Saturday, 23 August 2025

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

 

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

 

“Down, down, down we go, down the rabbit hole.

Hello, Alice, we’re ready to follow, swallowed whole.

Wonderland, wonderland, ready or not,

Down we come with the whole damn lot!”

 

The world around me baffles me now more than ever.  Is it the size of the human crowd that makes individuals want to get noticed, in word and deed and with increasingly strange exhibits of appearances and behavior?  Is it something in our food?  Human behavior is getting weirder by the day.  Lately I feel trapped as in permanently stuck inside a brand new chapter of Alice in Wonderland and en masse we have jumped down the rabbit hole to join the Mad Hatter and all the other bizarre characters.  Nothing appears to be off limits, from appearances to lifestyles.  When filling out a form for direct deposits and withdrawals I came across a line that is now gracing most official forms, especially government issued and from large institutions.  By and large it sparked this tale.




How do you identify?  Male, female or other?  It is the other that is slightly mystifying.  Rather than biological gender it refers to orientation.  Why is it necessary to define your sexual preference or orientation?  Isn’t your orientation your own business and nobody else’s?  Why publicize it?  Is it gay/male or gay/female?  Q stands for sitting on the fence when you’re not so sure as to what you really want to be or are.  And is it transgender with or without parts?  What if I put down under other; serial killer?  Would it raise eyebrows?  Or would a filing clerk merely shrug his or her or ‘other’ shoulder rather indifferently with a “Well, that’s different.” And then move on to the next form.  Why put an exclusion into inclusivity?  Woke culture, political correctness, don’t ask, don’t tell; why are we complicating our societies with an almost counter-culture vengeance with everybody trying to prove a point, or score a point.  Why can’t we simply accept who and what we are?  Period!

My brain, just like yours, has a habit to embark on some strange detours while contemplating my thoughts and attempting to put some order to it.  Total failure most of the time and I hazard to guess that is something we all have in common.  Honestly, I feel we’ve all been stuck in Wonderland for an awfully long time and just failed to notice.  Has anything made sense to you lately?

The hop and skip of my mind inserted what comes next.




I was reminded of the following.  It is part of a true hunting story.  Way up in Canada’s north, a group of wannabe hunters excited their motel rooms to set out to a hunting camp.  All dressed in camouflage, orange caps, gun cases in hand, slightly bleary eyed from a previous evening drinking binge.  An old geezer, a life-long northerner, eyes the bunch with disgust and mutters, “If deer had guns none of you silly buggers would come back out alive.”

It spurned the following silly thoughts and it is such a perfect fit with Alice and her wonderful tales of crazy adventures and nonsensical conversations with equally crazy characters.  Mommy and Bambi are hiking through the woods and Mommy whispers to Bambi to be very quiet.

“Why, Mommy?”

“We are going to bag ourselves some hunters.”

“Why, Mommy?  Aren’t we vegetarians?  And what do we do with the bodies?

“We leave them to the carnivores as a treat.”

“Single shot, Mommy, or do we let her rip?”

Real hunters use hunting rifles and they don’t carry heavy duty automatic assault weapons, the kind the military uses to kill the enemy.  Unless you’re a hunter who wants to be assured of a kill that turns deer into instant hamburger replete with pieces of skin, hair and shrapnel.  An awful lot of these lethal weapons are sold on a regular basis in the US.

Which brings me to the next part of my insanity trip and it plays out in an American gun shop.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something that packs a punch, lots of bullets.”

“An assault rifle, automatic, 50 rounds per minute?”

“Perfect.”

“You will have to fill out this form.  Just a formality.  How do you identify?  Male, female or other?”

“Serial killer.”

“Okay, a bit different.  So, what are you aiming to kill?”

“Rodents, big ones.  Where I live I’m surrounded by them.”

“Sign here!”


 

Back to Mommy and Bambi.

“Why are those men wearing camouflage, Mommy?”

“It is camo, dear.  The true hunter says camo.  It is a man-thing, camo.  A short form.  Americans especially love them.”

“But why are they wearing those orange caps?”

“Just to make sure that they don’t shoot each other.”

“How close before we fire?”

“Well, sport, I want to see the white of their eyes.  More fun that way.”

Crazy?

You decide.  What inspired this tale?

Do we really give each other a chance?  Do we even listen and pay attention?  Alice’s story is one of make-believe and yet it feels as if we have joined her down the rabbit hole.  A crazy world filled with contradictions.  With stupidity and ignorance.  If only it were part of an actual fairytale and not a sad reality.

The sane always fear the insane because one knows what to expect from the sane, whereas the unexpected from the insane is guaranteed.”

 

 

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