This weeks column, for those of you who read them: ************************* LONG LIVE THE DEATH PENALTY! Long live the death penalty. In fact, it’s woefully underutilized. Let’s expand it. So many are the richly deserving candidates for a comprehensive death penalty that I’ll not try to rank them but just name a few. We’ll start with that summertime bane of Okanogan county, the RV traveler who drives forever at 47 mph on a clear, dry, daytime 60 mph highway. This guy is oblivious of the line of traffic he’s holding up because he didn’t bother to comply with the law requiring extended mirrors on his vehicle. He also doesn’t care about another Washington state law that mandates he take a turnout when holding up five vehicles (yes, even if doing the speed limit). He can’t even see there are any vehicles behind him as he plods glacially along humming to Lawrence Welk’s Greatest Rhumba Hits. Have your will updated soonest, road-sloth, the bell tolls for thee. Then there’s that robot recording we get stuck with when calling virtually any business or government entity. You know, the one that begins: “So we may better serve you, please select from-” Whoa, whoa, whoa, robo-jerk, who’re you kidding? If you must waste the sands through our hourglass at least don’t woof us. This annoying, frustrating, delaying electro-gimmick is definitely not to serve us better. What will serve us better is a fast answering, live human that speaks legible English and knows what we need answered quicko. Your recorded buffer is to serve ... you ... better by enabling you to fire the trained employees who should be answering that phone. When you’re screaming your innocence as you’re wheeled to the needle table, don’t be surprised if the guard replies in an unintelligible Bangladeshi accent: “So ve may surf you beddah, prease serect from da forrowing ...”. And let’s not forget those manufacturers who sell us products welded into nuclear-proof plastic casings that require a motorized diamond saw to open. That cheering noise you hear as they’re shooting you the juice will be me in the gallery with my bandaged hand less the fingers I sliced off trying to open your product. Yes, yes, I know, shoplifters and all. Execute them too, out behind the store and dumpster the bodies. Win-win solution. While you’re at it, Mr. Merchant, shuck those price stickers that have to be scraped off leaving scratch marks and a gummy residue on our expensive new product. Aside from making us homicidal, this causes us to look for merchants who sell stuff we don’t have to waste thirty minutes of our lives getting the gooey mess off of. Or when you call a manufacturer for warrantee support only to be held up for your email, phone numbers, age, income range and other marketable personal data before they’ll service your ailing product. Die flacks. We already have one NSA. Now for the restaurant where you go after a long hard day to enjoy that special meal. You’re handed an exquisite menu of choice items all so good it takes you twenty minutes to carefully select the perfect one. Then you’re told: “”Oh sorry, we’re outta that!” Oh yeah? Wait’ll our new improved death penalty law is on the books, Toots, and then let’s see if you can manage to tell us what’s not available when you hand us the menu. Then there’s the girl in hot pants who parks in the handicap slot and jogs into WalMart. RIP. We could also hold mass executions for whoever it is at universities who decided to force students listen to five minutes of recorded ads before getting the final grades they paid thousands of dollars to earn. And all this is before we even get to the exorbitant salaries of college professors and administrators when education is too expensive for anyone but the kids of rich Chinese and Saudis. Or the faculty advisor who told some freshman girl that a degree in Pre Cambrian Eskimo Transgender Studies would make a wonderful career in which to invest a $175K student loan. Throw the switch, warden. And let’s not leave out whoever invented electric hand driers for public restrooms. Ever try to blow your nose on an electric hand dryer? And we won’t even discuss when we notice too late that the toilet paper dispenser is empty. Fry, you medieval inquisitors. Last but hardly least is everyone’s favorite the telemarketer who ignores all the do-not-call lists and hits at dinner or when you’re in the shower, then tells you to hold for a very important message from the Indigent Trial Lawyers Yacht Fund. For these, we reserve the special talents of 19th century Comanche torture experts. We’re only scratching the surface of course. Clearly thus, there is a crying need for an innovative new death penalty improved to meet the needs of the modern public. So let it be! William Slusher is an author, columnist and sociopolitical writer with a small ranch on the Okanogan River. Enjoy his nonpartisan Pacific Northwest political comedy: CASCADE CHAOS, or How Not To Put Your Grizzly In The Statehouse (Amazon, cmppg, or your local bookstore). Mr. Slusher may be contacted at williamslusher@live.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 23:43:57 +0000
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