The self-important need your help
Well I thought I'd chime in with a thought I had...
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I'm ordinary.
Let me explain that. You see, every time I drive to work and back I see all these other people who must be really important. You can tell it by the way they drive.
Go down I-635 (aka the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway, or just "LBJ") any time and you'll see what I mean. It's a 60 MPH zone along there but you'll see all these people with jobs so important that they have to go faster. The trouble is there are so many of them that the road is clogged, so they tailgate the car in front or change lanes all the time, so that everyone can see how important they are.
And their jobs must be important, right? So important that they'll risk their lives to get there as quickly as they can. So important, in fact, that they'll risk your life too. It's nice to know that if I get walloped into a hospital bed, or a wheelchair, or a wooden box, that at least it was because the driver who did it was an Important Person with an Important Job. I'm just as sure that my family will see it the same way. They'll say, "We're just so happy that he was walloped into a hospital bed/wheelchair/wooden box by an Important Person on their way to do an Important Job - at least it wasn't a waste".
The thing is, how is it that so many people have such Important Jobs? It seems that more than half of the drivers on the road at that time of the day are Important People. All I can tell you about these people is that most of them probably work in downtown Dallas, because so many of them rush importantly down I-35E and leave LBJ free for mostly Ordinary People like me (there are still a few Important People zooming along LBJ; I guess they have Important Jobs around the airport)
There is another possibility, of course, and that's that a lot of those people aren't really important at all, but they like to look as if they are. To that end they drive like real Important People and hope the rest of us don't notice the difference. In other words they'll risk death ("Death: the permanent cessation of all vital functions; the end of life") for themselves or others rather than admit that they might not be Important People.
I'm sure I'm right. Because to tell you the truth, I can't think of many jobs that are so important that a sane, rational person would risk their own and other people's lives to get to it. Thinking about it, it isn't even logical: if you have an Important Job and kill yourself trying to do it, then it doesn't get done, right? Because you're dead, right?
Ergo, there can't be any such thing as a job so important that you'd risk your life to do it. If any job was that important, then there would be plans, organizations, maybe entire government departments devoted to making sure that the people doing it stay alive. That's why the President has a herd of Secret Service guys around whenever he's in public - because his job is so important.
(Note that I say the job is important, not the President. Any other time I would say both were equally important but in Dubya's case I think the Secret Service guys should be replaced by a troupe of, say, Agent Smith action figures. But I digress.)
So if there can't logically be a job that's so important it's worth dying for, that can mean only one thing. We have large numbers of people driving around who only think that they, and their jobs, are that important.
These people need our help. The rest of us - Ordinary People like you and me who accept their jobs for what they are; just a way to make the money we need to finance our lives outside the workplace - must find a way to help these poor victims of self-importance. To that end...
I'm starting a campaign to help these people. It's called People For Ordinary Rational Driving, or PFORD for short. The campaign needs your help, and more than that it needs your money. Make checks and money orders payable to PFORD. Send cash. It will all be going to a good cause.
It's important.
----
----
I'm ordinary.
Let me explain that. You see, every time I drive to work and back I see all these other people who must be really important. You can tell it by the way they drive.
Go down I-635 (aka the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway, or just "LBJ") any time and you'll see what I mean. It's a 60 MPH zone along there but you'll see all these people with jobs so important that they have to go faster. The trouble is there are so many of them that the road is clogged, so they tailgate the car in front or change lanes all the time, so that everyone can see how important they are.
And their jobs must be important, right? So important that they'll risk their lives to get there as quickly as they can. So important, in fact, that they'll risk your life too. It's nice to know that if I get walloped into a hospital bed, or a wheelchair, or a wooden box, that at least it was because the driver who did it was an Important Person with an Important Job. I'm just as sure that my family will see it the same way. They'll say, "We're just so happy that he was walloped into a hospital bed/wheelchair/wooden box by an Important Person on their way to do an Important Job - at least it wasn't a waste".
The thing is, how is it that so many people have such Important Jobs? It seems that more than half of the drivers on the road at that time of the day are Important People. All I can tell you about these people is that most of them probably work in downtown Dallas, because so many of them rush importantly down I-35E and leave LBJ free for mostly Ordinary People like me (there are still a few Important People zooming along LBJ; I guess they have Important Jobs around the airport)
There is another possibility, of course, and that's that a lot of those people aren't really important at all, but they like to look as if they are. To that end they drive like real Important People and hope the rest of us don't notice the difference. In other words they'll risk death ("Death: the permanent cessation of all vital functions; the end of life") for themselves or others rather than admit that they might not be Important People.
I'm sure I'm right. Because to tell you the truth, I can't think of many jobs that are so important that a sane, rational person would risk their own and other people's lives to get to it. Thinking about it, it isn't even logical: if you have an Important Job and kill yourself trying to do it, then it doesn't get done, right? Because you're dead, right?
Ergo, there can't be any such thing as a job so important that you'd risk your life to do it. If any job was that important, then there would be plans, organizations, maybe entire government departments devoted to making sure that the people doing it stay alive. That's why the President has a herd of Secret Service guys around whenever he's in public - because his job is so important.
(Note that I say the job is important, not the President. Any other time I would say both were equally important but in Dubya's case I think the Secret Service guys should be replaced by a troupe of, say, Agent Smith action figures. But I digress.)
So if there can't logically be a job that's so important it's worth dying for, that can mean only one thing. We have large numbers of people driving around who only think that they, and their jobs, are that important.
These people need our help. The rest of us - Ordinary People like you and me who accept their jobs for what they are; just a way to make the money we need to finance our lives outside the workplace - must find a way to help these poor victims of self-importance. To that end...
I'm starting a campaign to help these people. It's called People For Ordinary Rational Driving, or PFORD for short. The campaign needs your help, and more than that it needs your money. Make checks and money orders payable to PFORD. Send cash. It will all be going to a good cause.
It's important.
----
1 Comments:
I'm positive that I would be much happier were you to be mashed into oblivion by an Important Person. Golly I'd feel lots better.
Also, the driving thing is so true. In fact, I'll write my own add-on to that one diretly on the page. :o)
Your wife :o)
By
Kate Ford, at 7:35 PM
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