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Dear People of the Future
by John Gosselink
| Alfred. E.
Newmanlink |
Dear
people of the future,
How are you? I am fine. Just thought I’d drop you
line to explain a few things we people of the past are doing.
No offense,
but you people of the future are kind of uppity with all your, “Oooh, look at
us future people with our flying cars and conveyor belt dog walkers. Those past
people were so dumb and primitive. Can you believe the stupid things they did,
robot maid? Now go make me a future sandwich. Mmmmm, future sandwich.”
Let me give you our side of the story as you enjoy that delicious future sandwich.
Maybe you’ll be a little less judgmental.
Issue #1 – The national
debt we left you. You’re probably thinking, “4 trillion dollars? What did they
need to borrow 4 trillion for? Did every citizen in the country get a federally
subsidized golden toothbrush and marble toilet? What’s wrong with those people?”
Okay,
granted, 4 trillion is a wee bit excessive. But we weren’t blowing it on fancy
toiletries, except for maybe Elvis and Donald Trump. But that wasn’t at taxpayer
expense.
No, we spent the money on important stuff. Necessary stuff, I’m
fairly certain. Actually, I’m not exactly sure what were spending it on. Studies,
I think. I read somewhere that we’re funding a study about the effects of cow
flatulence on the ozone layer, and you’ve got to figure that guy is getting paid
pretty well for that disgusting job. You’re probably enjoying the benefits of
that study right now – cows in bubbles maybe. You’re welcome.
Now that
you understand why you have such a large debt to pay off, I’ll even tell you how
to make it less painful. Come to find out, most of the debt is in treasury notes
owned by foreign countries, even our main competitors like Japan and China. So
just use the ol’ “conveniently avoid the guy you owe money to” trick.
Say
you’re at the UN cafeteria or something, and you see China walking up. Pretend
you see someone you’ve been looking for and excitedly exclaim, “Hey China, good
to see you. Been meaning to catch up with you. We’ve got to talk. But I see Lithuania
over there – they borrowed my tennis racket and I’ve been trying to get it back
for weeks – so I’ve got to run. Call me. Do you have my new cell number? We’ll
talk.” Then scurry off. Done and done.
Issue # 2 – Our fixation
with guzzling oil like a drunken merchant marine on a three-day bender in a Singapore
brothel. Or Ted Kennedy on a Tuesday.
Sure, our economy is addicted to
it, our foreign policy seems to be based on getting it cheaply no matter whom
we have to be nice to, even some not very seemly folks, and yet we keep churning
out this gas guzzling behemoths. We’re up to the Hummer 3 as I write.
Okay, I can’t explain the Hummer thing. It’s got some serious Freudian overtones,
if you know what I mean. It’s kind of embarrassing to most of us past folk. But
as far as the rest of our guzzling, I can explain that. It’s your fault.
See,
we’re not really worrying about running out of this limited resource because we
know you’re a smart guy. We figure, “Yeah, future boy is pretty bright. He’ll
think of something when the oil runs out. Whasit called? Fusion, fission? The
good one, like in ‘Back to the Future.’ That will be cool.”
So I hope
you did figure it out, otherwise, you might be reading this by the fire as you
enjoy your foraged acorns and tree bark.
Issue #3 – Why is
part of our world obese, while other parts struggle with starvation?
First
of all, let’s define our terms here. We’ve gotten a little carried away with what
our government officials define as “obese.” Their little charts are getting a
bit stringent. You go to the doctor and he weighs you, “Mr. Gosselink, I hate
to tell you, but you’re morbidly obese and your heart will explode in approximately
five minutes.” How about you weighing me after I take off my watch. “Well, lookee
there, well within the parameters of ‘pleasantly chubby.’ Those few ounces can
be killers.”
That’s not to say we don’t have a lot of fat folks. I try
to stand beside them as much as possible to look skinnier, which is surprisingly
easy. But back to your point about all the poor folks starving.
To tell
the truth, I can’t figure this one out either. It seems like it shouldn’t be that
hard to fix, especially seeing the need for subsidies to discourage farmers from
growing. All I can figure is that there must be a paperwork snag somewhere. Once
we get that ironed out, this great injustice should be fixed.
If things
are still messed up when you’re reading this, please know it’s not my fault. It’s
this guy named Kevin’s fault. Just wanted to set the record straight.
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