For the Hell of It

5/4/21

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE  by Johnny Heller

In the beginning there was the void. This was followed quickly by “void where prohibited” and “void if spindled or mutilated.” Later, there was matter and anti- matter. And What’s it Matter? and then, Jerry Matter as the Beav.

Matter and Anti-matter were, naturally, mutually dismissive of each other. In time, they decided that this was no way to carry on a relationship in the void – and as they were all the universe had to offer, they decided it was senseless to behave like petulant children or GOP Congressmen and they were both getting tired of going to happy hour alone.  So, they dropped their antipathy and picked up affinity.

After a millennium or two, it was decided that happy hour was missing something – namely bourbon manhattans. So, God, the Big Bang and Charles Darwin all got together and created mankind – as they needed someone to chill the glasses and wipe down the bar.
With the appearance of mankind came many problems — not the least of which was the need for a way for them to disagree, insult, belittle, heckle, and irritate each other without resorting to hitting each other over the head with dinosaur femurs. So, language was born, but only the French were able to do much with it.

In the earliest days, mankind found that a most agreeable existence was possible by allowing each individual to naturally gravitate to that for which they seemed most gifted and was most agreeable to them. In this way, each did his part- individually – to increase the chance of a pleasant existence for the whole.

The equality of all for the benefit of all was labeled “socialism” and was reviled by those who had no real skills save their ability to twist words, bedevil the feeble-minded and to create vast wealth for themselves for no other reason than to be able to vacation in Monaco and escape Texas during a pandemic to vacation in Mexico.

In an effort to appease the have-nots, the haves invented religion, nations, soccer, and pub crawls.  Later, after deciding that appeasing the have-nots was a waste of effort, the haves invented monarchies, wars, and political parties. This was augmented by the invention and willy-nilly distribution of firearms which were ostensibly invented and used to hunt animals who were perfectly fine up until then not being hunted at all. While a case could have been made that guns were needed to kill animals for survival, the argument soon lost steam when the same guns were used to eradicate entire indigenous populations and innocent elephants (who to this day are being shot at for no reason by Republicans and their kids. These elephants do not need to be shot and if you wanted to, you could actually shoot a roughly elephant-size structure and prove to all your bar pals that you are a fine shot without actually harming an elephant.  – follow the adventures of well-known assloafer, Wayne Lapierre for more on this abhorrent behavior ).

Eventually, mankind totally forgot their roots (and many to this day still dye everything except their roots and claim to be blond – a hair color that only exists on babies and Swedes) and tried to forge a new world based on mutually assured destruction if any one nation gets too lippy. This agreement was made possible by the bizarre industriousness of mankind who worked, almost from the start, at finding a way to destroy the very planet they inhabited. Indeed, in trying to find a way to stop Oreos from breaking apart and falling into the milk, scientists discovered nuclear bombs, hydrogen bombs and Jager Bombs – the latter winning the coveted Nobel Cocktail Prize.

Mankind, prospered in spite of itself and did little to prepare for the future – all the while pretending that they cared about children -especially ones not yet born. (The ones already born were only important if they were their own, white, or, at the very least, not immigrants.)  They used organized religion to distance themselves from each other and whatever their idea of God was. Religious leaders led mankind to make many absurd statements and to do many bizarre things – like confess sins to even bigger sinners, treat women as inferiors, pretend to love everybody – while actually hating various groups based mostly on race, income, profession –  and, of course, complain about the Grammys.

Mankind, for all the universe’s good intentions, was, for the most part, really awful. “We should’ve put puppies in charge,” the universe said. “We should’ve put women in charge instead,” the universe also said. “Men are idiots. We had to wait until now for Kamala Harris? Are you kidding me??”

Many episodes of mankind getting too damn irritating to deal with were dealt with by the great Void, Nature, God, Zeus, and Marvel Comics/Disney by sending plagues and diseases like the Black Death, Influenza, Smallpox, Fox News with Tucker Carlson, and Progressive Insurance Commercials starring Flo.

Most recently, the universe gave us Covid which many dealt with by ignoring, denying, and condemning the scientific community battling the pandemic – preferring, instead, to take the advice proffered by politicians and pompous orange-face wind bags. Many deniers even called the diseased a hoax and had to be convinced of its lethal intent by catching it and dying.

At this point, you may well be wondering: “What are we going to do? We seem to have messed up everything.” And you’d be right. We have. Here are a few ideas I have to fix things:

• Stop hating groups of people because of their ethnicity. We clearly have a human need to hate so let’s just hate individuals who merit our enmity by being buttchancres.2. Let’s agree not to think that there is only one right thing/plan/idea/system…etc.
• Let’s stop having wars. We live in a global economy and a global community – let’s tend it together.
• We’ve got to put boundaries on what we can/should do in the name of organized religion and nationalism.
• We need to concentrate on inclusiveness – what makes us all better and what affects us all together. We are so divisive – political party, religion, ethnicity, gender, even our birth decade!
• Start letting women run the show. If history is any teacher – and it is – we know men have really bollixed things up to now. Let’s stop pretending that men are better when they clearly aren’t.
• Finally, (and I grant you that there are hundreds more I can list) can we all just agree that we can’t hand out guns like Pez? I cannot understand why people get so upset when most of us ask for sensible gun ownership regulations designed to keep guns out of the hands of murderous wackjobs. How many more innocent people have to get shot before we say: “Hmmm. You know that kid down the street that likes to brutalize cats and pull the wings off of flies? Let’s make sure he doesn’t get a gun- ok?”

  Feel free to play the “Let’s fix the Universe” game at home with your family and friends! And it’s okay to mention outlawing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz! (I didn’t do that in my list because I’m so clearly apolitical!)