Everybody on the planet wishes everyone else would just stay put. That’s about the nut of it. Everyone’s used to the people they were forced to get used to, and they don’t really want to get used to anyone new. It’s hard enough getting used to the regular people. Trouble is, we’re going to have to get used to new people. Folks are on the move. And not always just for fun.
Sometimes their entire country dries up and blows away. Sometimes they get run out at the point of a spear, or a whole lot of penises that are up to no good. Sometimes they get bombed out by a really nice other country that is only trying to drop the bad guys into a crater, and kind-of misses. Sometimes there’s a plague. A lot of times it isn’t even a matter of scarcity. It’s a matter of a small number of people hoarding all the resources and screwing everyone else.
Coming up soon, there will be people on the move because their land is underwater to a degree incompatible with breathing. Or there will be a spectacularly awful new virus. There are billions of people on this marble and maybe we could figure out how to have most of us stay put if we could learn to share, but wealth does not work that way. Wealth is a virus that leads to blindness and hardening of the heart. And if it comes down to a choice of moving or having no water or food and having your family tortured and shot, people are going to move.
God, we hate that! New people don’t even smell right. They smell like some stupid thing they’re cooking out of pounded plant roots and ground-up seed pods. They believe completely different weird things from the weird things we believe. Their women are tiny and their men are hairy. They change everything. We don’t like them.
What we need is a world-wide exchange program. We need to learn about each other and discover our common humanity. I propose we model it after the International Sisterhood Of Food Storage Containers. Your Tupperwares, your Rubbermaids, your Snap-Tights. They’ve got it down. In some technical respects, food storage containers are not strictly alive, but they do have the ability to move on their own. They have autonomy.
We first met them long ago at parties in their honor and took them home. Later a religious element was introduced, when they convened in church basements, filled with green bean casseroles and marshmallow salads, and everyone got a good look at them in all their diversity. Then they showed up at people’s doors like evangelists, saying “Have you heard the Good News about quinoa,” and stayed for dinner, and never left. The people they ended up with strained to remember the provenance of the new food storage containers, and eventually gave up and put their own leftovers in them.
Now I have yours, and you have mine.
So when I look in the cupboard for something to stow the potato salad in, I see foreign Tupperware. “You’re not from around here,” I say. “You look different. Mine has a blue gasket and snappy sides. You have a red flexible hat. You’re not like mine, but you know? You’re not so bad.” Food storage containers are the masters of ecumenical outreach. We Are All One. Red and yellow, black and white, we will snap together tight.
In the meantime, we should probably isolate those Syrian boat refugees who want to undergo a rigorous two-year naturalization process in order to commit terrorist acts on us more conveniently. We can stick them in with all the transgendered people who victimize people in public restrooms and the people who impersonate other people to vote. Somebody must have a broom closet about that size.
Yes, a broom closet might do it, or maybe even be a little too big.
Actually, they'd probably all fit into a food storage container….
That way we could run them out of air.
I was snortin' coffee at this point, "…run out at the point of a spear, or a whole lot of penises that are up to no good." And do they make Tupperware big enough for all the people /vote/impersonators? I think they just might do!
Burpable, too!
Gotta laugh or we'd be too sad to exist.
I'm with you.
You are a pint-sized, middle class genius. And your hair just keeps getting cooler, too.
This haircut lasts about two weeks.
"…women are tiny and their men hairy…"
Um,seen Dave lately??
He's not all THAT hairy. Still has his starter patch on his chest.
Sigh. I am obviously an alien. Not tiny, and with more hair than my partner (on my head at least).
A whole lot of penises up to no good is not a pretty image.
It truly is not, ma'am.
Good analogy and metaphors, madam. And just maybe, if we're lucky, we won't have the racist-in-chief as prez come next year. But what are we to do about the millions of US citizens who seemingly embrace his 'ideas'?
Cheers,
Mike
Not to mention they're all armed and ready to Take America Back. From…
You hit the nail on th head! Brilliantly written Murr!
Thanks.
I find it highly interesting to see how the descendants of the people who came to North America just a few generations ago are now horrified at the prospect of other people now coming to North America. Interesting and quite disturbing.
Most of us have no feeling for what came before and what will come after. Our own experience is all there is. What's missing? Oh yes. Perspective.
P. S. And well done on this; I'm glad to see you tackling it.
I might have been tackling the Tuppeware I've come into. It's way better than mine.
NOBODY has a broom closet that size. You're talking extra strength construction and world class engineering here. (*~*)
but you are right about everything else. like tupperware, in all its disguises, we are all the same. strip us of our skin and you will see flesh and innards and who can say which is Chinese or African or American or whatever? I'm hopeful of a future where we all share and get along, but I know it won't happen in my lifetime. in the meantime, people have to live somewhere and if we have room for them, fine, as long as infrastructure capable of supporting them is also built. Roads, housing, proper drainage, schools etc.
Well I think you're hitting on something–there are really way too many of us. We have to give a little, or a lot, to share, and we do have the infrastructure, especially if you compare to what they are fleeing; but the squeeze is on, and ultimately the planet can't support us all in our current numbers.
I think the planet can, if the corrupt governments in those third world countries release funds and supplies sent by well meaning people and charities for decades now, instead of holding onto them and trying to "sell" the supplies to people who have no money to buy. This is what I've heard, and read similar in newspapers over the years. With all the aid sent, why haven't those countries made any headway? Because the governments won't allow it. They should be developing their people,so they can stay with their families, not playing at wars etc, so everyone tries to flee to better off countries that are quickly becoming too crowded.
I'm happy that Canada decided my container was okay. All my American friends are asking about living in my guest room come November.
…so…you got space?…I'll bring cheese…
It's not always easy to find a post containing the principles of humanism, compassion and tolerance so brilliantly. Thank you.
Were those three different words, or all the same word?
We still have and use a large Tupperware container with a strainer that we bought in 1980.
I know that is off the subject, but…
the Ol'Buzzard
Vintage!
Hilarious! And spot on.
Thanks.
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