Operation Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang

At the beginning of each episode of A&E’s reality program Hoarders the viewer is informed that there are millions of Americans afflicted with what is called “Compulsive hoarding disorder”. Accompanied by the eerie ding of a piano key the text on the screen also states clearly “that there is no known cure for this behavior.”

You are then subject to a disgusting, mind numbing hour long trip into the hovels and filth ridden dens of people who just can’t seem to pick up after themselves. Psychologists and “organization experts” enter the wreckage and try to straighten up the home. They patiently listen to the woeful wailings and inane ramblings of the program’s star hoarder of the week as the afflicted loses his or her mind over some tattered refuse being thrown into a dumpster. It is a grim scene, one I find not only disturbing but also a complete and utter waste of everyone’s time.

Allow me to elaborate.

By the program’s own admission, “there is no known cure” for these people. If this is true then I have to ask,” What the Christ is everyone doing there?” You are just going to clean the place up and the nut job that lives in the self-made outhouse will fill it back up with another treasure trove of trash. I suppose if one wants a bit of job security this makes sense, but for me it looks like nothing more than a dog and pony show.

Wouldn’t it be more honest for the program’s preamble to read:

 “We are about to rape your eyes with the lifestyle of a mental patient for which there is no hope or cure. In the next hour, we will wander about spouting off useless and half-baked theories in an attempt to entertain as well as sicken you. Enjoy.”

I do not pretend to have a cure for hoarding and all the dangers it breeds, but I do have a solution, and I call it “Operation Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang”, as it was inspired by the Child Catcher character from the film.

 My plan requires the formation of two three man teams, Alpha and Bravo.

Phase one: Alpha team parks a pack van in a conspicuous location in front of the hoarder’s residence. Placing signs on the sides and rear of said van that read “Free for the taking”. Pull the ramp down for easy access to the piles of useless items inside the box part of the truck. Once the trap is set, Alpha team redeploys to a position out of site of the van where they will equip themselves with large butterfly nets in case the hoarder tries to get away.

Phase two: The temptation of unknown treasures before their very eyes will be too much for any hoarder to resist and they will eventually totter out of their hovels and up the ramp. When the Nutter is in the truck two members of Bravo team race from their hiding place around the corner and slam the door shut, thereby trapping the loon for safe transport. The third member of Bravo team simultaneously runs up and kicks in the door of the Hoarder’s residence throwing a Molotov cocktail into the recently vacated domicile.

Phase three: Open the door to the van and allow the captured crazy to see the destruction of all his/her dreams and to give them a false sense of hope of freedom. Once accomplished, the use of pepper spray, though unnecessary at this point, is still encouraged to subdue the distressed further. Slam the door back down and drive to the Loony Bin where your charge will spend the rest of his/her days dreaming of dented cans and filth while doing the Thorazine shuffle.

Though Operation CCBB will not have the “Feel Good” flavor of the current program I believe it would have greater positive effect overall. The removal of an insane person from an unhealthy and dangerous environment is but one of the beneficial effects of my solution. There also comes into play the raising of property values by removing the eyesore that once was the blight of the neighborhood, not to mention the entertainment value.

Allen R Butler

Reunions: the bare facts.

"Having a wee bit of fun 1984 style"

Have you ever wondered what happened to all those people you once knew in High School? Those friends or enemies of an age long since past? You would not be completely alone if you did, for it seems much of the hype behind High School reunions is couched in such curiosity. Every year millions of Alumni across the nation get together for trips down “memory lane” accompanied by cheap food, weak drinks, and small talk.  Some travel across the country in eager anticipation of seeing some of those persons who were once called friends. I am a little baffled over this phenomena as the question of “where are they now?” never poses any difficulty, as I can honestly state “I really don’t care.”

I say this not out of anger or contempt, but from a purely practical point of view, for if I really wanted to know what a classmate has done with his/her life I think I would have made an effort to contact them by now. So too would I expect the same, and if some former school mate of mine does not have the wherewithal to understand this simple concept then no amount of small talk will ever overcome their lack of intelligence.

I sure enough wouldn’t sit and wait twenty five years to say; “hey how have you been?”

“Oh pretty good Al, except I could’ve used your help ten years back while I was being raped in prison”.

“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t be there for you. Did you see Jeanie? Man did she get fat or what?”

To be completely honest it is not so much curiosity that spurs people on to these events but a desire to measure one’s life. In essence, to see who has succeeded and who has failed. Ask anyone who has gone to a reunion and they will quickly be able to point out not only how far down the social ladder the captain of the football team has fallen, but do so with a self-satisfied smile upon their face. For that is the crux of the matter. You can wrap it up in any feel good packaging you want, and pretend that the balding middle aged man across the room is your dear friend, though you don’t even know where he lives. But, more importantly, you can sit back and take pleasure in the fact that the same man was once the school Casanova, the desire of so many teen aged girl crushes, yet is now marked by age and rather a mere shadow of his former self.

Or on the opposite track you may find yourself bypassing all the supposed “winners” from High School with your own achievements. Now that is an experience worth shooting for isn’t it? Travelling hundreds if not thousands of miles to stand in a gymnasium and strut before strangers who barely remember your name and don’t really care whether or not if you live or die. I cannot help but think “How utterly futile and stupid”. Will such a moment produce a lasting positive effect on your life? I doubt any pleasure derived from such an act would persist beyond waking the following morning. If it does well then, I am sorry, for your current circumstance must be rather dull and unhappy.

For me I have no desire to dig up the ghosts of the past, there’s no upside to it. Neither do I feel the need to unzip my pants and measure the length of my manhood. I already know how much larger it is than all of those who need the reassurance of reunions to give them self-confidence.

Cheer up though, it's Friday.

Allen R. Butler

Another Race Baiter

"Everything [Obama] does is subject to a different lens and seen through a microscope that really tends to pick him apart. I think it's indivisible from the broader issue of his race, of his being a black man with a certain kind of authority. These are impolite things we don't want to talk about. We think that they're being extraordinary ratcheted up. But I don't see any other way to explain it but a remarkable resistance to the integrity of this man that has no other explanation." --Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson

Upon reading the above statement from a learned and revered professor of Sociology at one of our more prestigious universities, I could not help but thank God I did not attend that institution.

Dr. Dyson needs to put aside this proclivity to lean on race as the “go to” answer on issues surrounding President Obama and look more to the man. Most assuredly Obama is black, yet the general disdain for him resides not in that fact, but quite simply in the President’s doltish and oft times ridiculous behavior. His attempt to “dress down” the Supreme Court in which this supposed scholar of Constitutional law displayed his ignorance of the very basic concept of the separation of powers is a good example of which I speak. Not to mention the stale dogmatic proclamations of his “Hard work in creating jobs”. Jobs that never come into being because, only the private sector can create jobs not government. His pandering to the poor, feeling their pain, with homespun demagoguery, while his wife is relaxing in Hawaii on the taxpayers dime could be viewed in a negative light no matter what race the man is no?. Perhaps Mr. Dyson the American people have realized that the man who occupies the empty suit isn’t so much a black man but a dumb one, and in so doing have learned they have been duped.

Allen R. Butler