Indentured Servitude...and the Machine

There's not really a way for me to exaggerate how shocked everybody in my life was to hear that I had willingly enlisted in the military. Given my background, it doesn't appear that there was any reason to be taken aback by the decision. During my first year of college I had expanded my consciousness greatly through reading. I was enthralled with the transcendentalist and read Emerson and Thoreau. I also developed an interest in ritual magic. I would have actually begun practicing it at this point in my life had I not been living with my Christian mother. When we moved to California I did begin studying the Tarot as well as practicing many different visualization meditations. One day, while taking a mid day siesta, I woke up to sleep paralysis and subsequently exited my body into a full blown out of body experience (O.B.E.). I was still writing "An Institution Known As Truth" at the time, and this new revelation changed the course of the book drastically. It also sparked an intense writing session that lasted about a week and allowed me to finish the book. This was about the time I decided to enlist in the military. Looking back it's easy to see how this was the workings of fate.

Military Entrance Processing (MEPS) should have been a wake up call. I scored a 79 on the ASVAB (armed service vocational battery), which is basically the military's SAT. A score of 79 isn't really the sign of a genius, more just the sign of a little bit of intelligence. But when you have a large portion of the wanna-be recruits scoring in the low 20's, a 79 seems like a god send. This score sparked a whole chain of events that would change my life irrevocably. The next thing I know I'm being pulled out of the herd of ratards at MEPS to be interviewed by a team of "elite" personnel about my "intelligence" behind closed doors. These nukes were treating me a lot better than the buffoons at MEPS had been treating us. They were treating me like I was royalty, and they were very friendly. "Just take this other test for us and see what you score." They shuffle me into another room and sit me in front of a computer to take another test. I had to score a 58 on the test to meet the requirements for nukehood based on my ASVAB score. I guessed, approximated, guestimated, reconated, ruminated, marinated, and otherwise bullshitted all of the multiple choice questions and scored a 58. Not one point more or less than I needed to insure my passage through the whale.

They were overjoyed at my success. I tried to explain to them that I sucked at math, and that I'd never once thought about being an engineer in my life, and that there was good reason. They assured me that I didn't know what I was talking about. They offered me a 12,000 dollar sign on bonus, a guaranteed petty officer 3rd class (E-4) after "A" school, and a chance to re-enlist at two years in for an extra two years of service (on top of the six I would have to agree to) for a grand tax free total of 60,000 dollars. You take any 19 year old and offer him 72,000 dollars and he's gonna cave. I still had enough wherewithal to stand my ground. "No, I don't think this is a good idea, and anyways I just want to be a deep sea diver." They assured me I could do both, which wasn't quite a lie, but it wasn't true either. After enough assuring, bribing, ego inflation, and ass sucking I finally agreed to nukedom and signed the last bit of my freedom away.

I thought I knew the game I was headed to. I had four years of JROTC, and while not quite the military, I reckoned it was close enough. I thought I could maintain my individuality at boot camp. I didn't know shit. In the first couple days of boot camp I was informed that there would be no deep sea diving for me. In the first days of boot camp they sat us down and we watched a presentation on S.W.I.C.K (a special bad ass tactical boat to shuffle seals around in), EOD (navy's bomb squad), the SEALS, and the deep sea divers. To be part of any of those teams you have to partake in a more rigorous physical training regimen while in boot. The RDC (the navy's version of a drill sergeant) in charge of the presentation asked if anybody was interested in joining any of these teams to stand up. I stood up, and he pointed his finger at me, "aren't you a nuke McCarty?"

"Yes sir."

"Sit the fuck back down, you're a nuke and that's all you're ever going to be." All of my reason for being there had been instantly vaporized by these words. Now I was quite literally an indentured servant to the military. The next two years were to be my own personal impersonal hell.

As time went on in boot camp I became slowly brainwashed into a sailor. I know this from reading the letters that I wrote to my family while I was in boot camp. It was a slow progression, and it's quit visible upon reading these letters. When I got out I was proud to be a sailor. After two weeks of leave it was time to report to the naval weapons base in Goose Creek SC just outside of Charleston for the "A" school phase of Naval Nuclear Power Training Command (NNPTC). "A" school was a breeze and it was about four months long. This was just basic conventional engine room mechanics. After "A" school came NNPTC. I'll try to summarize what NNPTC was like. It's the hardest school the military has to offer academically. Due to the nature of the information it's all classified. This means that no reading materials or notes could leave the building. We lived in dorms on base and class started at 0645 hrs. We had a half hour for lunch and then it was back to class. The day ended at 1630 hrs, and that was followed by physical training, dinner, and then logged study time back in the classroom. How long you had to study depended on your grades. I had to put in an average of 15 extra hours a week. That meant a couple hours a day plus some weekend time. Some people would spend four hours a day back in class plus the entire weekend. The amount of information we had to learn was astronomical. It was all brute memorization as well. Full steam plant diagrams had to be memorized and drawn from memory. Calculus equations involved with such things as neutron life cycles had to be memorized. It was nuts. Did I mention that math is not my strong suit. They didn't give a shit if you understood the math either, just so long as you could shit out equations and answers and pass the tests.

After NNPTC came "prototype," which was another six month phase of on the job training in a nuclear power plant. I went to Upstate NY to a place called Boston Spa for this training. It sucked even worse than NNPTC. We worked first, second, and third shift cyclically with some time off in between. We had to stand watch in the power plant as well as learn how to do maintenance on the engine room equipment. We had a book that was called "quals" for qualifications that was full of thousands of subjects that had to be signed off on. That composed of studying everything about a specific nuclear power related thing, say a valve, and then answering questions about it until staff felt you were "qualified," and then they would sign off. We had to do this for thousands of things. You had no life. You had no time for friends outside of the nuclear world. When we had time off we got as drunk as possible in an attempt to not deal with how shitty our lives were. After six months it was finally over. I was attached to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson in Bremerton Washington just outside of Seattle. Two weeks of leave, and a month in port, and it was off to the Persian Gulf for Westpac. It was June of 2001. My life screeched closer to 911. I had no idea what was bout to happen to me.

Plugging Back In

I got all inspired to write tonight, and wrote the below.  Apparently I'm going autobiographical on ya'll...I blame Jason of 22billionenergyslaves, but he blames me...somebodies to blame for this nonsense, and I'm not taking responsibility for it...Jason??  At any rate, here's my unique way of being in the world told as a story for an undetermined amount of time...hope ya'll enjoy. 

It's funny how numbers have a way of actually representing something metaphysical at times. For instance, the number 911. Now I realize that a lot has been written about this number in the last 11 years, and for obvious reasons. My fate has been tied up with this number in ways that I am just about unable to comprehend.

When I was in high school, at age 17, I enlisted in the Marine Corp's delayed entry program. I was the number one recruit, but I was more than just that. I was also a JROTC dork, a "green bean" as the jocks liked to call us. I didn't have a father, and Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp offered me three. Colonel Parker, Master Sergeant Brown, and Sergeant Simmons all became like a father to me, as did the brotherhood of high school outcasts, dorks, geeks, and otherwise socially unacceptable teens. Fuck the in crowd, we had the uniform, and guns, and purpose. My freshman year I fell in love with "Recondo." Recondo was our high schools version of the Army's special forces. On Wednesdays they came to school dressed in camouflage BDU's (battle dress uniform) tucked into combat boots with maroon berets. One day, in the beginning of my freshman awkwardness, I saw the Recondo team running down the road in battle dress with ruck sacks on and carrying riffles. I began salivating, and my love affair with 911 began.

Fast forward to my senior year. I'm second in command of the battalion with just one Cadet that I had to salute out of 230 something cadets at my high school, the Battalion Commander. I'm the XO (executive officer) of the Battalion and the Recondo Commander. I was also best recon my freshman, sophomore, and junior years, and I would have been my senior year as well except it was against the rules for the Commander to be best Recon since he had to select best Recon. You see, beyond women, JROTC gave me something to belong to and something to believe in. It also endowed me with the skills I needed to hooliganize all around Spartanburg undetected.  I graduated and was supposed to ship off to Paris Island three months later for Marine Corp boot camp. I walked into the recruiters office, he was always happy to see me, and I dropped my scholarship down on his desk. "I know I'm supposed to ship off in three months, but I didn't expect this. As you can see it's a full paid scholarship to Spartanburg Methodist College. Had I known I was going to have an academic scholarship I never would have signed up for the Marines." I turned around and walked out of his office. I could hear him yelling at me through the shut door. I just kept walking.  

My first year at SMC was great. I had a 4.0 both semesters without breaking a sweat. I was a National Honor Society member, the college paid me to tutor my peers, and my English professor could care less if I showed up to class so long as I turned in my papers and tutored his students. During this time I was majoring in Criminal Justice because I was going to become a cop. Yet, I started writing a book that was titled "An Institution Known As Truth" during my second semester.  The book was my first, and it explored the topics of unrequited love, broken hearts, suicide, atheism, gurus and spiritual awakening.  I was attending a Christian College that featured going to a school chapel for service once a week as a mandatory term for enrollment. I had hard religious questions for the faculty, and they could not answer them. How could they? Ultimately it's just "you just have to have faith." I became very discontent with the college process. Then unrequited love of the Romeo and Juliet variety struck.

My girlfriend of six months or so broke up with me because of her parents. We were at her house late one night (her parents house), and we were in the living room talking about my new found lack of blind faith. I was explaining to her that I didn't believe in God any longer because sending people to burn in hell for eternity on account of the free will that he gave them was sorta bull shit in my opinion. She wasn't really religious, just the superficial, tow the Southern Baptist Party line for goodies religious. Her parents were paying her way at SMC, they were providing her with shelter, they were paying her car payment and insurance; we were 18 years old. Unbeknownst to me, her mother was in the hallway eavesdropping. The next day at school she explained to me that she could no longer see me. You see, her parents told her that if she continued dating me she would no longer have a car, and she'd have to find other means to pay the college monkey. What choice did she have? However, so as not to seem to slighted by fate, she did turn out to be a lesbian. My heart was broken. My Mother was just sticking around South Carolina for me to attend college. That is where all of our family resides, Orange County California. So when I told her that I'd had enough of the south, and I'd like to move back to California... well she only asked me if I was sure once, and off we went.

It was a shock to the faculty. I don't think they understood why I would throw away a free ride. I could have went to any college in the state and it would have been paid for after my second year there. It was just a two year college. I trace back the decisions in my life to that one. This was where my destiny bifurcated into two roads. One road was the world recognizing my intellectual abilities and paying me for them, and the other road was 911. Hindsight is indeed a dirty slut. I arrived in California and stayed for two weeks. My first love was writing me, and calling me, and begging me to come back (as in we lost our virginity to each other while in love for the first time; she broke up with me over Christian guilt for making love to me, followed shortly by fucking some dumb ass jock in a car, followed by him telling her to fuck off the next day, followed by her calling me on the phone while hysterically crying to tell me all about it, followed by me seriously contemplating jumping off of a rail road trustle without the rope and bit of metal).

 My best friend was emotional about me being gone, and he's not emotional. So I took the thousand dollars that my Grandad (mothers father) had saved for me for college, and I drove my happy ass all the way back to the other side of the country. While I was there, I stayed with my 23 year old neighbor (as in my Mom and I lived next to him before we moved), who happened to be a Deputy Sheriff. I had to pay rent for the first time. I had to get a menial job to support myself for the first time. I went to an interview for a telemarketing gig that paid well, and I vomited in my mouth for the first time as a reaction to the man. I lasted a couple of weeks, and I was back in my two door Saturn driving my no longer happy ass back to Cali...for the second time.

I enrolled in Golden West Community College in Huntington Beach. Before I even started class I met Don Miller, who became like a surrogate father to me. He was my guidance counselor, and I said things that an 18 year old wasn't supposed to be saying in ways that 18 year old's don't say things. It wasn't long before Don and I were at his house, talking, reading poetry, drinking wine and smoking Salem Lights. Don is a psychiatrists as is his wife (she's got her own practice). Don designed classes for Golden West in the 70's that dealt with things like self actualization and dealing with death. He brought strays home a lot, and at one point his house in Huntington Beach was pretty much a commune. Don Miller is a brilliant, open, and transparent lover of life. He took me under his wings and taught me about the human psyche. We drank bottles of wine and smoked packs of cigarettes for days at a time. It was free psychotherapy with a father figure who loved me for my struggles. The sky was the limit for me, and I had a very intelligent man with clout to make sure of it. Unfortunately I had to live the "dark night of the soul." Success was something I just didn't want for some reason. I had to trek in the belly of the metal whale to my souls dark night.

I still remember the days leading up to signing onto that 911 document very vividly. I had to get a job working with Viking Freight loading and unloading trucks at a distribution center for money while I was at Golden West. My biological father worked as a long haul trucker for them, and he hooked me up. It was eight miles from my house and it took me 45 minutes to get to work. Southern California traffic sucks donkey balls. Part of the condition of my humanity makes me hate sitting in stop and go traffic on 14 lane highways everyday. Something had to change. I was standing on the docks at work. I had just got done pulling a 2000 pound pallet out of a truck with a manual fork. I was standing next to the trailer at the end of the dock looking at the sun set to the west. It was large, and burning colors tailored for my state of mind, oranges that don't exist on Newton's shortsighted spectrum.  I had the epiphany that I had to get out of Southern California. But how? I was 19 and I didn't know shit about life. I was too chicken shit and had too many father issues to go out on my own. "Diving, deep sea diving, I've always wanted to do that...how could I do that? I know...the Navy, I bet they'll pay me to do it." I left work and never went back. The next day I was in the recruiters office getting the ins and outs and whathaveyous all sorted out. Within days I had signed on the 911 document without saying anything to anybody in my life about it.

The 911 document signed, I went to Don's to break the news. For months I had been begging him to teach me how to hypnotize. I wanted to do hypnotherapy with him so that I could get to the bottom of my daddy issues. He was a little reserved on the matter knowing what it would mean for our relationship to take that next step. I wasn't exactly paying him to be in my life as a psychiatrists. He was officially my guidance counselor with almost 30 years under his belt.  He would always laugh, poor me another glass, and tell me no "fucking way in hell." I showed up to his house to break the news, and before I could he wanted to tell me something. "I've decided to do the hypnotherapy with you. I'll teach you how, and you can eventually hypnotize me as well.  We'll hypnotize each other!!"

"Don, I just left the Navy recruiters office...I ship off in two months." 

I don't know what the green text is all about.  It has something to do with me editing in those places, but not all of the places that I edited does it happen.  Fuck if I know...Google...what the fuck? 

A Compass for Where the Wasteland Ends

I've decided to put the "Whoville Chronicles" to bed, for the time being at least. I have the feeling that what's left to say is more of the same. The Whos and the Spencers have been outlined, and their dysfunction and insanity has been exposed to the internet. Revenge is mine!!! The broader subject that deserves specific attention is my attempt at escaping this thing called The Matrix, or the American Hologram. It's a story that encompasses more than just the first place I landed after my escape, the Whoville sector of Palookaville, and more than just the people who reside here and their ridiculous antics. To continue with this specific story I would most certainly have to begin fictionalizing it, and I have contemplated doing just that, but I've finally elected not to. I've been told by just about everybody who knows me well that I should write a book. I always respond with, "I have written several books." What they mean is that I should publish a book and get paid for my efforts. I'd love to get paid for writing, but I'm afraid that's not in this deck of cards. I'm just too pessimistic to believe that publishing a book, especially in today's world, where everything is monetized, is worth the effort.

There is the incessant rub; money appears to be the only thing that The Hologram cares about. How simple of an epiphany to make, and yet it has been almost 33 years in the making for me. I can tell you that by the age of 18 I had already made the majority of the "epiphanies" I would make in my life. It was like I had already formulated the chapters of my spiritual and intellectual life, and what was left was for me to understand them all with more depth. You can drink a wine after a couple of weeks of fermentation, but if it's done right, after years of resting in itself properly, it will taste magnificent. Still, you have to have the refined palate to taste the subtle and nuanced differences. In the beginning, after the initial fermentation process, it's still fundamentally the same substance it will be after years of resting, yet it's not the same is it? It is qualitatively very different. Now, when I read what I wrote from the view point of an 18 year old, I can appreciate that I really had no idea what I was talking about, yet I did. I understood in a very single visioned, flatland, horizontal, Cartesian and youthful way. How could I understand any differently? The lion's share of epiphanies have to be lived.

I struggle with the need I have to read and write. What I've come to understand is that what matters most in life is how you conduct yourself. What do you spend your time doing? That is how you are the change that you want to see in the world. What can be more important than that? I've read a lot of books and written thousands of pages searching for that one epiphany. What matters is what you do with your time. When I'm reading, or writing (or participating in my favorite escapism which would be movies), what am I doing? I'm sitting on my ass not being the change that I want to see in the world. Yet it doesn't have to be as rigid and defined as that, and it isn't. I can just as easily argue that the sage sitting in meditation in a cave is changing the world in the most important way possible...spiritually. The answers I have come up with to the question of what change do I want to see, are mostly a product of Permaculture. The reasons for that being my answer are many, but Permaculture is also not my destiny, and if it is than I can't see it. If it is my destiny then why have I landed in Whoville?

I can't state with enough conviction what it means for me to have finally realized that there is a reason why I have always felt so different from my fellow human beings. It feels like a homecoming, and it makes me very emotional, which is very ironic given the specific condition I'm referring to. This condition makes it impossible for me to register unspoken communications that are supposedly received through things like facial expressions and body language. Now, I have learned how to read these things over the years, but I am unable to read them in any way other than intellectually. It's not something that comes naturally. This deficit goes a long way towards explaining why I have always avoided people in general. Again, probably as a matter of survival, around 17 years old I developed an intense interest in understanding human psychology. Now I know that I was searching for the protocols that would allow me to "fit in." All of this is only gained in retrospect after receiving the key that belongs to the lock that has kept me in this cage. With Aspergers exposed to the light of my conscious awareness, I feel like I now have the last remaining puzzle pieces to the puzzle of my life.  It feels like figuring out my destiny has gotten much closer.

The thing is, I have had my entire life to adapt to this condition. Psychology was one of my intense obsessions. I learned how to hide in societies day light. I waited tables and tended bar successfully (of course I think my regulars were just entranced by my eccentricities and that's why they continued returning...cause they couldn't figure me out). These are activities that somebody with this condition are not supposed to be able to do seeing as how they deal with other people. I do just fine with people, so long as it's one on one, or it's a well defined social situation. Put me in a group of people that I'm supposed to interact with (like the permaculture tribe I spent time with this year) and a minute feels like an hour. I feel like every person in a group is a vampire that is feeding off of me, but that can't possibly be true...and it's not true, it's just my way of being in this world. To be clear, I have not been diagnosed, but I know it's true like I know that I'm a male human being on planet Earth. I know it with enough certainty to know that I don't need to waste my time, and lack of money, on paying professional shrinks with certificates and licenses to verify it for me. Although I imagine I'd get a LOT of money from the government due to their failure to detect it while I was in military entrance processing. Definitely since I got kicked out with an "other than honorable discharge" when it should have been a medical discharge for psychological reasons. I also don't want some incompetent ass hole telling me that I'm wrong and sending me back into that cage of lonely isolation.

When I was growing up, my mother used to repeat to me "it's not what you say it's how you say it." I never could understand what the hell she was talking about, and it always just pissed me off even more. "What the hell are you talking about...how I say it...how the fuck am I supposed to say it," followed by storming out of the house to escape in my newly acquired personal transport vehicle to do something crazy like jump off of a rail road trestle head first with a bit of rope and metal. In my marriage, my wife has been brought to the brink of insanity for the same reason. It just doesn't register with me. It's cold, calculating, and rigid reasoning. I could make the best defense attorney the world have ever known if I didn't have a soul and could play the game. Or is it just because when I was five my father abandoned me? It's all bound up and hidden in the dysfunction of my own life. Yet I know it to be true, and the fact that my half brother has been diagnosed is enough of a diagnosis for me.

My son is different already. He's two and a half and Wendy and I both know it as well as we know it of me. Sometimes he covers his ears up for no apparent reason. He walks up to adults at the park and sits in front of them and babbles on as if he knows them. He refuses to be contained in one space and likes to run off to the fringes when in a group of people...like a wild animal trying to escape a cage. He already has an obsession in all things king. In a bit of synchronicity, at the park the other day, a ten year old girl with Aspergers showed up. She walked up to me and started telling me about a little girl who was running around the park with no underwear or pants on a few days prior. Her dad instantly pops off with "she's talking about that because she's autistic." I responded with "aspergers?" He looked at me as if I was psychic. How could I have known that after only a minute of interaction. It's easy, I recognized it in her because it's in me as well. I was just recognizing my own kind. How mysterious that is to me, to be around somebody that I recognize in that way. Did I mention that she's ten?  Her and Ayden hit it off like fleas on a furry dog.  

How does this all fit into permaculture and what my destiny is? Asking me to be a community leader is sort of like asking a fish to live out of water. I'm simply not cut from that cloth, and now I understand why. They say that Aspies should concentrate on their abilities and not on their disabilities, and my ability is not in groups of people. If I could take the community and explain it to them each one on one, maybe, but that's not the way it works. It simply takes too much energy from me to be responsible for fostering community in person. It takes too much talking to people about trivial things.  I would rather dig a very deep hole all day long.  Writing on the other hand. I am definitely suited for rallying the troops in this form, with the written word. The irony is that the one thing I have determined is needed in this world is the one thing I am simply incapable of. I can do Permaculture, but I can't be concerned with convincing the zombies of the hologram that they should do permaculture. Yet permaculture is more than just putting the right plants in the right places while capturing rain water and building soil. It's about a way of life that centers around community.  

When I become interested in something, it quickly becomes an obsession. I read about it and do everything with it until I am exhausted and bored...usually. Permaculture is starting to fall into the exhausted with it category, and yet it can't be because everything I know intellectually says that it can't be. I came to Permaculture because of my obsessive study about the future of our planet. Yet what am I, one man, going to do about it? Plant some trees in my yard, grow some soil, collect some water? I want the entire thing intellectually, but in reality it's the last thing I want. It's like I told Dylan, one of the instructors of the Permaculture In Action class I attended, "I'll dig a hole a hundred feet deep wherever you want it for permaculture, but don't ask me to talk to people." I don't know, it's a conundrum for me. I've painted myself into an intellectual corner.

The "Whoville Chronicles" are now complete. Epiphany Now has never been about anything other than my epiphanies. So it is, and so it shall continue to be. I'm not sure where I'm going now, but I want to know my destiny, and so I have to figure it out. Unfortunately money has something to do with where I'm going, and that has nothing to do with what I want, because money is the last thing I want to be concerned about. Yet, I'm a husband, and a father...with another on the way, and the hologram does not care about my ideas about the change I would like to see in the world. I can't move to where the permaculture is right now because of money, and I can't spread it in Whoville because nobody gives a shit, and dealing with people in a community way is just not possible for me.

It appears that my destiny, at least in the near term, is to re-enter into the Matrix for a prolonged mission with the objective of money extraction. That means downloading some more credentials from the mainframe. It appears that come January, days before my 33rd birthday, I'll begin the download. The program is called EMT-Paramedic, and it's my families meal ticket. At least until the world starts caring about the future of our planet, sustainable food production, and our progeny's survival in the not too distant future. I'm not returning with my tail between my legs, and I think it's important to put that out there. When Neo was learning how to bend the rules in the Matrix, after he had unplugged, he hit the asphalt after falling from a building. It bloodied his nose, but he learned. Justin of the blog "Americana" said as much in a comment to one of my blogs. It's true. One thing I've learned from my resignation, and my dealings with the inhabitants of Whoville, is that the skills to reside outside of the Matrix require that bloody nose. This is by no means recognized by me as a defeat. Quite the contrary, it's only made me stronger.

Optimistic Pessimism Awesomness

Warning, this post is full of dorky badassness and it's meant to be read that way.  Ego having fun with itself, but maintaining the balls to be a spectacle for others amusement. A Kung Fu Panda tribute.  Cause he's pretty bad ass, and we should hang out.  In fact, we hang out every day at the Foxhaven. 

Honestly I spend too much time on the pessimistic spectrum, but then it's not as if you weren't warned. Especially if you've made it thus far in the saga that has been my life. The saga of bad luck? Is luck a real thing? Or is it just a fantasy that is brought on as a side effect of optimistic laziness? Hell if I know; I do know that I am indeed an optimistic pessimist. A good friend convinced me that I have a way with creating connections with other humans with words. She is correct, but I am unable, at least nearly, to do the same thing in person using sound. Musical sound maybe. I pretend like I know what a guitar is from time to time, at my most rapturously rhapsodic. Music is beautiful, and easy, if you know how to surf with sound. That is the only requirement. Anybody, no matter how intellectual, can learn to surf...in some way.

Today, I swung on a swing with my son, and we watched a crescent moon in the blue Carolina sky swing back and forth with us. There was a rainbow overhead as well. It was beautiful in the Wordsworth Zen sort of way. My sons middle name is Zen, and I'm almost convinced that he is a reincarnation of something Japanese. Maybe it's because I trained in Nihon Goshin Aikido for four years, and subsequently blossomed spiritually in Buddhism and not Christianity, the religion I was born to. My name is a Christian name. Aaron, Moses's brother. But it's also chalk full of scotch/irish. McCarty is my fathers last name and McCant's is my mothers maiden. This is my real name. Aaron McCarty. Names have always been important to me, just as age has been. I'm not afraid to be alive, and this is who I am.

I found myself in the bowels of an Applebees today, cause this is America, if'n you don't liike it, git out. I could explain why I ended up in an Applbees, but I have to much stinky gas to comprehend it. Those farts sure do feel good, and with all kinds of sauces to. What kind of sauce you want for dippin' boy. Hell, a pitcher of good ole Bud wasn't but 5 dollars. Shiiit, fill me up bubba. This is the insanity that American's spend their hard earned Jihads on. What the fuck? Seriously...I'm reminded of Bill Hicks in these times of rhapsodic reminiscences. I'm reminded of him telling marketers to kill themselves right now, no this is not a joke, if you are a marketer...kill yourself because you are destroying everything that is sacred and holy. There is a lot of wisdom to be found in the concept of letting food be your medicine and medicine be your food. Applebees is on the poison end of this medicine I'm sure. I can't prove it cause that shit taste so good, but I have a hunch. I much prefer to get my out food all Mexicano. I trust Mexican food for some reason. Maybe because it's at least got a hint of an honest tradition. Corn chips with multiple dips composed of things that are actually containing recognizable whole foods. Honest cheese and dead animals. And the poor workin' man beer of the Mexican is waayyyy better than his Northern conquerors. A 32 oz. glass of Dos Equis Amber draft puts Bud to shame. Especially when you are used to drinking crafted beer made to poetic perfection in a brewery 10 miles from your house.

R.J. Rockers is the true Beacon of Spartanburg SC, where I've spent an overwhelming majority of my life. That's as close to Whoville's actual address as I'm ever going to hint at as well. I'm proud to call Spartanburg my home, and I am indeed a true Spartanite. In fact, when I came home from bombing Afghanistan, smoking green on a USN air craft Carrier during "Operation Enduring Freedom", and potentially making little tall, hairy, tan babies of half Eastern and half Druid descent all over Asia (talk about a fuckin' real life Kung Fu Panda), my high school was a level clay field. Why, might you ask, would a high school that was built in the 60's be a clay field? One word...Walmart. Yes, they bought my god damn high school and fuckin' turned it into a Walmart Supercenter the size of a typical city. Ever seen Walle? Spartanite pride right there. This goes a long way towards explaining why I hate the man...and Walmart.  

I feel like this is all very boring. That's how I feel when I'm trying to be optimistic...boring. Yet, I do have a tale that I can tell. It's a true first person account of Aikido awesomeness. Then I'll conclude this rather challenging feat of optimism I'm writing just now. My chickens were recently moved in next to Trailer Park America in the Whoville sector of Palookaville, and I wanted to warn those who might try to mess with my chickens. I wanted them to understand that it would be a dangerous proposition to be dishonest in the general vicinity of my chickens asses, or eggs, or...asses. They needed to know that allowing their youngins to say...throw rocks at them...could possibly result in somebodies broken bones, or feelings for that matter. So I got real stoned on a plant (not the stones the kids were throwing at my chickens) and decided to dust off my 32 year old Aikido joints for a spectacle. It wasn't the first ninja roll I ever did as a 30 year old either. I had done a few ninja rolls for my wife and sons amusement in the past month.

So there I am in my chicken run staring at the end of a circular fence that composes the perimeter of it. It's made of that 4' tall green plastic fencing that you can buy at Box Store America. My intention is to run twenty feet to it at full bore and do a ninja roll over it in the direction of the local drug dealers house. First I had to prepare for the jump (I should also mention that I pole vaulted in High School). I had to know exactly how many strides to take before jumping into a horizontal position whilst sailing over said fence. My landing pad was grass at about six inches tall on a slight hill towards the chain link fence that's about five feet past the run. I walked to the opposite end of the circular run and took some gallivanting leaps in slow motion towards the other end of the run to mark my strides. I did this again, and again, speeding up each time to get a good average memory in my leg muscles. I looked like a complete ratard to anybody watching, including my wife who was busting her guts open laughing at my stupid ass (although secretly very worried that her son was gettin' ready to be fatherless due to me breakin' my fool neck). By this time some of the trailer park was peakin at me all stealth like through their used sheet curtains and brown cigarette stained windows. It was time to commit to my chickens welfare.

I took off like a boomerang gone mad, counted my barreling strides, and from a distance you could see the grass that was getting flung as my feet broke the sound barrier. I hit the final mark and blasted off into the atmosphere into horizontal flight. With the chain link fence approaching, I tucked my head and turned myself into a circle. Aikido is all circles. I lightly made contact with the ground and circled to my feet while allowing all of the force to exit my body through my feet and into the earth. I ended in the Aikido stance ready to start parring the laughter that was about to be blasted my way. There was no laughter, just the sound of deafness at my pure awesomeness. Who wants some was what I said to the drug dealin' trailer park as sound once again returned from the gravity my flying ninja roll had created. Ever since that day, they have been too scared to anger me with their ridiculousness...and my chickens have been safe. I'm a Zombie Whispering Green Wizard Permaculture Ninja, and if you want to get down, you'll never see me coming...or leaving.

So that's it, my highly inflated superhero sized autobiographical description. My most optimistic true tale. Po is correct, in Kung Fu Panda, it doesn't matter who you were. Who you want to be, and therefore become, on the other hand, does. It's all in the dancing interplay between your fate and your destiny. One is foretold and the other is created by you and your actions. How you are in the world is what matters when the chips are down and the bill is due. How you conduct yourself and your intentions towards life are what you are scored on karmically. Whatever you want to call it, it's there. Our times are interesting and dark. There is a looming cloud out in the distance of our technological, industrial Wasteland. The Wasteland does end, but not all brilliant and apocalyptic in the biblical sense. It ends one person at a time, and it has always done so.

The Fox Den Endangered

It's important to note how crucially important our living in Whoville is to my wife and I's intentional plan for our lives. When Aunt Bee offered her house to Wendy and I, it was the opportunity I needed to complete the puzzle of how to resign from the Matrix. The main problem for me was figuring out how I could live mortgage free while having a mortgage. Aunt Bee is the reason I was able to resign, because without her there is noway I would have done so with a wife and child. Even so, we took a high stakes gamble by moving in with somebody that neither one of us knew much about. We just knew that the family considered her crazy, but as I have said that means nothing to me because I consider the average person in our society to be completely insane. To me, if you are under the influence of the American Hologram's thaumaturgy, then you are by definition quite insane. I don't need to go into an explanation as to what exactly the Hologram is. I've blogged about it extensively here at Epiphany Now.

I was a few months into this experiment, dealing with the nuisance of the Whos, when Mordred and Tina LeFay attacked, and it was a serious injury. It called into question the viability of what we were doing in Whoville. As I've been illustrating, Whoville is not populated by awakened individuals. The populace of Whoville is not concerned with broadening their awareness or expanding their consciousness. They are not Peak Oil aware and do not care about climate change. PO is not even on the radar and climate change is just liberal conspiracy theory attempting to "fukin' mess with naescur god daamitt...fukin' liberals tryin' to spread that mooslim jibber jabber." There are non-redneck inhabitants of Whoville, but they are still unaware of the Hologram. This has been the most challenging aspect of living in Whoville for me. Here I am trying to spread Permaculture to a populace that is unaware that there is a problem with the American lifestyle to begin with. I'm at best a fledgling permaculturalists with very limited plant knowledge. I'm in no position to spread anything and need somebody to follow myself. On top of this I am being assaulted by completely retarded Southern Baptist Satan worshipers.

What exactly did he mean by "Satan's Authority"? Was it just his damaged brain spurtin' out the first thing that came to mind in the heat of our encounter. Is he actually worshiping Jebus in the front of the church and then Satan in the basement of the church with a handful of other ratards after the morning service? I don't know, and I don't really care to find out. I just want him to stay the hell away from our homestead because he's no good for us, or anybody else for that matter...to include himself. Aunt Bee later told me that Mordred had warned her that I had "the Earth spirit in'em." The "Earth Spirit"!!! What the fuck? No doubt this is some shit he's heard from his preacher. Apparently this is what he told Bee at their lunch just before he brought his scandaling ooziness to my homestead. They were sittin' in a Chick-filet (a southern baptist owned fast food joint...no really, you have to be a professed southern baptist to work there) with Mordred reading the bible out loud at the table to Aunt Bee over chicken biscuits. I'm not makin' this shit up either...it's non-fiction and being reported as it occurred to me.

When Wendy got home, I gave her the entire report of what had transgressed in her absence. She was furious and extremely embarrassed of her relatives. I was still in a state of shock for having been treated in that way by family. It's not an exaggeration to say that it caused some strain in our relationship as husband and wife, and for no other reason than her guilt over being related to that atrocity of a man, combined with my legitimate fear of her insane family (cause I haven't even breached the topic of her mom's crazy ass yet). After this incident I found out that Mordred and Tina were pretty much excommunicated from the Spencer family already for past shenanigans. The eldest brother Randy Spencer (and pretty much the only "normal" member of the Spencer family...at least as far as I've been able to determine), and Wendy's mother Susan, both disliked Mordred from their youth. Mordred stayed in Grandpa's house until he met Tina in his mid 20's. He stayed at home because he was lazy and didn't want to work. He spent his days smoking weed and getting drunk (not that there's anything inherently wrong with that) whenever he wasn't at church praising Jebus. That's where he met Tina actually...in church. Tina took the place of Grandpa Spencer for Mordred. I guess he just needs somebody to bitch slap his poor ass around and tell him what to think and do.

Aunt Bee was the only Spencer that stayed in touch with Mordred. He kept her around because she gave him money. In fact, just about everybody in Aunt Bee's life was around because she gave them money. That's how she has learned to relate to family, and it's also been a challenge getting her to understand that she doesn't have to pay for our affection. She doesn't see a problem with it, and actually enjoys the position it gives her. She likes buying things for people because she likes looking like she's got money, and she likes the position it puts her in, but also because she really is just a kind individual whom likes helping people.

I realize that Wendy and I are also benefiting from Aunt Bee. It's just that our relationship is a bit more symbiotic and fair. We are not taking her money...at least not directly. We have actually managed to save her money in utilities by getting her to understand that when it's nice outside you can turn the air off and open the windows, and that when it's cold outside you can put on clothing in the house and sit under a blanket rather than turning the thermostat up 10 degrees. When we moved in, Aunt Bee would turn the thermostat up to 80 degrees so that she could take a shower. She didn't like feeling cold when she got undressed to get into the hot shower. We got her a little electric space heater to heat just the bathroom up rather than the 2000 square foot trailer. We got her to stop buying paper towels as we use wash clothes in their place. We hang dry our clothing when we can. We stopped all of the money that was leaving the house for things like fixing leaking toilets, steam cleaning all of the carpet in the house every month, and cutting the dirt and weeds twice a week. If something needs fixin' or maintenance done, I do it for free. After all, it's my home now. My point is that we have saved Aunt Bee a lot of money by living the way that we do. Unfortunately I must report that all this has accomplished is to enrich the Matriarch and her conniving brood of vultures. All of the money, and then some, that we have saved Aunt Bee, she has given to the Whos. The Matriach of Whoville has her trained very well. Anytime Aunt Bee has extra money she ends up calling her and coming up with ways she can spend money on the Matriarch. They'll go out to eat, or get their hair cut, or go shopping. I understand that Bee likes spending money. It's not just the Whos fault. That doesn't take away from the fact that they are still taking advantage of her.

Wendy was enraged by Mordred. She decided that the best course of action would be to call 911 and report the incident so that we could have them trespassed. I talked her out of calling the police, but she printed up a trespass document online that was supposedly official, had me sign it, and mailed it certified mail to Mordred's residence. We never got confirmation that he signed for it. I have suspicions that Aunt Bee called and told them what it was so that they would refuse to sign for it. I could care less about the notice because if he ever shows up again, as I have said, the first thing I'm going to do is call 911. The second thing I'm going to do is get my 12 gauge. My suspicions about Aunt's Bee's honesty have been proven correct since the attack of Mordred and Tina LeFay. I'll get into that soon. The next adventure in the Whoville Chronicles involves something as simple as beating back the onslaught of Mother Nature. Of course this aspect of the story will also explore Aunt Bee's honesty, and therefore ethics, and the issue of how we will be able to meet our unspoken agreement to fulfill the conditions of this arrangement we have entered into with her.

The arrangement I'm talking about is our method of payment to her for allowing us into her home, now our home, to live utility and mortgage free. The unspoken agreement is that we will care for her into her "golden years." We will take care of her financial and medical concerns. We will care for her in old age as if she were our own beloved parent. She has no children, and her husband has passed. You are now qualified to make a biased opinion on how things would work if the Whos were to take charge of these issues for her. It's not as if the Matriarch required payment to help take care of her dying brother at the end of his life. The fact is, our agreement is just as beneficial to Aunt Bee as it is to us. As free as our mortgage and utility free lifestyle is, it comes at a cost...just not a financial one. In fact, we have been paying the cost of living this lifestyle since the day we moved here. Again, you are qualified to make your own biased opinion on the matter having read up to this point.

Before I get into the issue of Mother Nature's relentless onslaught, and the insane tactic our society uses to combat it, and how the issue of Aunt Bee's honesty weaves into this, I'll explore one other aspect of our situation. What we have done...moving in with family like we have, is an option that I imagine is available to a healthy portion of my readers. In fact, it's probably an option available to a majority of Americans. I'm talking about moving in with family to forgo the rat race. All that is required to drop out of the Matrix, or the American Hologram, is the ability to live mortgage/rent free. If you can manage that, than you can probably manage to not need your own vehicle. If you can live mortgage/rent free, and you don't require a vehicle, than you can probably get by without working. The only other issue is going to be the one of health insurance. I would say that this is the largest sacrifice my family has made by choosing this option. We are dealing with this now due to our second pregnancy.

I've written about this topic before. If you have any elders in your family, there is a good chance that they have a home (pending they haven't been sent to one of our amiable geezer freezers yet). There is a good chance that they spend a lot of money on getting things done around the house that they can no longer do themselves...like having the grass mowed, plumbing, and issues revolving around a houses tendency towards rot and decay. This is a potential opportunity for you...and your family. It's a way to tell the Hologram to go fuck itself without having money. That is mainly what the Whoville Chronicles are about. This is just one anecdotal report from one individual who is putting everything he's got into resigning from the Matrix/Hologram/Rat Race (it goes by many names), and doing so with a growing family. Of course there is always the potential option of moving back in with your parents. Naturally you have to grow the ability to not care about what people are going to say about you. Our society wants us to believe that you are not successful unless you have your own home and therefore lots of debt. It's the game that everybody else is playing. It's bullshit. The "ownership society," is how Bush put it. That's exactly right, as in the Corporatocracy owns your ass, and in perfect double think, you think you own it. What you own is the right to no longer participate.

The majority of the world, for the majority of recorded history, has lived with family for generations. A multi-generational household has always been the norm. It's my opinion that the industrial revolution is largely responsible for changing that fact. This could be boiled down further to our magical petroleum inheritance being responsible for the lose of the generational household. Why do we feel the need to have our own homes? What is wrong with living in a family unit beyond husband, wife, and children? Isn't this sorta what a tribe is? True, there is a lose of privacy, and? What does that really matter? Is it really that much of a nuisance to hear somebody else taking a shit, or making love, or having an argument? Does it really matter if your family happens to find out your business? Is it that important to be able to run around in your house naked playing grab ass and hide the sausage with your wife (or husband). The point I'm trying to make here is how much privacy do you need? At least privacy from your family. Besides, if you work for a corporation, it's not as if your ass hole has much privacy, nor the contents of your urine.

Living with family has some major challenges. I believe that those challenges can be overcome. The fact is that the world is pretty much finished supplying us with the infinite growth paradigm delusion. Beyond this, refusing to participate in the Hologram is just more authentic and honest no matter who you are. In the next segment of The Whoville Chronicles I'll be picking up where I left off. I'll be telling about Admiral Dumpy and how I managed to push her off of Aunt Bee's financial teat. To be clear, it was not my intention to do so. It just happened that my doing "the right thing" resulted in her being pushed off the teat...but not before she extracted one last bit of Whoville homage.

On Satan's Authority

I'm gonna slow down posting after this post...I didn't want to keep anybody waitin' around for this scene to resolve itself.  I noticed that "Mordred and Tina LeFay Spencer" got read more than "Grandpa's Whipping Bog."  People are busy, got jobs to work, and lives to live off of the net, and I don't want to take up too much time for those who are interested in reading Epiphany Now.  I'm going to try to keep it to one post a week for that reason.  I've already got the next post on the backburner...

After Private Dickweed's failure to get me to comply with his demands in my house, it was time for the witch to show herself. She began a barrage of assaults on my character. I had a beard of about three months at the time, I'm Scotch/Irish with some Prussian to boot, I grow hair like most people collect junk mail. "How are you going to get a job with a face like that," said the witch.

"I'm not looking for a damn job."

"Not looking for a job, so you're just planning on mooching off of Aunt Bee indefinitely?" Let's keep in mind here that neither one of these douche bags have a job, nor are they looking, and Private Dickweed had a beard longer than mine at the time. They both live in government housing and get government checks. "Don't you ever clean house?" As she points at the wreckage that was the kitchen. I hadn't had a chance to sweep and mop since the storm came through the day before.

"A storm just came through yesterday," I said incredulously. "And at any rate, who the hell are you to question me in my own house?"

"Your house," piped up Dickweed, "this is my sister's house." He made to get back into my personal space and the witch pushed him away and behind her. At this time it was getting pretty heated in the room. My face was red. I only had a couple of clicks left before I reached full bore savagery. My son was standing beside me loosing his shit at this point in response to the energy in the room. I picked him up and took him into his room and shut the door. I wasn't sure what was about to happen and I didn't want him to witness it. It was a mistake because he doubled up on loosing his shit when I left the room and shut the door. I opened the door and picked him up in an attempt to try and calm him. That's when Mordred decided to try and grow some balls.

"How long are you gonna stay in my sister's house?"

"We've moved in indefinitely. We're not going anywhere."

"And another thing, you don't tell my sister what to do. If she wants a t.v. she can have one. I don't want to hear any reports of you telling my sister what to do again...you hear me?" (Shortly before Wendy and I moved in with Aunt Bee she decided she would give her flat screen idiot panel to Rapunzel as a gift, making Mordred's comment that much more idiotic)

"What are you talking about? If she wants a television she can have one. I don't tell Aunt Bee what to do. She can do or have whatever she wants. What is he talking about Aunt Bee?"

"My house, my rules."  Said a monotone Bee. 

"We're gonna leave soon, and when I come back in a couple of weeks you better be gone." Commanded General Douchery. "You aren't welcome in this house."

"Don't you care at all about your niece's family? Don't you know that I'm married to your niece and this is her son that ya'll are freakin' out right now." He didn't say anything in reply. He could care less about his niece.

"All I know is that you need to pack your bags and leave." Said Mordred.

"Who do you think you are coming into our home like this, comin' at me like this? I could pack our bags and leave, and we'd go to California, and you'd never see your niece again. Don't you care about that?"

"So are you saying you are going to move to California then?" Said Mordred.

"I could, but Aunt Bee asked us to move here. I resigned from my job to move here. I didn't lose my job. This is all intentional.  I'm still an EMT intermediate by state, and by the National Registry of EMT's until 2014.  If I want or need to go back to work it won't be a problem.  Where are you workin' at?" Aunt Bee's brain was stuck on a loop, and from this point on all that she would say is "my house, my rules."

"You need to pack up and leave. You better be gone the next time I come here." Said Mordred. The tone had been escalating during this exchange. Ayden was still crying and freak'in out. I had a ball of anger in my gut that was growing unmanageable. I was beginning to worry for my son. I had to keep him safe, and I didn't want him to witness the Kraken. I began to become afraid because of this. I was afraid that I was going to lose it and force my son to take in primal violence. This kicked off an onslaught of emotion that I could do little with. I wanted to cry and at the same time I was getting close to the desire to kill. More because of what was to come then because of what had happened already. I sensed that it was only going to get worse, and I was right. We had only just moved in several months ago. Our house in Suck Hill was occupied by renters for the next year. We had nowhere else to go except California 2300 miles away. Wendy was in Charlotte. Her family was attacking me. Everything I was doing was being called into question because I was not going to be treated this way in my own home, or anywhere else for that matter.

"I've never in my entire life been treated this way, and by family nonetheless. Why are you treating me this way?" I said with a quiver in my voice.

"Because we don't want you here." And that's when I advanced on him. I set my son down and I started to move into his territory to do I don't even know what to him, but nothing good. Tina got between us and pushed Mordred towards the door. "Go outside," she commanded. He didn't protest much, just did what he was told and went outside. I picked my son back up since he was at my leg screaming. Tina came at me, and I had to put my arm up, bent at the elbow to keep her a foot away from my face. She backed me into the wall. I was holding my son.

"Lady, if you don't back up I'm gonna drop you." I said sternly.

"He's scared of me," she said, "he's scared of me...ha ha ha ha haaa, he's scared of a woman, look at him.  Go ahead boy, drop me!!"

"My house, my rules," cried Aunt Bee who was still covered with a blanket and rocking herself silly. "My house, my rules."  As she increases the speed of her rocking.

"He's scared of me, look at him Aunt Bee, he's about to cry." Indeed, I was. I had my son in my arms. I couldn't lose it on this woman because who would watch my son while my wife was gone to Charlotte incomunicado for the next five hours or so due to photographing somebodies special wedding day. In spite of all of this I felt myself losing control in the direction of reptilian violence. I was also feeling the need to flee, to give in, pack my son and I up and leave. I thought I'd call my wife from the road to California and tell her to meet me there. I wasn't going to deal with this, her family, any longer. I knew that I had one more click before I transformed into deadly raging berserker. I knew that if this happened I would be hauled off to jail, no questions. This was a woman after all. With one last ability to reach logical thinking I placed my son and I between this witch and our couch. This four feet of space allowed me to calm just enough to know that I could not lose control. I had to keep control of myself because I had to protect my son's best interest. However, I was ready to kill. In fact I've never been ready to commit deadly violence like that before or since that moment. I wanted to rip her head off, and that's when Mordred brought his punk ass back into the house. This is also when I could no longer keep from using four letter anglo saxon words.

"You two get the fuck out of this house now before I end up going to prison for murder."

"I'll leave when I'm good and ready," said Mordred.

"Who gives you the authority to come into this home and treat your family like this?" I screamed Mordred with my voice cracking. His answer baffled me. In fact, it still baffles me, and I'm not sure exactly what he meant by it. But this is what he said.

"I'm here under the authority of Satan!!!" The cat was out of the bag. I could tell by Tina's face that she was upset with him for divulging this information. These two spend most of their time at their Baptist church. The kind where they speak in tongue. I knew as much, but what exactly did he mean by "under the authority of Satan"? I didn't want to find out.

"Get out, the both of you, get out before I kill you. In fact, you aren't welcome here ever again. I'm not going anywhere. The next time I see either of you the first thing I'm going to do is call 911." That gave me the idea to get the phone. Holding the phone I said "if you don't leave right now I'm going to call 911, and then I'm going to choke your stupid ass until you stop trying to breath."

"My house, my rules," Aunt Bee was still repeating to herself. Tina pushed Mordred out of the house and left behind him. I watched as they got in their vehicle to flee. The anger dropped out of me as they left and it was replaced by a storm of worry, regret, and sadness. I didn't understand what had just happened. Why? I didn't know Aunt Bee well enough yet to trust her. I wasn't sure what she had told them at lunch. I wasn't sure what to believe any longer. What was I going to do now? Staying here wasn't an option because I was never going to be treated like that again if I could help it. I went into the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table and began weeping. I was an emotional wreck at this point. It felt like I had all of my energy drained from me. All I could do now was to weep, and shake, as the threat had temporarily passed. What had I done by moving my family here, to Whoville? What was I going to do now?

By this time Aunt Bee was standing in the kitchen in front of me nervously.

"Do you know how long it's been since I've cried?" I asked. "The last time I cried was bout eight years ago. What did you tell them at lunch? Why did they come here and act that way? I've never been treated like this in my entire life. Not by anybody, and especially not family. Is this how your family treats its members?"

"I don't know why he came here and did that?" Said Bee.

"What did you tell them at lunch? What was he talking about with the television. Do you think we are keeping you from a television?"

"I don't know what he was talking about. I just told him that I wanted a television in my room so that I could watch church on Sunday. I didn't tell him that you were keeping me from a television."

"So he just came up with that all by himself?" I asked.

"Yes, I didn't say anything about ya'll except that we were all happy together in my home."

"So he just made all that up? They came here and attacked me all by themselves?"

"I don't know why he did that." Said Aunt Bee as her eyes wandered off into la la land.

"I need you to understand something. I'm never going to be treated like that again." I said. "You have to make a decision now. It's either us or them. If I'm going to stay here than he is not welcome back again."

"I asked you to move here." Said Bee.

"Do you understand what I'm saying to you now? They are not welcome back here, or I'm packing our bags and taking my family to California. What's it gonna be?"

"Well I'll just have to call him and tell him to not come back here. If he wants to see me he'll just have to meet me out for lunch somewhere away from here."

"The next time I see them I'm going to call the police, and if they don't leave I'll be getting one of my guns out to make them leave. There won't be any talking. I refuse to be treated this way, and I won't let my son witness something like this again if I can help it." That's when the phone rang. It had been about ten minutes or so since Mordred and Tina LeFay left. It was Mordred, and I could hear what he was saying. Aunt Bee told him that I was very upset and it would be best if they not come back and that she would just meet them out if they wanted to see her.

"Okay...okay...bye bye," and she hung up the phone. "He said he was sorry for acting that way. He said he had no business acting that way in my home and that he was sorry." I heard the conversation. He did apologize...to Aunt Bee, but not to me. He didn't tell her to tell me that he was sorry because he wasn't. He just had time to figure out that their brilliant plan had failed. He had time to begin worrying that the Aunt Bee money train had derailed. He was calling for immediate damage control after their failed plan.

"Don't tell Wendy about this" pleaded Bee.

"Why would I not tell her? She is my wife!"

"Just don't tell her, she doesn't need to know. I don't want her to worry about it." But it was already too late. I had texted Wendy shortly after they left. The text read:

"you're family is crazy...I think we're going to have to move to California because I won't be treated this way again."