The Kindness of Strangers

“Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

One of the famous lines from the famous play by the famous playwright Tennessee Williams. This one was spoken in the play by the character Blanche DuBois. But it could have been me uttering those words at many occasions in my life, and I suspect that there are a lot of people who could say the same thing.

Robin was driving, and as she made a turn onto the Grand Junction bypass something happened to me. I could not think clearly and could not speak at all, only garbled sounds would come. Her response was to pull into a convenience store parking lot and run into the store for help. At that point a battalion of strangers marched into the story, did their job, and as a result I am still here today to annoy multitudes with my words.

Here is an incomplete list of people I owe for that day alone.

• The c-store clerk who recognized my neurological emergency and phoned his EMT amigos
• The EMTs who tossed me into the ambulance and broke several laws getting me to the hospital
• The ER docs and nurses who moved me to the head of the line for attention
• The radiology techs who snapped the quickest CT on the Western Slope
• The nurse who managed the IV that rid me of the most annoying clot I’ve ever had or hope to have

The only non-stranger in this scenario was Robin, who never hesitated as she whipped our Subaru into that C-store parking lot and got that clerk’s attention. (Bless that girl.)

Problem was, for her, that she did such important and necessary work but all she got to take home for her efforts was the same doofus she’d started the day with a few hours earlier.

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From The New Yorker

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These days, I would guess that there are many Americans who start each morning as I do, by crying inside. At the lunacy, the corruption, the criminality, the disgusting spectacles unfolding. I certainly don’t blame any Canadian, Mexican, or European for saying “WTF” because that is exactly how I feel when reading my newspapers. It is very definitely WTF time in America.

In one month Cluck has done his best to take the office of the President all the way from leader of the free world to that of a turd in a punch bowl. Unbelievable, really, how quickly this has occurred. What his motives are … I have no idea, nor do I care. What he is doing is sabotaging generations of hard work done by much better and smarter men and women than he.

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turd in the punch bowl

n. A person who spoils a pleasant situation.

This metaphor is powered by a particularly vivid contrast: the inviting sensory appeal of a festive beverage juxtaposed with the revolting suggestion of feculent contagion . Therefore, labeling someone a turd in the punch bowl is most appropriate when the individual’s deleterious influence goes beyond mere faux pas or nuisance behaviors, and rises to the level of deliberate offense for its own sake. Consider that the literal act of depositing or excreting fecal matter into a communal food-service container would be sabotage.

The punch bowl and the feces connote certain additional nuances. The former is a symbol of public community, as such dispensers are frequently encountered at parties where they become a focal point for interaction. Freud famously identified feces with aggression and the possessive instinct. Thus a turd in the punch bowl suggests rage toward, and / or the urge to conquer, a community or society as a whole. … In particular then, to be a turd in the punch bowl is to be a willful and attention-seeking obstructor to the success of a social community.

Urban Dictionary.com

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From The New Yorker

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At some point in my life I realized that pain was the best teacher of all for me, for it always got and held my full attention like nothing else. I also realized that there was nearly always something positive that came from my misfortunes, if I looked for it hard enough. The misfortune may have been leagues worse than the benefit, but that nugget was still there. Something mitigating.

As an instance, now that I find myself governed by Ali Clucka and the Forty Thieves, my interest in reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has risen sharply. That’s a very good thing. In this particular regard I have been complacent for far too long.

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We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Abraham Lincoln

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