Atwood's Cockroaches

 After leaving the gym on a Friday afternoon, I hopped into my lovely and perfect 1993 Midnight Blue Saturn (bought new and now only two years old), and turned on the engine. Nothing. Good thing I had already spent three hours at the gym or I would have whipped myself, and the car, into an exasperated frenzy. Instead I called AAA. After a few minutes under the hood, the young man said “you need a new battery”. I held my tongue with this master of the obvious. Instead I asked that he jump it and follow me to the nearest repair shop, which he did do. At the shop, much unintelligent gibberish, on both sides, ensued. What was I talking about? I was talking girl talk (think Charlie Brown adult: wha wha wha). What was the mechanic taking about? He was talking mechanic talk (same wha wha wha). Ultimately, it came down to the universal language: the amount of money required to fix the problem. Since it would take a while to replace the battery, it was suggested that I retire to the lounge room that only slightly, but deeply, smelled of soaked in oil, stale cigarette smoke and equally stale french fries. I parked myself on the grand and gracious deep purple faux leather, sticky to the touch, and bound together with duct tape, sofa. Nearby, on a small table, sat an urn with ‘freshly brewed that very morning’ coffee; no cups, next to a dilapidated pink box filled with half pieces of dried donuts; no napkins. Fortunately, I had a copy of Blind Assassin with me, so I gingerly settled myself down on the sofa to enjoy a long read. I must say that whenever I read one of Margaret Atwood’s books, I find myself very grateful not to be her; what must go on in that woman’s head to spew forth this type of dystopian literature. Her picture on the back jacket shows a wild eyed face with even wilder hair; altogether an alarming countenance. Unnerving doesn’t begin to describe her or her books, for that matter.

As I sat reading, in a somewhat disconcerted frame of mind, I spied, out of the corner of my little eye, a movement on the ground. At first, I ignored it but as it grew larger it appeared to be working its way in my direction. I then had to give it my full attention and realized that I was staring at the most massive and mighty cockroach that I had ever seen in my life. A small child could ride this thing. This monster was as wide as the length of my thumb. I’ve seen smaller new born babies. I jumped up and ran yelping into the body shop. My wide eyed, quite stricken face motivated a couple of young guys to ask what was wrong. Even I didn’t recognize the tiny high pitched voice that squeaked out of me: “there’s a huge cockroach in there; please do something”. The man closest to me scoffed, snarked “girlie”, walked past me into the waiting room and stopped dead in his tracks. I cleared my throat, stood behind him and hummed the tune “macho, macho man”. After all, what’s a mechanic if not a macho man. He collected himself, gamely walked up to it, stood over it, then stomped on it and crunched it. I heard the crunch. I thanked him profusely, prudently  stepped over the dead body and returned to my book. A very short while later I noticed that the cockroach's parts were moving, leaving me to mull the often stated adage that cockroaches will one day inherit the earth. I sprinted past it again, back into the shop area, and again, that tiny disenbodied voice that came out of nowhere: “excuse me, but that cockroach is still moving; I don’t think it’s dead”. That same mechanic now started to sweat, leaving me to wonder if he had seen the same horror movie that was now playing in my head, in glorious technicolor and with surround sound. This time he manly stood over it, stomped on it and ground it into a pancake, then kicked it out the door. Profuse thanks and gratitude and back to my seat and book I went, pondering if just such events were the inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s books. I was left wondering if that dead cockroach was wallowing in some residual chemical puddle from the body shop’s discarded liquids, inhaling the pernicious juices and gradually returning to its third life. My mind wandered to visions of the cockroach waiting at the exit door for its mechanic killer at shift end, then eating him alive. In that moment, I made two life altering decisions: I decided not to leave the shop first and to stop reading Margaret Atwood’s novels. 

At the same time another mechanic came out and said that the battery could not be replaced immediately because some neighboring part had to be ordered from the dealership, wha wha wha, money, wha wha wha, more money. I was done; smelly rooms, giant cockroaches, shakedown for more money. I called a friend and, near tears, asked for a ride home. The next morning the same friend took me back to the shop, then followed me to the dealership in my jumped car. I strode into the dealership with a look of sheer dejection, destitution and helplessness. I stomped my pretty little foot and, pouting at my loss, used just the right combination of helplessness and outrage that the battery and alternator were replaced for free. Screw you, Margaret Atwood and double that on cockroaches. 

The Big Three

Bill Burr famously began one of his comedic tirades with “everyone believes that everyone else’s religion is stupid”. Then went on to say that they all share the same tenets: “don’t kill anyone, don’t touch my wife, and that’s my motorcycle”. Brilliantly simplistic and he’s right. 

Having nothing else to do, I mused on numerous theosophies, gleaned over the years through various outlets. So, here’s how I believe it all started. I should note that no bible, torah, koran, sea scroll, hieroglyphic or ouija board was studied or reviewed prior to, or even after, this writing.

Except for the groups which explicitly reject evolutionary theory as being in conflict with what they see as biblical truth, the rest of us learned that as apes evolved into knuckle dragging Neanderthals, they further evolved into tribes, and, as Homo sapiens tribes, agreed that ethnocentric cooperation was needed to survive. Clubbing each other to death would become a no win game and was not a solution to anything, certainly not to living longer, and how else would a wife be able to borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor. Various groups thought alike, which brought them together and helped them to stay alive, albeit life still was short and violent in certain instances. While this peaceful ethnocentricity was evolving, admittedly, things went awry on many, many occasions over the centuries. (Jumping ahead to the Greco-Balkan war, Battle of Cannae, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Crimea, etc. Some of those wars came later in the religious timeline, but still, you get the idea; lots of movies and lots of crosses on the ground before a peaceful resolve came about; it's temporary, still waiting.) 

Peace and prosperity always seemed to be in short supply in the olden days. When times were hard, the sage elders determined that certain sacrifices were required. (Here’s another example of things going awry.) Although sacrificing protesting virgins into bubbling volcanos brought needed rain on the rare occasion, those rituals later were determined to be somewhat chancy. Too, enough mothers complained that they were not happy about donating their sparkly virgin daughters since, alive, they brought a greater dowry to the family upon their marriage to another mortal than the occasional rain shower would bring forth on the land by some unknown and mysterious god, oftentimes citing the four vestal virgins who were buried alive for uh, “interrupting” their chastity as examples. (Girls needed love too.) Nothing good came of all that sacrificial nonsense; it never really took, except in the movies. Watch Joe Versus the Volcano with Tom Hanks. 

Enough about sex. Going back to the evolution of religion, apparently everyone started out as members of their various pagan tribes, learning about fire and the wheel and stuff like that. Then Abraham came along and suggested that the good people of Judea should form their own tribe. So now we had Jews; Jews from Judea, aka the Israelites. And this little group with their little rituals worked for a while. But the only constant in life, even then, was change. Along came Jesus the Jew and declared himself the messiah, ironically, forming christianity. Wow. A messiah. A lot of people, more women actually, were tired of carrying around two sets of dishes (no dishwashers until the 1970s), so they decided to follow Jesus. Watch The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. (These followers later evolved into the Catholic church, with tales of Mary Magdalen marrying JC, etc. but that’s yet another story; see Jesus Christ Superstar as MM sings I don’t know how to love him.) Anyway, following Jesus around worked for a while; he was an engaging raconteur, worked some great magic tricks: turned water into wine (who didn’t like that?), took a basket of fish and a baguette and fed hundreds, walked on water. Plus, he had a nifty beard and a John Wick vibe. Well, it was all good until Mohammed came along and said “He’s not the messiah; I’m the messiah”. Oh! Great! Another macho man contest. By then, though, a lot of people were ticked that they couldn’t eat meat on Friday so they figured, what the heck and followed Mohammed. 

And that brought us to Islam and The Big Three.

Now, as another aside, the Big Three are the ‘outies’. Outies go to an outside establishment to pray, confess sins, meet with other members of the tribe, repent their sins, celebrate various theological holidays and eat too much. On the other side of the planet are the ‘innies’. Hinduism is the oldest documented ‘innie’ religion; goes back over 3K years. The Hindus had lots of minor gods, so there were lots of holidays celebrating those gods. Following the Hindus, there was Buddhism (Hindus had too many holidays and gods; Buddhists had only Buddha) and Taoism (three gods) and a few other factions along those lines. Those folk believed in reincarnation, somewhat. Personal aside: I remember when the current Dalai Lama was in town to give a talk. During the Q and A, one man, a psychiatrist, said he had a patient whose life was so horrible he wanted to kill himself to find peace. What would the Dalai Lama suggest he say to him? The Dalai Lama replied: “well, we are not 100% certain of what is on the other side”. Wait, what? That answer perked me up. Since the entire oeuvre of those ‘innies’ was all about self reflection, peace, kindness and everlasting life through reincarnation until Nirvana was reached, when the Dalai Lama said he wasn’t so sure, it did give me pause, but let’s return to that little eye opener some other time.

Now, going back to, and following along with, the Big Three, which were all run, and not very well, by men (sorry fellas; it’s true) which of course brought trouble (again, sorry fellas; it’s still true). Guys just can’t get along.“You still wanna be the leader? What for? You’re a lousy leader. I wanna be the leader”. So, as tribes went, the Jews broke into Sephardic or Ashkenazi tribes. One group went one way while the other roamed in another direction. In those days, everyone was a nomad; no border walls. The Islamics had the same leadership problems; broke into the Sunni and Shias, while the christians settled ‘happily’ into Catholicism (red shoes, big bucks, beautiful churches, frankincense and don’t forget the all powerful Crusades: Errol Flynn holding down the fort while King Richard went off to smite the Muslims). Ah, the good old days.

The all powerful Big Three ruled their assorted domains as they damn well pleased. No one was knowledgable enough to question their supreme authority until around the mid 1400s when Martin Luther and the Gutenberg printing press came along. Martin Luther was tired of the Catholic church; too many rules and not enough charity. Life changed dramatically when ordinary people learned to read. Reading was a game changer. The fine print was very enlightening for the working classes. Around the same time, or shortly thereafter, Henry VIII was trying to dump Catherine, his first wife (she couldn’t give him a male baby so what good was she? This was before the male Y chromosome was discovered, so it really wasn’t her fault, but that’s another movie. In fact, there are a lot of movies about him, even a few songs: "I'm Henry the Eighth I am"). Anyway, he famously denounced Catholicism and announced a new religion: Protestantism; those who protested the church and, purely serendipitous (she says ironically), this allowed him to marry Anne. Of course, all hell broke loose (pardon the pun). While priests were running for their lives, Catholic churches were losing their roofs, Henry’s wives were losing their heads and all the denominational money was going who knows where (well, Cromwell knew, but later, he too lost his head). While the King of Hearts was screaming “off with their heads”, next island over, the Scots liked the idea of Presbyterians, brought forth by a Swiss man, John Calvin, the basis for which was somewhat akin to ‘Catholic Light’ or maybe it was 'Protestant Light'; not sure which. Not to be left out, northern Ireland went Protestant while the rest of the country remained Catholic.

So here we were, what started out as tribalism, had now become a source of separateness and exclusivity, not to mention patriarchy. A lot of people didn’t know which way to turn (and don’t get me started on the Spanish Inquisition); where was God's light? People threw up their hands and, wanting to keep body, soul and family together for a while longer, decided to hop the next ship and leave the country, now that they knew the earth was not flat. A bunch of folk came to north America, landed at Plymouth Rock, where the Indians said “what the hell are these white people doing here and what's with those outfits”, then went back to worshipping the great outdoors and revering everything to do with animals and the land. That all changed after Europeans wiped out most of them with European diseases but, again, that’s another story. Back to getting away from all the nonsense in Europe, a lot of people still missed that old time religion, although not so much that they wanted to return to the old country, so the men started their own religious factions while traveling across country. Women didn’t get into the act until the 1800s. In no time, there were Amish, Mormons, Methodists, Baptists, Jehovah’s witnesses, Mennonites, etc. Listen to Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show by Neil Diamond or turn on the TV today and somebody is preaching about salvation, most often about sending money to keep the ‘ordained’ TV minister in Armani and a private jet (so many more stories). The new ministries mixed with the old and a sprinkling of the Big Three religions still managed to sneak into the new world, ergo St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Temple Emanu-El in NYC and the Islamic Center of America in Grand Rapids. And there you have it. That was then, this is now.

To bring this diatribe to a close and, circling back to the wise words of Bill Burr, pretty much all these religions and philosophies boiled down to: (1) the golden rule, (2) the seven deadly sins, and (3) the ten commandments, which still doesn’t explain why everyone thinks that everyone else’s religion is stupid since they’re all basically the same; ask any wiccan, dudeist, druid or radical fairy.