Conspiracy Theory

Hillary has her right wing conspiracy theory. Rush Limbaugh and his posse think Obama's birth certificate is a left wing conspiracy theory. I think there's a chicken wing conspiracy -- to get people to turn off their TVs while they're eating. Take today, for instance. 

          I stayed home [yet again], to wait for the lawn mower service guys. These are the trained professionals who usually just trample my flower beds and fertilize the weeds, but they promised to come and remove the old fence on the west side of my yard -- a fence that regular followers of this blog must surely recognize from previous bitches and moans about it. 

          After assuring me they would take it away last Friday, they blew me off, like lint on a bad suit. BUT, they assured me that they would be back on Monday [today, if you're keeping track]. Liar liar pants on fire. Meanwhile, as those assheads were f**king off somewhere while I worked at home all day, waiting, waiting, waiting, I got hungry. And like most people eating alone at home, I turned on the television, because I usually spill stuff on books and magazines, when I try to combine eating and reading. 

          Unlike most people who repeat the mantra that TV rots your brain, I consider watching the tube a form of multi-tasking, since I don't just watch, I talk back to it. Talking back while eating helps keep my social skills fine-tuned, in case I'm ever asked to eat with real people again. To stay in practice, I turned on Animal Planet hoping to catch Dogs 101. I could work on my future conversations with dog therapy people, those devoted volunteers who bring their pets to visit old peoples' homes. Let's face it, the light at the end of the tunnel of my life looks more and more like a proctoscope. "Awwww, look at the cutie-wootie doggie-woggies. Such an iddy biddy widdle boy." Yep, they're going to love me.

          Unfortunately the Animal Planet program at lunch today wasn't about Yorkies and Chihuahuas licking wrinkled old crones; it was about Houston Animal Cops rescuing crippled dogs caught hanging in their leashes and left unable to feed their starving newborns, or dogs with collars that were so tight their necks were raw and bleeding, not to mention a bunch of miniature horses who were skinny, lethargic, and had totally gross hooves. Mmmmm, delicious.

          So I changed the channel and discovered Law and Order was on. But they were cutting up a burn victim. Oh, please, I'm eating. I couldn't look, so I tried to concentrate on my food and listen, but the descriptions of the re-fried necrosis and seepage of fluids were just too unappetizing. I changed the channel but Law and Order was on every channel I switched to -- no matter where I went on the digital dial -- USA, FX, WPWR. So I had to turn off my only source of companionship. And go back to waiting, waiting, waiting for the people who never came. . .until I got hungry again around dinnertime. 

         So, with my short-circuited memory, I turned on the TV again, forgetting that desiccated, degraded, disappointingly dead bodies were probably my only viewing options. Immediately, I got to watch the crime solvers on Bones talking about the smells emanating from a load of garbage, where they'd found a dead body, covered in a boatload of worms, a transgression which could only mean that the dead person had been murdered and left to soak in the rain. So I changed the channel, but it didn't matter. NCIS has "Ducky" cutting up corpses and making droll remarks about their cold dead hands. Cold Case is always murdering people. Criminal Minds prides itself on its grisly authenticity. CSI, regular and extra strength -- same thing. Medium has little children in it and still the producers litter the place with dead people, often shot in the head with their brains dribbling on the floor. How 'bout them re-runs of ER and Grey's Anatomy? And Law and Order SVU has more blood and guts than a sausage factory. For people like me who change the channel whenever a commercial comes on, running into dead bodies in various stages of putrid decay is unavoidable and practically guaranteed during a meal. Of course, it's not like they're real dead bodies, but not for lack of trying. Which makes me wonder if this isn't something that somebody has conspired to do on purpose. 

          Of course it is. In the end, I'm not sure why. I just know it's happening on purpose.