---------------------------------------- Note 10 1 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:29 am graper / udperuse / unidel Dear Friends: I've got to clean out my files of these ramblings again. Your Friend, Dr. Graper ---------------------------------------- Response 1 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:31 am graper / udperuse / unidel Raymond sat quietly on the bus, reading his newspaper. His face, clothing, posture and loudness of breathing all emitted one message: I am anonymous. Think about this: About 95% of all the people in America are shriveled, frightened people who don't want any trouble. The remaining five percent divides itself into criminals, hospitalized individuals, strange people who stay up late at all-night donut shoppes and ideal types like you and me. "Next stop: Coventry Circle," the bus driver said, pulling the bus alongside a curb and stopping. A bunch of people got on. This was the stop in front of the veterans hospital. Some people from the veterans hospital took a long time to get on the bus. They had all sorts of problems that made movement of any___ kind difficult. "Unhhh," said an old man as he made his way up the steps of the bus. Each of the steps would take at least ---------------------------------------- Response 2 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:34 am graper / udperuse / unidel 20 seconds for him to climb. There were four steps. He was on step one. The busdriver was impatient. "Hurry up, you old grunt!" the busdriver said, turning up his radio, "I gotta be at Coventry Circle in eight minutes!" The old man finally made it up the steps and stood by the coin box. "How much is it?" "Fifty cents." "What?" "Fifty cents." "Fifty what?" "Fifty dollars_______! What do you___ think, you old geek?" Fifty fucking cents!!" The old man smiled broadly and got a dime out of his pocket. "Is this enough?" ---------------------------------------- Response 3 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:35 am graper / udperuse / unidel "FIFTY CENTS!! FIFTY CENTS!!" the busdriver shouted. The old man smiled even more broadly and looked at the many signs around the coin box which said "FARE: 50 cents." "Oh, it's fifty cents!" "Yeah." "Heh." And he just stood there. "You're supposed to give me fifty cents to ride the bus!" the busdriver shouted. "Fifty cents?" "Yes, fifty cents!!!" "Oh, I haven't got___ fifty cents! Wait a minute and I'll get it. . .I. . .I think I've got it in my other pants." Everyone else was on the bus. It was ready to go. This was taking too long. ---------------------------------------- Response 4 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:36 am graper / udperuse / unidel The irritated busdriver was behind schedule and pulled away from the curb rapidly. He took the exit to the highway that led to Coventry Circle. "I. . .I know where it is. . .not in my pants. . .in my top dresser drawer. . ." the old man said, turning and slowly going down the steps of the bus to the door. Again, each step took about 20 seconds to complete. "Fifty cents. . .that's. . .that's two quarters, I think. . .oh, how things change these days. . ." the old man said stepping down the last step, pushing open the door and stepping out onto the rapidly passing highway pavement outside. He didn't even hold onto the handrail as he stepped off the moving bus onto the highway, becoming a dramatic example of a 55 mile per hour human clashing with a 0 mile per hour world. ---------------------------------------- Response 5 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:39 am graper / udperuse / unidel "Whoa!" he said. TUMBLETUMBLETUMBLETUMBLETUMBLE tumbletumblerollrollrollrollrollrollroll roll roll roll flopflopflop flop flop flop flop across four lanes of traffic into the grassy highway divider/island. Nobody seemed to notice. Five minutes later, the bus would come to a stop at the curb of the Coventry Circle passenger shelter. "Coventry Circle, next stop Park Plaza Mall," the bus driver would say just like he always said. Coventry Circle is a shopping mall on the outskirts of a large Eastern city on the North American continent called "Wilmington." Wilmington is one of the fifteen ugliest cities in the United States and let me tell you, the United States is hard to top when it comes to ugly cities. ---------------------------------------- Response 6 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:40 am graper / udperuse / unidel You see, United States cities, unlike European ones, are composed mostly of buildings of early 1800's Industrial Revolution vintage and reflect this antiquated, decaying state both in the outward dinginess of the surroundings and the inward dinginess of the inhabitants. And the primary responsibility for this sad state of affairs rests not with us or our parents or grandparents but with the Europeans, most notably the Germans. The Europeans once had dingy cities too that were really decaying physically and morally, but it was through the massive aerial urban renewal programs of the United States Air Force that such urban nightmares as Dresden or Center City Berlin were given a fresh start. And we did it for free. So what gratitude did the Germans, the biggest benefactor of our program, show us? Air raids on New York City? V-2 Rocket clean-ups of Wilmington or Jersey ---------------------------------------- Response 7 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:44 am graper / udperuse / unidel City? Nope. Nothing. Sure, they promised________ to really catch up once their stupid hard-water experiments were completed but nooo, and after the war's over they've got a nice clean zero to start with and us? ha! we've got to try and make due with lousy old train stations and crummy 60 year old office buildings. It was this historical context that made Wilmington a shitty town. "An interesting interpretation of history, Dr. Graper," Healy said from the other side of the car. "You've certainly brought a great deal to light in my__ mind." Healy was an engineering student, which meant that he couldn't possibly take the pressure of being an art major or music major in college and decided to spend his parents' hard earned money screwing around for four years doing nothing. Despite this mental handicap, however, he did___ have an automobile which could perform strange and ---------------------------------------- Response 8 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:45 am graper / udperuse / unidel wonderful miracles with time and space, bending larger and larger amounts of space into smaller and smaller amounts of time, making it possible to make rather large distances exceptionally small. At this point, I was urging Healy to bend even larger amounts of space into smaller time units. "Come on, Mr. Healy, faster!!" "Aww, cool your tool Doc. We'll make it in time!" We were trying desparately to make the 7:15 show of a K-Tel film called "In Search of Historic Jesus" which had been touted by a steady stream of television commercials all day. "Jesus, it's only 6 o'clock! We've got over an hour before the show starts!" Mr. Healy said, somewhat annoyed. I began to repeat the television commercial out loud for him in case he might have forgotten some of the fun stuff we had in store. "Scientists to this day are dumb- ---------------------------------------- Response 9 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:48 am graper / udperuse / unidel founded by the mysterious, irrefutable evidence supporting the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. . .How can the sacred shroud of Myceniae, clearly showing Christ's body, be anything short of a miracle?!?" "I personally think he was an ancient astronaut," he said, turning on the overly cheap radio in his car and tuning in the loudest funk station he could get. Immediately he turned up the volume. "WE WAN' DA FUNK!! GIVE US DA' FUNK!! WE WAN' DA FUNK!! GIVE US DA FUNK!!" the radio started shouting, its tiny speaker distorting terribly. "I really dig this stuff!" he said, bumping up and down in his seat in time with the beat. "What's wrong, Doc? Can't you get into it?" "No." I opened the window. Outside, a bus was driving ahead of us, the "Coventry Circle Local." ---------------------------------------- Response 10 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:49 am graper / udperuse / unidel "Hey, look at that!!" And all of a sudden, an old man stepped off the moving bus and tumbled across the highway. "Wow! That must have hurt." Outside, a huge water tower went past. "Ever been in a water tower before, Mr. Healy?" I ask. "Nope." I pointed to a huge, low-profile rectangular building in the distance. "How about that place?" "Never in there, either." "Well, it's because you can't. You see, that water tower isn't really______ a water tower. Look at it. All the supports leading down to the ground. . . if you look at it right, you'll see that it's actually a giant transistor!" "Is it?" ---------------------------------------- Response 11 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:53 am graper / udperuse / unidel "Sure. And that flat thing in the distance? It's an integrated circuit." I reached over from the passenger side of the car and begin shaking him, a pretty serious thing to do to the driver of a moving car. "We're living on a giant circuit board, man!! You, me, the man who just fell off the moving bus; we're all just electrons whizzing about on the circuit board that controls the horizontal hold on God's celestial television set!!" "Dr. Graper, please______!" Mr. Healy said, pushing me back to the passenger side of the car and returning the automobile to its previous straight-line course. He turned down the funky radio station. Silence. I was not being the ideal passenger. Awkward silence. Cars zip by. I am currently engaged in an uptight situation. What should I do? Hmm. Let's review everything television has told me about how to resolve uptight situations: ---------------------------------------- Response 12 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/23/80 9:53 am graper / udperuse / unidel Let's see. Lipstick. Gasoline. Automobiles. Polaroid One-Steps. Money. Each weeks issue of TIME for only half price, plus this wonderful full color world atlas and map. Bar-b-q flavor potato chips. That's it! Junk food!! "Mr. Healy! We need some junk food right now." A smile crossed his face. Success. I had properly resolved my American uptight situation. Big signs on the highway with "International" symbols on them passed by. You know, for "Telephone available ahead" it has this picture of telephone handset or for "Trailer Park" it has this hokey little picture of a trailer. A big green and white sign appeared. On it was a stick figure man sitting in front of a television absently eating out of a garbage can, the international symbol for junk food. Under it were the words: NEXT EXIT. ---------------------------------------- Response 13 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/24/80 10:49 am graper / udperuse / unidel "That's the one we want," Mr. Healy said, sweeping across into the far right hand exit lane. He swooped right in front of a huge semi-hauler with the words "ALLIED CHEMICAL" painted on the sides and "DANGEROUS: FLAMMABLE" painted on the very front. It was painted in backwards letters so it could be seen in rear view mirrors and read very easily. HONK!! HONK!! went the huge semi, extremely pissed off at our hopping in front of him. The man at the wheel was S. Jones. It said so right on the front of his truck where his name was painted. S. Jones leaned out the window of his truck and shouted at us. "What's that he's saying?" I asked Mr. Healy. "Unintelligible. He doesn't seem to realize that at his speed, with the outside air passing him with such great force, any sounds would be lost. Remember, sound is merely the compression and rarefaction of air, perceived by a ---------------------------------------- Response 14 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/24/80 10:49 am graper / udperuse / unidel receiver existing in the direction of this action. Given the speed at which the air is going against him, it seems highly improbable that the puny vibrations issuing from his larynx could go against it." "Interesting," I said. "Look, he's waving his hand at us. He must be saying hello! Toot your horn, Mr. Healy!" Mr. Healy tooted his horn and the both of us extended our hands from the windows of his car and waved them back at S. Jones the trucker. Mr. S. Jones had been shouting to us that he thought we were candy-assed, middle-class shitheads who he,a working class person, was forced to support both in highway taxes and in general. Attached to this political observation was the suggestion that if we "had the guts," we could take the next exit and he would show us a thing or two in the privacy of some off the highway road or parking lot. We had not heard this (in accordance with Mr. ---------------------------------------- Response 15 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/24/80 10:50 am graper / udperuse / unidel Healy's assessment of the physics of our situation), yet waved out the windows of Mr. Healy's car, thus in S. Jones' mind "taking him up on it." S. Jones laughed. He enjoyed the prospect of violence. "EXIT 1 MILE AHEAD," a sign on the road said and Mr. Healy put on his turn signal. The truck behind us did the same. "Fascinating!" I said, "It seems S. Jones the trucker is going to get some junk food too!!" "How nice," Mr. Healy commented. "This has certainly elevated my opinion of truck drivers' tastes." S. Jones became exceptionally heated at this point and began "crowding" us. "Crowding" is a funky, road-hip term for "tailgating." HONK HONK!! S. Jones' truck shouted through its exceptionally vocal horns. ---------------------------------------- Response 16 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/24/80 10:51 am graper / udperuse / unidel "It seems he doesn't approve of my driving," Mr. Healy said, seeing that the truck's front grille totally filling the view of his rear view mirror. The truck's engine sounds began obstructing the flow of our conversation. "That's because he's a trucker! Those guys are on the road for days at a time, man!!" I shouted, smiling. "Look, that guy is one of the 'kings of the road,' you know? We're mere amateurs. But we shouldn't let him realize that." "What do you mean?" "We gotta gain his respect, you know??" Mr. Healy began turning onto the exit ramp. It wound around in a really sharp curly-q that had sheer concrete cliffs on each side. A sign zipped by: JUNK FOOD EXIT/DANGEROUS TURN: 15 MILES PER HOUR MAXIMUM Mr. Healy began slowing down, preparing to deccelerate to 15 miles per hour. ---------------------------------------- Response 17 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/24/80 10:52 am graper / udperuse / unidel "Come on, Mr. Healy!! We'll never get any respect that way!!" and I brought my left foot over to his side of the car and and floored the accelerator. "A trucker takes 15 mile per hour turns at at least 60 - 65!" "Yowww!!" Mr. Healy shouted, the massive centrifugal forces popping him down in his recliner seat and pinning him there. Luckily, I still had my seat belt on and twisted the steering wheel hard to the right. S. Jones' truck receded in the distance for a few moments, then began catching up. He thought of our speeding up as a challenge. Boy, it was a long exit ramp. I watched the speedometer. Forty five, fifty, fifty-five. . . Behind us, S. Jones was speeding up too. Then the laws of physics came into play again. Something about big heavy things with high centers of gravity not being able to take exit ramps as fast as not ---------------------------------------- Response 18 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 7/24/80 10:52 am graper / udperuse / unidel so heavy things with low centers of gravity caused the big semi to begin riding on two wheels, then to tip over, then to slice through the flimsy guardrail and tumble down the incline, striking some cement and flammabling all over the place. I guided Mr. Healy's car into the parking lot at about 75 - 80 mph, convinced that the truck was still following us, the driver extremely impressed. Since the car now described a straight path, Mr. Healy was able to sit upright once more. "Dammit, Dr. Graper, slow down____!!" he said, putting his foot on the brake. He wheeled into a far corner of the huge parking lot and we spun around about fifteen times before stopping. "What happened to the S. Jones?" I asked after we came to a stop. ---------------------------------------- Response 19 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/10/80 6:31 pm lynch / udperuse ** Part the Second "Dr. Graper, please______!" "What, Mr. Healy?" "Don't put those bags in the trunk!" "Why not?" "Those bags have the chocolate coated Ho-Ho's in them!" "Oh, and they'll melt. Sorry." I picked up the bags and put them in the back seat of the car gently so as not to damage any of the Nacho-Cheese Tostite' Chips in the other bags. "I don't know about this, Mr. Healy." "Don't worry, Doc, everything'll fit." We had to figure some way to fit fifteen grocery bags of junk food into Mr. Healy's car within twenty minutes in order to make it to the first show of "In Search of Historic Jesus" at the North Wilmington Cinema 42 Budco Movie House. ---------------------------------------- Response 20 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/10/80 6:33 pm lynch / udperuse Mr. Healy stood staring at the trunk of his car. "It'll only hold two bags," he stated. "I could hold another bag in my lap." "No, we'll both already be holding bags in our laps as it is." I rummaged around in the trunk. "Why not get rid of the spare tire?" Mr. Healy and I were under the influence of the most powerful drugs available in America: junk food and credit cards. When it came to drugs, the American powers-that-be had throughout history been pretty smart. The legalization and encouragement of the public use of certain drugs for the purpose of maintaining the status quo was an accepted con- vention in Anglo-Saxon history. Choosing a drug that stupifies, such as alcohol, and allowing its use to the exclusion of others had always been a great way to keep the lower classes content with performing machinelike jobs for the entirety of their lives. ---------------------------------------- Response 21 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/10/80 6:35 pm lynch / udperuse But things changed. In 1948, three years after the end of World War II, the United States was in a quandry. The spending of the war had accelerated the American economy to the point that if the spending could not be continued, there would be a depression of so huge a scale that most likely their whole society would have crumbled. Many plans were advanced to the President and his board of advisors, one of which was advanced by a retired Army General who claimed that the best way to spur on a high-consumption society was to legalize the self-drugging of the lower class. But his method had a twist to it. Instead of just supplementing the diet of the lower class with drugs, one should make drugs the entire______ diet of the lower class. The general spoke enthusiastically of making foods totally out of man-made sugared cardboard, painted all sorts of ludicrous colors and possessing no nutritive value whatsoever. The man-made chemicals permeating the stuff would turn all Americans into ---------------------------------------- Response 22 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/10/80 6:36 pm lynch / udperuse hyperactive little children, eager to buy anything that was bright and colorful and made lots of noise. The president was not impressed. Angry at this rejection, the general stormed out of the oval office vowing to show them all that he was right. "Did he?" Mr. Healy asked. "Of course. He went on to start a multi-million dollar corporation named after himself." "What's it called?" "The General Foods Corporation." Mr. Healy was still for a moment. "Interesting." We were wedged into Mr. Healy's car, each of us sitting with two grocery bags apiece on out laps. I was staring directly into a bag of Bar-B-Q flavored El Dorado Chips. "Can you see you the back?" ---------------------------------------- Response 23 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/10/80 9:31 pm healy / udperuse "I can barely see out the front." Mr. Healy said, moving the bags around on his lap. "In any case, we'd better get going. Only 15 minutes until the movie starts." Part the Third "I hope they don't mind us bringing in our own refreshments" Mr. Healy said, removing a box of Chewy Coconut Yahoos from a grocery bag we had brought with us into the theater. It was an involved process. First, the cellophane had to be removed. Then the box had to be opened, wherein the inner hermetically sealed freshness bag had to be opened by pulling the aluminum zip strip. Once inside, the individual Yahoos had to be separated from their plastic connectors and unwrapped of their aluminum foil. This extensive unwrapping process was yet another interesting subliminal ploy to encourage the American consumer mentality; by wrapping, bagging, boxing and sealing almost every conceivable product, an illusion of a continual christmas was given in which Americans spent the ---------------------------------------- Response 24 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/10/80 9:35 pm healy / udperuse entirety of their lives joyfully ripping open presents. . . "Dr. Graper, please, no more socio-political analyses. The movie's about to start," Mr. Healy whispered. Lots of funny people had been filling the theater in the meantime, and the lights were going down. Over the speakers, the first hum of the speakers came on. Then there was music, a sort of big string section thing with sweeping violins. The title, "In Search of Historic Jesus" appeared on the screen. Many people in the audience read the title aloud. "In the beginning, there was God. . ." a big, fatherly voice said out of the speakers. The screen was black, except for some of the scratches on the film zipping by occasionally. "And God created the earth and saw it was good. And God created man, and saw that he was good. . ." "This doesn't agree at all with my personal conception of what truly happened," Mr. Healy said. A woman in front of him shushed him loudly. ---------------------------------------- Response 25 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/13/80 4:36 pm lynch / udperuse "Indeed, it actually was___ quite different," I con- curred. (Earth, 15000 BC) (Overlooking camp where Neandrathals sit around a fire, doing Neandrathal things) (Mr. Sulu, Ensign Chekhov and Mr. Scott stand at attention as Captain Kirk walks back and forth in front of them) Kirk: Alright. Which of you did it? (Silence) Kirk: WELL? Sulu: Well, Captain, a man can get. . . .get restless on a long, deep space mission. ---------------------------------------- Response 26 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/13/80 4:41 pm lynch / udperuse Kirk: I don't want excuses, Mister! I want answers! Chek: But sir, after being thrown in wery bad time warp and hurled backvards in time to earth's past (again). . . Kirk: That's enough! I guess we'll just have to have Mr. Spock mind meld with you until he finds out. . (Mr. Spock appears from behind tree) Spock: There's no need for that, Captain. I must confess my guilt. (Dramatic close up of Kirk's face) Kirk: Spock. . . Spock. . . You? With one of them? A Neandrathal?? ---------------------------------------- Response 27 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/13/80 4:45 pm lynch / udperuse (Spock stiffens to attention) (Noble Star Trek music fades up in background) Spock: I am afraid so. One of my tempestuous Vulcan sex moods caught up with me. I admit, this might really screw up the time continuum, but. . . "Usher!! Usher!!" a fat woman in front of us began screaming. "Dr. Graper, please______, you're ruining the movie!" Mr. Healy whispered. The fat woman squeezed her way out of her chair and began waddling down the aisle of seats, making people twist and contort their legs to get out of the way. She finally made it to the center aisle and began rushing up towards the entrance where a bored black man, nominally the "usher," stood. He turned on his flashlight and began walking down the aisle, led on by the frantic woman. ---------------------------------------- Response 28 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/13/80 4:47 pm lynch / udperuse My personal Star-Trek theory of evolution was evidently quite upsetting to her. "Dr. Graper, come on, stop theorizing!!" Mr. Healy said. "What?" "First it was the sociopolitical stuff, now this evolutionist material. Come on, before the usher gets back!" "What?" I looked up at the screen. Captain Kirk Scotty and Spock were there on the screen, standing on a cliff overlooking the Neandrathal camp Spock had "interfered" with. "That's the one there, Captain," Spock said, pointing at a Neadrathal female. "A bit on the hairy side, isn't she Spock?" the Captain said jokingly. "Aye, she is a comely lass," Scott commented. "Nonetheless, I seem to have gravely affected the history of earth," Spock said grimly. ---------------------------------------- Response 29 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 10/13/80 4:48 pm lynch / udperuse "Aw, what the hell. Let's just call it 'off the record'," Captain Kirk said with a smile. "It sounds fine to me, aye!" Scotty chimed in. (Playful Star Trek music began piping in) Kirk laughed, slapping the somber Spock on the back. "Three to beam up!" he said into the communicator. Uh oh. This happens when you don't pay attention to a movie. I began thinking of Jesus again. "That's better," Mr. Healy said. The screen returned to a picture of Jesus on a hill, shouting out at people about something. ---------------------------------------- Response 30 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/5/81 1:53 pm brian dear / udperuse *** Part The Fourth After watching a pleasant movie with Mr. Healy, we were headed home in his magnificent automobile when, on the spur of the moment, I suggested to him that we make a slight detour to pick something up. Knowing Mr. Healy's weakness for fast food, I promised that should he help me to pick "it" up I'd treat him to a free burger, a bargain that quickly had him following my directions and unknowing- ly turning off the highway to the Delaware Steamboat Marina. "Dr. Graper! My car can't pull your steamboat!" "But it can! Look, I've got it on a steamboat trailer and everything." "But. . ." "Steamboats just look____ extremely heavy. In actuality, they're just very bulky_____. Besides, I can't leave my steam- boat here all winter. It'd get all soggy and get leaves and snow all over it and kids would come and spray paint things on it." ---------------------------------------- Response 31 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/5/81 2:03 pm brian dear / udperuse "I don't know. My car only has a V-6 engine." "Mr. Healy, that's far___ more than enough. Most people tow their steamboats with motorcycles___________." Despite Mr. Healy's being an engineer, he seemed taken in by my little white lie. "Perhaps. . ." "Certainly, Mr. Healy, certainly!" And soon he was persuaded. While I was strapping down the lawnchairs on the observation deck and putting various odds and ends left over from my last jaunt into the games room, Mr. Healy, concerned with the legality of it all, was stringing paper towels with the words "WIDE LOAD" magic-markered on them across the trailer's rear. Latching the trailer onto Mr. Healy's car was no problem but getting the car to pull it seemed to be another matter. "Uumph" went the car as Mr. Healy engaged its gears and had it start pulling the full-scale, Pride-of-the- South river steamboat out of the Marina parking lot and onto the road. ---------------------------------------- Response 32 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/5/81 2:12 pm brian dear / udperuse "Can't you get it to go any faster?" I asked, looking at the speedometer which registered a puny 4 miles per hour. "It has to build up momentum. Besides, we're on a hill. When we get back onto the highway, we'll be coming down off the hill and get the momentum we need. By the way, how many lanes does I-95 have, Dr. Graper?" "I'd say about four or five." "Good. I'd say we're going to take up at least two." "Take three. You pay for them with your taxes." Mr. Healy's car finally reached the top of the hill that led down to the highway and immediately its speed began picking up. "I hope we don't have any troubles merging into traffic," Mr. Healy wished aloud. Lucky for us, the only people on the road at the time were grandmas and grandpas in big conservative American cars who were easy to intimidate with our awesome steamboat on wheels. "Nice of all those folks to slow down so we could get onto the highway," Mr. Healy said, slowly getting the car ---------------------------------------- Response 33 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/5/81 2:21 pm brian dear / udperuse to deccelerate to the 55mps speed limit. "Sure was." "Now about our bargain." "Our bargain?" Mr. Healy smiled. "You know. A certain bargain concerning burgers." "Oh, yes. Well, pull off to whichever fast food place you like and I'll get you whatever you want." "Great," Mr. healy said, immediately pulling into the far right lane. "There's a place down at Sansom Street that should do just fine." "But we just got out___ of Wilmington. You want to go back?" "This is a special_______ burger joint." "Mr. Healy, the point to a fast food place is that none____ are special. All are supposed________ to be completely identical, providing locuses of commonality for cultural cohesion in the modern, mobile society inherited by the consumer directive of the post World War II economy. . ." "Dr. Graper, please______," Mr. Healy said, cutting me off. ---------------------------------------- Response 34 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/5/81 2:28 pm brian dear / udperuse "This place isn't special for its food. It's special for its fascinating staff." I took his word for it. Vaguely I remembered that Sansom Street was very deep in the ugly part of Wilmington, but somehow learning that there was a fast food place there comforted me with the though that it was at least marginally civilized. "Why are we taking such a roundabout route, Mr. Healy?" Mr. Healy, now a bit more tense, tersely stated, "I've got to take one-way streets with at least two lanes all the way. I've never tried inner-city driving with a trailer." "Oh come now, Mr. Healy. It can't be that difficult." All at once, Mr. Healy became excited. "There it is! There it is! The Sansom Street McDonalds!" "Where's the parking lot?" "There is none. You've got to park in the street." "Well. . .there's a place," I said, pointing to a string of empty spaces on the block next to McDonalds. "I don't know. Those look like handicapped parking places." ---------------------------------------- Response 35 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/5/81 3:04 pm brian dear / udperuse "I think if any policeman comes by and gives us any shit, I can produce a relatively convincing argument as to how both of us were mentally handicapped in youth by American media enculturation or whatever. Let's go." "I still don't know." "Oh come on__, Mr. Healy. Just think of that free burger." "Parking this thing is going to be difficult." "Oh, don't tell me you didn't have to learn parallel parking with a steamboat in High School Driver Ed.!" "But it's been such a long time." "You'll be surprised ho well you'll do." Lots of honking could be heard in the distance. "Sounds like a lot of cars behind us want us to move," Mr. Healy said nervously. "No, no, they're cheering you on, Mr. Healy! You know how rare it is to see a person parallel parking with a steamboat these days?" Mr. Healy, once nervous, put an expression of grim determination upon his face. "Alright. Let's do it." ---------------------------------------- Response 36 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 3:52 pm brian dear / udps I expressed great support for Mr. Healy as he put his magnificent automobile into reverse and began backing the huge articulated monster into the series of empty spaces. Far behind us could be heard the sounds of cars screeching as they wheeled out in reverse, trying desperate- ly to get out of Mr. Healy's way. Some collided with one another in their haste, riding up onto sidewalks and into storefronts in their blind fear of the backing steamboat. "Great, Mr. Healy, just great!" I applauded verbally, watching the masterful Healy adjusting the steering wheel and slowly backing us into our spot. "Thank you, Dr. Graper," Mr. Healy said, confidently turning off the car and pulling the key from the ignition. "And now, if you'll accompany me to the McDonalds, I'll show you what makes this a McDonalds above all others." We got out of his car and onto the littered sidewalk, walking towards the McDonald's glowing neon and flourescent lights. ---------------------------------------- Response 37 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 4:01 pm brian dear / udps Walking in I saw that representative of the area of the city that surrounded it, the entire staff and most of the clientele of the McDonalds were black. Like all poor inner-city workers I'd run into, the staff looked extremely bored with their jobs; bleary eyed robots who stood silently by their machines, thoughtless and devoid of all mental activity. "Fascinating," I said. "Indeed, they're the perfect employees. No initiative, no rebellion, nothing. We see here perfected human robots." "Again, fascinating." "They start here with the lower classes, providing menial wages to the poorest people and, through an insidious system of Pavlovian conditioning techniques thinly disguised as french fry machines or computerized cash registers they evolve a new proletarian class incapable of revolution." "Quite an impressive analysis for an electrical engineer, Mr. Healy." "Thank you." ---------------------------------------- Response 38 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 4:10 pm brian dear / udps Mr. Healy and I had been standing four feet in front of the counter whle talking and Mr. Healy took one step forward. "This initiates their behavior sequence." "May I help you, sir?" a bored female by the cash register asked dully. I decided to order first. "I want a big-burger, large fries, large coke and an apple pie." The female repeated the order into a microphone and suddenly several other human units began pumping out my order. The female turned and walked from one station to the next, picking up one part of my order after another. "The perfect robots, eh Dr. Graper?" "No more so than at any other McDonalds." "No, here they obey completely__________ and without any___ expression!" "I don't know about that." Mr. Healy, never one to have his word doubted, took this as a challenge. The female in charge of the cash register still waiting for my large Coke to be dribbled out ---------------------------------------- Response 39 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 4:19 pm brian dear / udps of the Coke machine, Mr. Healy walked up to the microphone next to the cash register and turned it on. "Alright, I need four thousand cheeseburgers, no pickles, fifteen thousand big burgers, eight thousand large cokes, no ice, twenty thousand large fries, seventy five thousand small fries. . ." Suddenly the eighteen person crew sprang to life. Still without any expression, they began plopping tens of burgers into the frying machine, dumping bags of french fries into the massive frying vats and pushing Coke after Coke out of the coke dribbler. Faster and faster they went, ripping open cartons of burgers and huge cartons of Coke syrup, dumping and frying and dribbling on and on, wrapping and salting and pushing the finished products through the burger and french fry chutes which quickly filled and began splilling onto the floor. "Very impressive, Mr. Healy." "And watch this____. . ." Turning on the microphone again, ---------------------------------------- Response 40 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 4:33 pm brian dear / udps Mr. Healy stated matter-of-factly, "Rush that last order and. . .IT'S TO GO__ __!!" The robot humans began working even faster, arms flailing wildly about as burgers began mounting up on the floor, spilling over the work area and into the dining area. One worker started puting the "to-go" order hurriedly into bags, tossing bag after bag onto the counter. Never one to let well enough alone, Mr. Healy once more turned on the microphone. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" he shouted as th robots began churning out the products at a faster and faster rate. They began making mistakes, frying burger buns in the french frying machine and squirting ketchup and mustard on each other, slipping on burgers and hot apple pies, tipping over huge microwave bun-toasters and ice-cream sundae coolers. "Mr. Healy, they're bound to run out of supplies soon. What do they do then?" "I don't know. I've never though of that, myself." Sure enough, the last burgers were thrown onto the ---------------------------------------- Response 41 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 4:38 pm brian dear / udps frying machine's conveyor belt and the young man who threw burgers in began anxiously looking around. He desparately needed something to fry. He then began looking at the young woman who bagged french fries. "My goodness, look at that!" Mr. Healy said, watching as the young woman was forcibly fed into the hideous burger frying machine. "And I always thought this was such a clean_____ place to eat!" "Indeed. I'm not so sure I want to eat here now." "Me neither. Why don't we just go back to your place and eat some junk food." Mr. Healy pondered for a moment. "I don't know. I was sort of counting on getting at least one nutritious meal today but, seing how things are here, I think we'd better just leave." "Sounds good. Look, I'll make it up to you, not buying you burgers or anything. How about I by you a couple boxes of crunchy cheese screws and we can junk out watching TV?" ---------------------------------------- Response 42 of 42 *** A Story by Dr. Graper *** 1/7/81 4:40 pm brian dear / udps "OK," Mr. Healy said and shuffling through the bags of burgers and fries that covered the floor, the two of us made our way out of the McDonalds and back to the can and the steamboat.