding all the other stuff. I have to do some harvesting.

Ten minutes later I am done and out the door. There's just the question of the shipping box.

"You got a dumpster around here?" I ask.

"Oh you can leave that for the maid," says the OM. Right, like the maid's life isn't sad enough without a fucking IT guy that can't take a box out to the trash. I press her for info. "It's out back," she finally says.

Around the building I dump the box. Everything is lousy with snow, real fine and loose shit that flies off at the slightest gust. I am thinking of taking a picture with my phone when a real blast takes about 8 pounds of particulate ice off the roof. I catch a shower right at the neck and face. Sweet bleeding christ its like getting hit with a spray from a sea of liquid nitrogen.

"Should have left the shit for the maid," I grumble.

I say goodbye and ask the requisite 'last' question.

"Is there anything else I can do for you today?" I hate this question because 99% of the time there is something and it's always painful. I would rather suck botulism through a lead straw but in the interest of job security and not being one of the fuckheads that makes life difficult I feel compelled.

My lucky day, she says no. I get to leave, sleaze free and ahead of schedule.

On the way back I take a little more care through my shady spot where I decided to write all this down. Lucky for me a quarter of the cars on the road are trucks sporting ice blades and there's enough salt on the roads to pickle everyone driving on it.

The drive home begins pleasantly enough. I pass Tweetsie Rail Road, it doesn't reopen until May. That's probably for the best, no one wants to see cowboys and indians shooting blanks in sub 20's weather.

Another ten miles and I realize I need to stop for gas. If I had been smart I would have topped off during my cigarette run. Singular purposes fail sometimes. This is one of those times and the Fiend moves to capitalize on it.

Every gas station on earth sells cigarettes. The Fiend knows this and he's already scratching at my cranial bumps. I have to stop, but I don't have to go inside. That's what I tell myself. Right on cue the Fiend reminds me that I have to take a mad leak. So I do have to go inside.

Fucking nagger!

The refill and defill go pretty smoothly, I decide to grab a drink while I am in the store. Maybe having something to suck on (fuck off, Freud) will keep the Fiend docile. The place is a wreck. They only have the weirdly narrow necked 20oz bottles of Diet Sundrop. Figures.

The guy in front of me is even more of a wreck. He's got to be somewhere in his 80's, a tiny old man wearing a fur lined leather bomber's jacket. It's so flaked off and crusty that he must have worn it every day since the end of World War II. I feel a stab of pity as he transacts his business.

The bombadier shakily hands the clerk a lotto ticket with a bar code. She scans it, nothing pops, he buys a few more tickets and shambles out the door. I buy my drink with no fuss. The clerk gets a real big smile from me. It wasn't that she was nice or pretty or anything so pedestrian. She's got to be 70 years old, face looking like the old man's jacket but her name tag says it all.

Jill.

Every time I try to rankle the wife with a story of hanging out with another girl I mention Jill. Jill's not a real person just a recurring name to let the wife know I'm kidding. It's not an uncommon name but I only run into real Jills rarely. I don't like to dwell, there's too much road left for pleasantry so I resume the trip.

Twenty minutes from home and I am besieged with misery. This has been a long slow buildup stemming from the Fiend's ever increasing agitation and a bad road habit. I have a huge bladder, think mini-keg sized so I go long periods, normally. However when I remarked about getting a drink I really meant getting 2 drinks because I am a fucking diet soda addict. There is probably a Fiend for that but I don't even fuck around when it comes to the caffeine supply.

So I have to piss, my eyes are practically watering, and the Fiend won't shut his squawking beak. But I am only twenty minutes away and that makes it too close for me to stop. Just a few more miles on 77 and it'll all be over soon.

The last five minutes are excruciating but I manage to hold it together without feeding the Fiend or wetting my pants. It's a pretty close race but I manage to get inside and unzipped without incident. For about three minutes even the Fiend shuts up and just savors the sweet feeling of release. Two shakes and he's out to get me again, fuck. I walk upstairs, not running or jogging, just pacing deliberately towards my nicotine gum. The Fiend whispers about how its not the same every single step of the way.

I bite through the absurdly fruity tasting shell right down into the peppery meat of the gum. Only a minute later I feel the Nicofiend starting to get drowsy and sluggish. He pulls up a foot and dozes, not asleep but at least contented for now.

It's been a long day and knowing that the Fiend is finally off my back I can relax.

"Better get used to it, bitch." I tell him.

"No surrender," the Fiend mumbles back. He's right of course, but tomorrow is another day. Saturdays mean a lot of time with the wife and the little one. Familial disapproval is a powerful ally against the Fiend.

Going it alone through unfamiliar territory is when the Fiend wins. I sigh and sit down at my computer. There's writing to be done.