Soulless Clipboard Ladies Aren't Always Women

  • By Mike Dewey
  • March 10, 2013
  • 309
                        
SUMMARY: No one cares about someone else's troubles and that's just the way it goes, but Mike Dewey wants to believe it can be different. In the end, though, he's not convinced. People in positions of power make important decisions that hardly ever impact their privileged lives. This is the way the world works ... or fails to. We've all been punished by those who have no consideration for us and our day-to-day existence. Kill or be killed. You know the food chain. Fight or flight. Same thing. Survival of the fittest. Darwin was all over this factoid, last century. Sure, you know all about evolution and how it was considered only a "theory," and how church and state clashed on this vital contribution to modern thought. For a primer on this battle between zealots, I recommend "Inherit the Wind," starring Spencer Tracy and Frederic March. The Scopes Monkey Trial ... all that noise. My favorite interlude -- the crux of the confusion, the crucible of credibility -- is the scene in which Tracy asks his opponent,"Where'd she come from?" "Who?" "Mrs. Cain," Tracy answers, holding the Bible in which can be found references to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, but then all of a sudden, there's this other woman. Where she'd come from, indeed? "Suppose someone pulled another creation in the next county?" Tracy asks. It's a sublime moment, one the resonates to this night. The world is filled with the wonder of unanswerable questions. Should I quit this job, which is utterly unfulfilling but helps pay the bills? Should I leave my spouse, who probably hates me? Should I junk my car, my faithful friend? Should I give up and say, "Life is just too hard?" Should I swallow the Jim Jones Kool-Aid? I don't know anyone, literally, who's happy. Not a single soul. Then again, I'd always been an optimistic person, which placed me in a special box, a single cell of misguided notions, some of which actually involved joy. No more of that. We're all damaged. We're all alone. And we're all facing decisions we never thought we'd have to make. "MR. DEWEY," THE SOULESS LADY holding the clipboard said. "Can you hear me?" What a stupid question. Stuck in a hospital waiting room, sitting there, waiting for better news, knowing somehow that it was only going to get much worse. "No," I said. A simple lie, one that I aimed heaven-ward, knowing the game was over. And that wasn't the answer she wanted, the cold-hearted succubus. She wanted me to say, "Yes," and then I'd sign a piece of paper that would kill my father. How did I ever get put in that position? Well, you know the answer. It simply happens. Dad didn't want to die. I knew that. Not that it mattered. That hospital wanted the bed space. So his fate wasn't in my hands. And then it was. "You'll have to sign this," the Soulless Clipboard lady sign said. A DNR order. Do Not Resuscitate. Trust me. You do not want to have to affix your name to that kind of death warrant. "No," I said, again. But I did. God help me, in the end, the Soulless Clipboard Lady got her way, thus condemning me to my hellish fate. Dad, as she'd implied, never walked out of that place. Another bed empty bed awaited. And the Soulless Clipboard Lady smiled. Those were dark days, my friends, full of empty phrases like "quality of life" and "this is what he'd want" and "face financial reality" and "he's lived a long, full life." Maybe that's when I stopped being an optimistic person. Now, I can't even remember what it feels like to believe that tomorrow could be better than today and I don't ever expect to feel that way again. Powerful people exist and their sole goal is to beat optimists to a bloody pulp. "See!" they'll howl, stepping on your neck and crushing your spine. "This is was you get for believing that you'd ever have another happy day in your miserable life!" Think I'm exaggerating? Doesn't matter. In Jackson Browne's immortal words, don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet. NOW, I COULDN'T CARE less about people in positions of power. There's hardly a spark of humanity in any of them. These days, almost everyone's out for themselves. I don't have the energy to fight the good fight anymore. I know what Darwin understood way back. No one looks out of the little guy. Survival is a zero-sum game, one that ensures that unless you're willing to draw that dagger, you'll surely be sliced by it. Passive/aggressive is the new peace/love. Meet the new boss. Worse than the old boss. Pick up a paperback copy of Orwell's "1984" sometime. Oh, wait. There are no more bookstores and libraries are dying. Well, you'll have trust me. There's wisdom in those pages. No one wants to hear it, but unless you're rich, you're trash. The world's filled with Soulless Clipboard Ladies and all they want is for you to sign on the dotted line. Then they drive home in a BMW convertible, open a bottle of Chardonnay, light a lot of candles, sink their worthless hides into a steaming bubble bath and figure out how to ruin someone else's life tomorrow. The Soulless Clipboard Ladies run the world now. You have to be vigilant to see them. They cast no shadows, leave no traces and collect immense amounts of money, which they spend on cruises. I think of Randle Patrick McMurphy and how he tried to choke the life out of Nurse Ratched, the quintessential Soulless Clipboard Lady. Didn't matter that he was right about her inherent evil. They lobotomized him and left him for dead. Quality of life, indeed. What he'd want. All that noise. And then, silence. No chance to fight back against the Soulless Clipboard Ladies. As if you had one in the first place. You want my advice? Fire up your turntable, throw on a record that makes you feel better and escape into your own thoughts and memories, better ones, good ones, great ones. And then hope that tomorrow never comes, but that if it does, it might be marginally less worse than you'd imagined. Mike Dewey can be reached at 252-617-8637 or at 6211 Cardinal Drive. You can also email him at CarolinamikeD@aol.com. His work appears on Facebook and it's a cool gathering place, filled with good times and fine music, letters and columns, photos and surveys, just waiting for someone like you. No Soulless Clipboard Ladies allowed.


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