Something wrong has happened to us. It’s never any one event. Rather, death by a thousand paper cuts.
In the same week, I spotted essentially the same sign in two wildly different locations. One reminder was at a burgertorium drive-through, the other at my dentist’s office. Each cautioned customers to refrain from either actual violence or threatening violence on staff.
It’s tempting to climb aboard a tall hobby horse and pose sanctimoniously, insufferably bemused by how far we’ve fallen, that we need reminders to not murder the fetching dental hygienist. But, apparently, even Moses needed to haul down the mountain a pair of clay tablets, No. 6 of which was the reminder: “Thou shalt not kill.” Well. Technically? It’s “You shall not murder” or if you’re one of the Three Stooges, “You shall not ‘moiduh’ …”
Funny. Someone who had the Ten Commandments hanging in home or office is probably the last guy to slap himself on the forehead and go, “Oh, yeah! Thanks for the heads up. I won’t garrote the teen ice cream dispensing engineer at Dairy Queen for putting sprinkles on my hot fudge sundae.”
And yet, I find myself living in a stiflingly vanilla suburban community where we need little billboards reminding us not to chase the waitress around the parking lot because she brought the fruit cup instead of sliced tomatoes with your tuna salad sandwich. Who, in their right mind, threatens a French fry distributing engineer not with a smaller tip for perceived insolence but death?
A seeming epoch ago, a group of pals and I were chatting about relationships and that anger — and worse, rage — was one of the vices you couldn’t afford. We agreed, that as soon as this darker emotion reared its ugly head, you technically didn’t even HAVE a relationship. Now. It’s possible, with a good heart and honest evaluation, to heal a relationship after minor madness appears. But, the relationship will not exist with anger lurking because it will only surface again. And again. A dear courageous pal asked a question, honest and telling.
“What happens if you just WANT to be mad?”
And there you have it — us. Humans.
When I taught local SCV history, the very first thing I wrote on the board was a bitter truism: “A man can live two weeks without food, three days without water and 20 minutes without a justification.”
We have swallowed, whole, the devil’s sweet poison — that we have an innate right to be mad.
I chatted with the dental hygienist about the sign — posted not on a telephone pole in a bad neighborhood or the Ukrainian bomb-ravaged steppes — but in a suburban, white-bread dentist’s office. Recently, patients have physically threatened teeth whiteners. Was it the annoying posters reminding not to rinse your mouth with Dr. Pepper? The paintings of sorrowful clowns lounging on the Serengeti? YouTube and the evening news are filled with unhinged patrons climbing over food counters to take a swing at a seller of McNuggets. But usually, those exploits are captured in the wilds of inner-city Baltimore or Chicago, not Santa Clarita.
I wonder. Do the signs — work? Did they stop the violent?
Personally? I’d opt for something more Old Testament in my precautions. Like:
Take a Swing at Tiffany-Amber Marie, Our Trained & Perky Mouth Wash Paper Cup Dispenser & We’ll Wrestle You to The Floor & Glue Your Lips Together & You’ll Starve To Death & Flossing Really Won’t Be An Issue, Will It?
What has happened to the civilization that America has produced so much insane, unwarranted violence? The Devil is roaming the streets. Daily, we shiver and utter a tut-tut, ask the same tired question of just a few sentences ago. What has happened to us? There doesn’t seem to be any change of behavior on the part of the sane. Murderers? They’ll be with us forever. But how are we handling the insane?
I wrote a novel years ago. It was called, “Adam Henry.” In it, the hero recalls a story from centuries ago about how a samurai had captured the enemy shogun. The warrior was ordered to behead the Japanese king and he took him to a beautiful bluff, overlooking the ocean. Right before the ending blow, the shogun turned and spit in the samurai’s face and cursed him. This made the samurai angry. He had to take three days to forgive the leader and cleanse his own soul. Spiritually pure, then, he chopped the guy’s head off.
And yet, I wonder.
The lopping off of heads. As Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar nicely put it, “Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war.” Is that a deterrent, here, in 21st century America, here, in Santa Clarita, one of the safest oases on the planet? How do you fix someone who, inwardly or outwardly, is foaming at the mouth? Vacant of reason? Capable of murdering children or church-goers? Justified in not just clutching their insane rage, but ending life, beautiful life, with all its ups and downs?
The Devil walks amongst us, hands in pockets, smug smile, whistling a tune, passing burning buildings and merrily stepping over corpses, confident we’ll never — never — embrace that one undying truism that invites mayhem into our usually serene lives of humdrummia.
We’re insane.
That tragic figure eight of logic. God, or, if that’s too harsh a word this early in the morning, Solution, cannot get to us where we are not. The very people — and that’s all of us — can never fully embrace their own, problem-causing insanity. Voices in the head screaming for justified mass murder or the casual pointing of a finger at a loved one, they’re just ends of a spectrum.
We’re insane.
From that first realization, that difficult acceptance of not wanting to be crazy, begins the journey to happiness.
Until then, we’ll need signs …
With more than 100 writing awards, Santa Clarita’s John Boston is Earth’s most prolific humorist and satirist. Look for “Naked Came the Novelist” Boston’s long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch, coming this fall on johnboston-books.com.
