Making a difference

I may have just recently made a difference in the world. No joke. For all the complaining I do on this blog about people not caring about the world, it’s hypocritical that I don’t actually DO anything about it, other than ride my bike and complain on a blog to 20 people. But, now…now I consider myself somewhat of a do-gooder. Somewhat of a philanthropist. Somewhat of the most influential human being ever to walk the earth–who deserves soooo much good karma in his next bike race that the imbalance of good luck in the universe causes a terrible chain of reactions to take place that end up creating some sort of weird mutant gopher-type of animal with large butterfly wings. This “gophly” will then develop a hunger for human toenail clippings and will haunt the basements of beauty shop salons world-wide, making loud chattering sounds with their large orange gopher teeth in angst for freshly-chopped bits of nail to come their way. Animal control personnel will set traps, but the gophlys won’t fall for it because the trappers use fingernail clippings as bait instead of toenail, not realizing that the gophlys don’t give a gopher’s ass about fingernails. Beauty shop salons will start going out of business and girls will become uglier and uglier over the years as makeup goes out of style and their finger and toenails start looking like guys’: jagged and misshapen with that dark brown gunk underneath them that’s basically impossible to get out and not even worth the time trying. Humans will no longer have the desire to reproduce and eventually the planet’s entire population of seven souls will end up getting swallowed in an unfortunate whale-sighting cruise boat accident. Thus solving all the world’s problems, which is the existence of humans.

Nahhh, that’s not true. But I actually did do some real good, possibly. It’s on a small scale, but every bit helps—which is what they want you to think, but in actuality only large scale events have any impact on the world. Which is why voting is pointless. And stopping at stop signs. And being alive in general.

The people I am staying with here in Bend (Craigslist-founded) are not healthy. They’re friendly people, but apparently don’t want to live past 50. I suspect alcoholism and possible drug use—all in the past of course since now they’re good Christians who have pictures of Jesus on the wall, listen to Christian rock, have miniature bibles laying around the house, and go to church sometimes.

The father figure smokes. They don’t exercise. And there’s a full on cake in the fridge—for no particular reason or event. I think it’s safe to say that if you stock cake in your fridge, you’ve got a bit of an eating disorder. Stocking cookies, candy, chips, soda—all of that’s acceptable in our society (for some reason). But cake? The line’s been crossed.

The mom is obese and blames it on a thyroid problem, which her Doctor doesn’t believe (stupid test results) and therefore won’t give her medication. They have a 10-12 year-old son who is on the way to an early heart failure himself if he keeps things up, but there’s still hope for him. A slim margin of hope (no pun intended), but with some good influence from his parents it’s possible.

He was eating a dinner of Red Vines, potato chips, and soda when I came into the kitchen tonight. Yes, DINNER. In the trashcan, there was an empty ice cream container and an apple with about four bite marks on it.

I started making a typical dinner/lunch/2nd dinner/ 3rd dinner/snack that I make all the time, which is a bunch of stir-fried vegetables with some sort of meat and some sort of Asian sauce, and quinoa if I’m needing some grains. During the time I’ve been staying here, since last Friday, I’ve made a variation of this meal about 17 times. Every time anyone is around, they comment on how good it smells. I offered some to the mom last night (no pun intended) and she ate a little bit of it and proclaimed how much she liked it. I told her how to make it (which is to chop up vegetables and meat and cook it in a pan) and explained how easy it was, and that she should try making it sometime. She agreed.

Anyways, tonight the kid was eating his dinner of corn syrup and corn oil while I made the stir-fry dish. The mom walked in and said, “There’s that good smell again.” To which I replied, “Yep.” The mom looked at what her son was snacking on and said, “OK, let’s put that away. You need to be eating a little healthier.” She got out some frozen vegetables from the freezer and made a real dinner. The first she’s made since I’ve been here.

And then a gophly flew in through the open window and bit my pinky toe off. To its disappointment, it found out that I basically have no toenail on my pinky toe due to some strange genetics passed down from my mom. It spat the toe out in disgust and Thomas T, who had been journeying over the Cascades from Sherwood, jumped into the air and grabbed the gophly in his mouth and shook it do death by snapping its neck. He went outside and pranced around the yard for half an hour with his kill in his mouth. Little did Thomas T know, that when you kill a gophly, you inherit its wings. During the next full moon, Thomas T let out a blood-curdling howl as two giant butterfly wings sprouted from his back. He took to the sky. And now no squirrel in the world is safe. And no pie is too high up on the countertop.

PS: After writing this I walked into the kitchen and it turns out that earlier when I was in the room, the mom had been reaching past the frozen vegetables to take out the frozen hamburger patties. They had hamburgers and potato salad for dinner, which is better than Red Vines, but this isn’t exactly the result I was looking for.