RATED “Gâ€
“Well, you watching us
too closely creeps people out,†the rabid terrapin primitive said; “and it discourages them from posting.â€
Two things, I replied; “number one, it shouldn’t bother the primitives being watched any more than it bothers actors on television screens being watched.
“Watching Skins‘s island after all is a great deal like watching television; the dramas, the episodes, the characters and their predicaments.
“One simply watches; one doesn’t get involved, one doesn’t interfere, as the show wends it way to the end.â€
“But people
do quit posting because they’re being watched,†the primitive insisted.
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Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, I said; “there’s been absurd allegations that we’ve chased primitives away.
“The classic one’s that of the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer; Judy grasswire insists I chased her away by writing all those short stories about her.
“But that wasn’t the
real reason hippywife left; she left because hippyhubby Wild Bill got tired of her paying so much attention to the other cooking and baking primitives instead of to him, and so he ordered her to quit. Wild Bill’s pretty jealous, and possessive of his woman.
“Another one’s that of the sparkling old dude, about whom it’s been alleged the DUmpster chased him away by ridiculing him so much. The
real reason he left was because he was distracted by problems with his much-younger trophy wife, who was getting tired of him.
“And when the Top DUmmies awards are given out every December, there’s been allegations that many of the top ones left out of embarrassment or humiliation. Now tell me, when someone’s honored with an award, they run away?
“Bah, humbug; it‘s usually just coincidence, nothing more.
“Coincidences happen.â€
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I lit another cigarette. “And right now, there’s something going on, with accusations being flung around.
“It seems dear old sweet Lu, hostess of the cooking and baking forum, has been missing for two months, and it’s being bandied about it’s because we intimidated her, scared her away.
“Bah, humbug, again.
“Now, to digress for a moment here--if we’d in fact scared dear old sweet Lu away, we actually did the primitives a favor, ousting some non-productive dead wood over there.
“When dear old sweet Lu became hostess of that forum, it was the largest and liveliest of the ‘little’ forums on Skins’s island, something always happening there, and dozens and scores of primitives dedicated to making it an interesting place to be, providing the DUmpster with lots and lots of good material.
“But alas dear old sweet Lu wasn’t around long, before the forum began declining and withering away; these days, the forum’s about as lively as the bird-watching forum, and congested with cobwebs.
“That happened because while dear old sweet Lu wanted the title of hostess, she was too lazy to perform the chores of hostess. She thought all she had to do was post a ‘what’s for supper?’ thread four or five days of the week, and that was it--a one-line post with no other text.
“Now, dear old sweet Lu lives in the mountains and valleys of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee. She knows cooking, and probably has a big vault of unusual recipes. And because she’s where she’s at, she probably has a lot of interesting stories to tell, about how life is there, in a place unfamiliar to most of the rest of us.
“As hostess, she should’ve been posting recipes, anecdotes, and stories every day, to excite and attract attention to her forum; to get some discussion going among the other primitives.
“Like what happened with the DUmpster on conservativecave. Not many people remember, but the DUmpster was once a little itty-bitty tiny forum on conservativecave, drawing little or no interest. At first, nobody paid any attention to the DUmpster.
“However, under the moderation of members such as DemonicUnderwear, Chris_, LC EFA, asdf2231, DixieBelle, bijou, Freeper, and now the illustrious SGT Snuggle Bunny, all of whom posted much and often, the DUmpster’s now a major forum on conservativecave.
“In the meantime, the situation over at the cooking and baking forum was that many primitives, seeing that dear old sweet Lu wasn’t lifting a finger to keep it animated and lively, thought to themselves, ‘well, if she’s not going to post and comment, why should I bother?’
“If we’d in fact scared dear old sweet Lu away, we actually did the primitives a favor, ousting some non-productive dead wood over there. Maybe they’ll now get a hostess who cares, restoring the Good Old Days to the forum.â€
- - - - - - - - - -
Putting my used-up cigarette out and lighting another, I went on.
“But that’s not what
really happened; that’s not why dear old sweet Lu isn’t around.
“It didn’t take a medical professional to figure it out either; she betrayed
all the symptoms of being afflicted with hookworm: laziness, lethargy, indolence, shiftlessness, sloth, apathy, lassitude.
“Now, hookworm’s essentially extinct in the south these days, mainly due to the exertions of private individuals, private money, and private endeavors--no costly governmental involvement and interference at all--about a hundred years ago.
“But nothing’s ever 100.0% wiped out; usually only 99.9%, if that much.
“Dear old sweet Lu lives in a remote, isolated pocket of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it’s possible hookworm’s still there.
“However, dear old sweet Lu
won’t get it treated, so that she’s lively and active again.
“You see, dear old sweet Lu is one of these older women who like to be considered ‘elegant.’
“And to get the hookworm properly diagnosed and then treated, she’d have to lift her dress so a physician can look up inside her rectal aperture.â€
- - - - - - - - - -
I was thinking of when I was in high school, and worked at an old-fashioned “mom and pop†grocery store, much of whose clientele, out of sentiment and social connections, consisted of the Country Club set, including more than a few affluent old widows.
Many of these little old ladies were self-conscious about some of their purchases; personal products such as…..bathroom tissue. They’d come down the aisle, and then look around to be sure no one else was looking, after which they’d quickly snatch up a single roll of Scott’s bathroom tissue, put it into their shopping-cart, and then heap other purchases on top so it wouldn’t be seen.
Single rolls of paper-wrapped (rather than plastic-wrapped) Scott’s bathroom tissue were pretty expensive, but at least in the pecuniary sense, these well-coiffed purple-tinted-hair little old ladies knew what was going on--that inch-for-inch, foot-for-foot, these single rolls were actually cheaper than any of the other options.
Anyway, so they’d come to the cash register with their loaded shopping carts, and if I noticed a roll of Scott’s buried among the other goods, that was usually the first thing I pulled out, using the â€excuse†that it was sales-taxable, as compared with the groceries.
I’d be really slow about ringing it up, especially if there were people behind, commenting about the color, the texture, or the design of the product.
Now, it
may sound as if little old ladies, discomfited by publicity about what they were purchasing, got to not like me, but actually the opposite occurred. When I graduated from high school, endured some family tragedies, and then graduated from college, I got plenty of cards, letters, and even checks, from most of these same little old ladies.
- - - - - - - - - -
I’m sure that dear old sweet Lu, like these little old ladies of sacred memory, is, uh, bashful about certain things, and doesn’t like the idea of having to lift her dress so that a medical professional can look up inside there.
And so when she goes to see her physician about her tiredness, her weakness, her inability to get anything done, she purposely steers his attention to her stomach or her blood or her heart or her lungs or her lack of sleep or her eyes…..just so he don’t think to look
there.
Never mind that medical professionals are used to such sights, and that dear old sweet Lu’s rectal aperture can’t possibly be much different than anything they haven’t already seen hundreds of times before. And never mind that as long as he doesn’t think to look up in there, dear old sweet Lu’s problem’s never going to be cured.
^^^that’s what’s
really going on with dear old sweet Lu.