The Perfect Life #13 by Dr. Perfect

Reality Training

Dear Dr. Perfect,

I don’t know how to deal with my sister-in-law, who is suffering from delusions. She insists that Joe Biden is the President and that COVID-19 is a legitimate disease and not simply a hoax. When I call her out on such dangerous beliefs, she enumerates evidence, as if evidence can be anything other than a smokescreen generated by the illuminati to distract the rubes. She refuses to let my nephew join me in militia training. I am so worried about his future. What can I do?

Sincerely,

Armed and concerned

————————-

Dear Armed & concerned,

Your sister-in-law is in tuned to the alternative facts we’ve heard so much about. I admire her tenacity. Anyone can cite unsubstantiated reports on who’s president and for how long. Open up any newspaper and you’ll find the same lies smeared across the pages in fresh ink.  And if you don’t like the outcome of something, just wish it away like a distant dream. We’re living in the age of relativity, my friend. If something isn’t to your liking, just say that it isn’t so.

Just the other day, I heard some crackpot on the Internet say that time travel was indeed possible through wormholes or something. Another claimed that dinosaurs never really existed. I dismissed them outright, walked away from my laptop, and then sat within my Zen garden, doubting my once grounded beliefs. All it takes is a little crack at the foundation to throw everything into question.

There’s no future in joining a militia, frankly. They’re not quite the résumé enhancer your nephew may be looking for. Are you really prepared to fight the federal government, or is this just a ploy to meet girls? I’m not certain if either would work due to the bad rep militias have gotten in the press over the years. I’m sure that your grizzly gang of rebels pack a punch, but you’re not going to get very far without the support of boorish late-night comics and pampered, prime-time pundits. You must reform and strategize. Decide if there are better, less antiquated ways to defend freedom.

You could support a bald eagle sanctuary or sweep the floors at the local VFW. And there’s no time like the present to take up model building, taxidermy, or a variety of activities less provocative than your average militia duties. I always recommend model building to my readers. It just tends to put me at ease. And once those paint fumes kick in after a few shots of Irish whisky, you’re in a deeply patriotic place.

I’m guessing that your sister got her COVID-19 vaccine and proudly posted about it on social media. I can see the pictures of her freckled arm and band-aid closeup followed by her vaccination record. Good for her. While she’s basking in “likes” for her heroic duty, you’re languishing in the shadows, unvaccinated and perplexed. Perhaps the pandemic is real to a certain extent, as real as the biased news media wants us to believe. They’re certainly no strangers to sensationalism.

Try a fun exercise. For the next week, pretend that everything you see on the news is real. Whisk yourself away to the paragon of propaganda that is your local newspaper from the local grocer and give it a read. Watch the evening news with a big smile on your face, taking in everything they say at face value. Forage through NPR articles online for the “right” way to think. You must be smiling for this experiment to work. You’ll also begin to understand the very lies you’re trying to suppress with the nuanced understanding of Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French philosopher and historian.

Like you, he was trying to make sense of things, most notably, the madness of the French Revolution. He traveled to America in its infancy to write about the New World from a first-hand perspective. A hundred and some odd years, we’re on the cusp of about a dozen mini revolutions from all political factions, including your own lofty pursuits. You see, Armed & Dangerous, the times never really change, and neither do we. And I address you as such to call-back to one of my favorite John Candy films of the 1980s. Wait a minute, I was thinking of Uncle Buck!

Last I checked, Joe Biden was sworn in, and while he remains the oldest of the exceedingly decrepit Washington politicians, he is the president. I can understand your befuddlement when you were told there was a plan or that Trump would implement martial law or that the pope was under house arrest or whatever fantastical scenario you’ve heard. Most of these conspiracy types are just messing with you for their own amusement, much in the way the national news media enjoys tweaking you with comments about “the fairest election in modern history.” They know it drives you and your militia friends crazy. Be smart, take refuge in your bunker, and don’t emerge until all is right in the world. I’ll send for you once it’s safe.

We’re expected to put aside our differences for the greater good and get along with one another, respecting different viewpoints and ultimately moving things along. The problem is that we’re not robots, and even if we were robots, we’d still find something to argue about. I have a few robot designs in mind far more energy efficient than what’s currently on the horizon. My robots are powered by the complete and innate satisfaction of serving their human masters.

I might have left you in a higher state of confusion than before. The truth we’re all just pawns for the elite. Aliens have been studying us for decades. The Pentagon confirmed as much.

These aliens are going to wait a little while longer.

Just you see.

Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

The Perfect Life #12 by Dr. Perfect

The Rage of Chinguardians

Dear Dr. Perfect

I am afraid to go outside in the time of COVID-19 since people are so stupid. How hard is it to socially distance and wear a mask over one’s nose and mouth? Every time I see a nose sticking out over a mask, I feel like I have witnessed a sex crime. Is our country doomed to such stupidity?

Sincerely,

Incensed and afraid

—————————-

Dear Incensed and afraid,

I too ponder the intricacies of wearing a face mask under one’s nose. Some intrepid mask wearers believe that their nostrils are an adequate filter on their own, which they are in a very general sense, having a forest of nostril hair between them and your lungs. Or perhaps the mask wearer is content at displaying the most minimal effort possible to simply say, “At least I tried.” This occurs when such precautions take the form of image over a real emphasis on public health.

Such half-assed approaches can be found in other instances, like wearing a pair of pants without a belt or conjuring up a dissertation off the top of your head, using index cards. My pergola porch is a perfect example. The contractors I hired did a subpar job. I knew something was off when the contractors initially estimated seven weeks for completion. It actually took fifteen, and their shoddy craftsmanship wasn’t worth the already low amount I had haggled them to. Come to think of it, I’m even not sure if they were real carpenters. They looked awfully young in their matching jumpsuits.

Texting and driving puts everyone around you at risk, but we do it anyway. We sometimes shift lanes without signaling, or stir our fresh margaritas from behind the wheel. Complacency begets carelessness, which naturally leads to stupidity. You’ve probably seen brazen pedestrians dart across a busy crosswalk, staring into their cell phones without pause or concern. They don’t stop to think that the driver barreling toward them could be just as lost in their phone as well. In the words of the immortal Stephen Tyler, we’re all just living on the edge, in one giant self-centered petri dish with more creature comforts than we know what to do with.

The simplest solution in dealing with mask posers is to report them to the nearest authorities. If that sounds too harsh, grab your cell phone and proceed to berate them in a hysterical fashion while live streaming the public shaming ritual for all to see. Those types of videos usually come off pretty well.

Are mask sizing issues worthy of exploration? Is it possible to consciously purchase an ill-fitting mask and wear it anyway? I’d like to see a study on this. It could bring us closer to understanding the droopy mask phenomenon before us. I can’t justify the actions of these mask offenders, Incensed and Afraid. Perhaps we are doomed to a thousand years of addled grievances throughout the dark winter of our souls. My advice is to wear three to four masks just to make a statement.

I’m no economist, but something irks me about profligate spending. Our government spends money at an astronomical rate, printing and borrowing us into oblivion. Some might call this careless act of governance risky in itself. The devaluing of our dollar eventually renders those stimulus pity checks meaningless. Speaking of money, I’m getting into this corporate cultural censorship action like there’s no tomorrow. My vintage copies of yanked Dr. Seuss books are selling like crazy on eBay. Add this to my Special Freedom Edition Pepe Le Pew Looney Tunes DVDs and expired boxes of hydroxychloroquine, and I’ll have plenty of scratch. I can finally retire and move to Antarctica like I had always planned. Sure, it’s cold there, but I’ll make it work. Don’t try to find me.

Don’t lose hope though. For every mask-dangling dolt, there’re people writing symphonies or engineering the latest Mars rover. And what of Mars? Can we move there yet? Would we want to move there?

The lack of an atmosphere might be a problem. The sloven masses would probably just follow us there anyway, and we’d be right back to a planet teetering on the brink in no time. If you’re anything like me, you’ve tired of hearing wealthy celebrities and politicians tell us to “do our part” to achieve x, y, or z. By answering these advice letters, I am doing my part, thank you, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

At fifteen, I was raiding my mother’s pantry for Little Debbie’s and sneaking peeks at Miss July in father’s Playboy magazine. I’ve come a lot further since then. I can buy my own Little Debbie snacks now and watch all the free porn I want. But I chose to do neither. What kind of perfect life would that be? You mustn’t live your life in fear, regardless of others flagrantly disregarding COVID etiquette.

Step outside and breathe in the fresh air. Despite the endless apocalyptic rhetoric, the birds are still flying, the bees are still pollinating, and those neighborhood cats are still going through your trashcan. Hiding under your bed with desert goggles and a face scarf might seem appealing at first, but it gets old after the first few months of lockdowns. I know this from experience. You have nothing to fear but fear itself and the likelihood of contracting COVID.

It’s a tough call.

Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.