In the next few paragraphs, you will note the frequent inclusion of [_] within the text. This is for my more delicate readers. Please feel free to insert the expletive
of your choosing wherever you see a [_] and just know that the saltier version is exactly how I recount this story in my head. But my mother
and wife read this blog, so I’d never hear the end of it if I let that filth
appear nakedly in print. So insert expletives or don't as you like. Then take a moment to
marvel at how I can make you mentally insert a word you’re not actually even reading. Try to read past the [_] and see how that
works. The mind is a magnificent
mystery.
For a couple weeks every [_] spring, some damnable [_] Woodpecker
piece of [_] drums away on my metal [_] chimney cap like it’s his [_] job! He starts banging at around 6:30 right outside my window! 6:30! No joke.
What kind of [_]-up mother-[_] has the energy to repeatedly slam his [_] peabrain
against a sheet of metal at the ass crack of dawn? I mean, really!
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| Photo from TotalWildlifeControl.com |
He usually takes a break for a couple hours only to resume
his [_] provocation – because that’s exactly what this is; it’s a [_] provocation! That [_] Woodpecker is calling me out! He’s [_] mocking me because I’m stuck to the
[_] surface of the Earth while he flies [_] circles around my head taunting me
and my impotent [_] broom!
And he’s a wily son of a [_], to boot. Somehow he knows when my preschooler or my wife
(who works nights) lays down for a nap! He
[_] knows! Every [_] time! How does he know? How the [_] do I know? I just know he knows, the insidious pecker-head!
And here’s the kicker – he also knows that I can’t [_] shout
because that would only add to the noise disturbing my family’s sleep. He just looks down his [_] beak at me like I'm some [_] dancing marionette, whisper-shouting like an idiot.
So I wave a [_] broom in the air like a [_] trained
monkey and toss stones and all he does is flutter to a nearby tree where he’s
above it all, that superior [_]. He just waits for me to go
back inside then returns to his torture. Sometimes he
doesn’t even bother leaving for a tree when I harass him, he’ll just fly around the other side of
the house and hammer away on a downspout or a gutter or some flashing.
I was raised in the suburbs.
As much as I understand some of the costs to society of being so far removed
from the sources of our food on the farm, I appreciate the fact that I don't have to butcher my own
livestock. But I tell you, if I could
get my hands on that little pecker-head, I would ring his [_] neck like a hardened farmhand
and not lose a wink of sleep over it.
I asked an animal control guy about it one time and he said
there’s usually two related reasons a woodpecker knocks on metal – it’s either
a territorial display to impress rival males or, most likely this time of year,
he’s trying to attract a mate. Can you believe that [_], he’s driving me ape[_] crazy in order to impress a girl! It’s
just a [_] booty call!
This [_] pecker has a high hard one and my family gets to
suffer his [_] machine-gun serenade until he gets some satisfaction.
My roof is just his hook-up spot. The expert assured me that, once he gets a
little yum-yum, he’ll move along and lose all interest in emasculating me in
front of my exhausted family. Until next
spring, that is, when the horny pecker gets another hankering for a honey pot.
So, this morning, I’m cursing and waving my broom around and,
naturally, I got to thinking about the space program.
Did you ever wonder what scientific value there was for
shooting men at the moon? No doubt that
it was totally awesome. That’s
undeniable. But what did we find there that was so vital we
needed to do it six times?
There was the space race, of course. The Soviet Union was eating America’s lunch
and we’d had about enough of it. But
there had to be more to it. The space program is
such a noble enterprise – the highest example of mankind’s fundamental drive to
shine a light on the dark parts of the map.
I always assumed the space race was just the cause célèbre that
rallied support, but that a greater scientific purpose lie behind the
mission. Kennedy just needed something
to inspire the American people and prove to the world that we took a backseat
to nobody. So he looked around, found
a bunch of astronomers with a dream but no funding, and tapped them to carry the baton of American exceptionalism awhile. Right? Nope.
Turns out the awesomeness of it was
pretty much the whole story. The scientific value of
landing humans on the moon was minimal; certainly nothing that couldn’t be
accomplished far more easily, safely, and cost-effectively with probes and robotic rovers. Whatever scientific
value the moon landings did possess was secondary, at best, and completely
insufficient to justify the enormous expenditure of financial and intellectual resources.
So why did we go to the moon? As George Mallory famously answered in response to being asked why climb Mount Everest:
Because it’s there.
In effect, we did it to win a pissing contest. It was a cockfight. A territorial display. Bragging rights. It was America beating its chest to its
rivals and, frankly, to itself. There are few symbols more phallically fitting than a rocket blasting into space or planting our flag in virgin soil.
“Fix bayonets, boys, we’re taking that trench.” [double-entendre intended]
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| Photo seen on LikeCool.com |
This reasoning doesn’t sound particularly noble, but it is distinctly human. No, that's not right. It is more than human, it is universal to the sexual fabric of life on Earth.
A boy will do unpredictable things to impress a girl.
A man will attempt feats of insanity to prove he’s a
man.
How many great stories begin right there? How many adventures? How many wars?
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