THIS IS YOUR WAKE-UP CALL-IT'S DARWIN CALLING

Good morning. This is your wake-up call. It's from Darwin ... I'm trying to isolate the exact moment we turned into Trash Nation, and nearest I can tell, it was one second after Nancy Kerrigan took a telescoping blackjack to the knee. Now there was a cute little soap opera. What an absolutely fascinating underwater view into the Kmart inflatable backyard America gene pool. I have a dirty little confession. I loved it! We may have learned everything we needed to know about life in Kindergarten. But you know what? We can learn everything we need to know about the incredibly rude, selfish, infantile country we've become by observing the human spokes revolving around the Tonya Harding sociocultural axis. The Greeks reveled in Homeric tragicomedies; the English lived out Shakespearean dramas. But we, America, are the cast of the Kerrigan farce. Is it any wonder we've thrown manners, compassion and respect out the window? We've become one big, self-absorbed nation holding up an ice skate, pointing at a broken lace and blubbering our eyes out. We don't know our neighbors anymore. We have no shame, no consideration, no sense of duty or sacrifice. Need more metaphors? We don't go the extra mile, meet anyone halfway, and if, somehow, somewhere, anything at all goes wrong in our pathetic daily wanderings, if some random misfortune drops at our feet and splatters like a Taco Supreme, we don't commence to tidying up the floor and getting on with our lives. We start making a litigious radar sweep of the room, seeing if there's anyone in recrimination range, some entitlement cadet to whom we can construct a Bridge-over-the-River-Kwai blame-path of tortured logic and sheer, reality-sculpting self-deception. Maybe they handled a taco once, maybe even MADE tacos. Maybe they could have warned you~~yes, they knew all about that treacherously viscous emulsion of grease and sour cream on wax wrapper. They deliberately chose not to say anything as they saw it slipping out of your hand in Peckinpah slow motion while you were trying to eat, talk on the phone and log on to eBay at the same time. Well, here's a news flash for you. Believe it or not, the blacks and the gays and the Jews did not drop your taco. YOU dropped the fucking taco, my friend! It doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't even mean it's your fault. What it does mean is that this cosmic slapstick we call life has just elected you the schmuck who has to go get the mop. So go get the goddamn mop already! Don't just stand there staring down, reliving the lunch-that-could-have- been and trying to figure out how affirmative action did this to you. That's just the way life is. It can be exquisite, cruel, frequently wacky, but above all utterly, utterly random. Those twin imposters in the bell-fringed jester hats, Justice and Fairness~~they aren't contestants of the natural order like entropy and the periodic table. They're completely alien notions to the way things happen out there in the human rain forest. Justice and Fairness are the things WE'RE supposed to contribute back to the world for giving us the gift of life~~not birthrights we should expect and demand every second of the day.

What do you say we drop the intellectual cowardice? There is no fate, and there is no safety net. I'm not saying God doesn't exist. I believe in God. But he's not a micromanager, so stop asking him to drop the crisis in Rwanda and help you find your wallet. Life is a long, lonely journey down a day-in-day-out lard-trail of dropped tacos. Mop it up, not for yourself, but for the guy behind you who's too busy trying not to drop his own tacos to make sure he doesn't slip and fall on your mistakes. So don't begrudge the poor because they have a fucking food stamp.DON'T speed and weave in traffic; other people have babies in their cars. DON'T litter. DON'T be rude to overwhelmed minimum-wage sales clerks, especially teenagers~~they have that job because they don't have a clue. You didn't either at that age. Be understanding with them. Share your clues. Remember that your sense of humor is inversely proportional to your tolerance. Stop and think on Veterans Day. And don't forget to vote. That is, unless you send money to TV preachers, have more than a passing interest in alien abduction or recently purchased a fish on a wall plaque that sings, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." In that case, the polls are a scary place! Under every ballot box is a trapdoor chute to an extraterrestrial escape pod filled with dental tools and squeaking, masturbating little green men from Devil Star. In conclusion, keep your chins up, grab your mops and get in the game. You don't have to make a pile of money or change society. Just clean up after yourselves without complaining. And, above all, please stop and appreciate the days when tacos don't fall, and give heartfelt thanks to whomever you pray to.

Credit: Tim Dorsey