One day I posted a picture of Opus, head down in a hole,
digging away, living the purpose that has been bred in him for centuries,
completely in his element; my post included a question: If
terriers were bred to hunt, for what were humans bred? My favorite response came from my Mom, “Entertainment.”
I have alluded to The Scientists a few times in this blog
but to put it in black and white, I believe we (humans, animals, Earth) are
someone else’s experiment. We are no
more than rats in a maze, something, I posit, that rats have one up on us,
after all, they will eat us alive and that is not likely to happen in reverse.
I often talk to the Scientists, let them know that I am
ready for The Next Big Thing or what I think I need, and they are always ready
to respond. Recently, I asked them to “just
give me people to camp with, men, women, I don’t care.” And so, because sometimes they just need a
good laugh, they set it in motion.
Of my own free will and self-determination, I joined the
Airstream Club because they had an intra-club of “Indies” people who, I
thought, choose to travel alone (as opposed to have to travel alone—there
is a big difference here.) I set off to my first, and last, Airstream Rally
last month with high hopes of meeting people just like me: Introverts who craved privacy.
Here’s a transcript of the Scientist’s audio report:
“847 found a path to having people
to camp with. We provided someone to
camp with on the way to the larger gathering as well as forty other campers at
the gathering. [A slight chuckle enters
the voice] The first night she spent an hour with her fellow camper before
retiring to the privacy of Beagle, and the next day [more chuckling] she adamantly
refused to drive in tandem to the larger gathering. Apparently,
she could not even stand the thought of being next to another human on a
highway in a separate vehicle. [Total breakdown
with laughter.] Once at the gathering, true to her nature, she
chose to park the furthest away from the group that she could and commenced to
utilizing strict control over her facial expressions every time someone mentioned
“pot-luck” or “carpooling.” Priceless! This one really is too much.
Can’t thank you enough for letting
me report on this; I needed a good laugh.”
Needless to say, I left the Airstream rally one night early.
Oh, but my learning was not over.
Heading north toward the Tetons, I stopped outside of
Jackson, Wyoming to take a quick hike with Opus. It was a lovely hike through rolling foothills
with wide open spaces all around. Not noticing
any geography that would stop me from seeing Opus for hundreds of yards, I
decided to let him off leash. It never occurred
to me that he could disappear under the dirt.
(You may see here why I think rats have the upper hand—how many times do
they make the same mistake twice? Who am
I kidding: A dozen times?)
Opus heard the quick, shrill chirp of a Marmot and took
off. I could see him for a good hundred
yards and then boom! Nothing. Completely disappeared. I started jogging to the area, across the dirt
and sagebrush, keeping my eyes where I last saw Opus, when boom! My right leg had nothing underneath it and I
pitched forward, right cheek to dirt.
No time to waste though, I jumped up and reached The
Hole. Looking down, while dirt clods
were being thrust backward into my face, all I could see was half of Opus’ tail
and a brief second of each rear paw as it continuously drove dirt away. I knew I had about 1.5 seconds before I would
have to find a shovel.
So right cheek to dirt again, I laid down and reached my arm
down into the hole, grabbed the very tip of his tail and pulled him out. (This breed of terrier has no nerve endings at
the base of their tails for just this purpose.)
Oh the Scientists were laughing again:
“This
one! She just won’t learn!”
“But wait,
there is more, you have to watch this scene:”
The woman and the man are having a respectful but heated
discussion about God. The man is holding
his own, not becoming defensive, actually becoming more self-assured and calm
with each answer to the woman’s challenging questions. “What does believing in God do for you? What do you get out of it?” to which he
replies, “Comfort, a sense that something or someone is in control. I do not believe in a judgmental God, its
more like a benevolent energy.”
[Explosive
laughter]
“Did you
see that? Did you see her face? Just when she realizes that the man’s
description of God sounds a lot like Us.”
“Play it again, this is hysterical!”
-K
