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Thanks
a lot, Mercury
by Mad Dog
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When Mercury goes
retrograde they say life becomes problematic, which is a polite
astrological way of saying everything is a pain in the ass. |
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I’m really not big on
astrology, though I will admit to taking a look at my horoscope on days
when I particularly need a morale boost. And ignoring every word of it
if I don’t like what it says. I figure if I’ve ignored every other
piece of advice I’ve been given in my life, why should I suddenly put
my trust in the planets? Though I have to say, lately I’m beginning to
think there might be something to this Mercury retrograde business.
Mercury retrograde, for those of you
who don’t make it past the daily Ben and J-Lo report in the newspaper
to get to the really good stuff, is when Mercury moves backwards in the
sky. Don’t ask me how this happens, I have no idea. Hell, I’m still
trying to figure out where reverse is on a Volkswagen, how am I supposed
to know how it works when you’re steering a planet? But apparently it
does this four times a year, for three weeks at a clip. Or so the
astrologers tell us. When Mercury goes retrograde they say life becomes
problematic, which is a polite astrological way of saying everything is
a pain in the ass. Things get lost, the simplest tasks become
ridiculously inconvenient, and you can put the adjective “broken” in
front of anything mechanical.
Yesterday was a good example. I
needed to replace a pair of shorts that became hyperventilated. Up until
then I thought I was the only one that hyperventilated when I was worn
out. I wanted simple, basic cargo shorts. After going to five stores
which all carry them, I had a choice of buying shorts which were either
four sizes too large or too small, getting a pair of long pants and
hacking the legs off, or continuing to enjoy the cool breeze that wafts
through my current pair. Final score? Mad Dog 0, Retail Merchants 0.
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I long for the
days when we could blame everything on Russia, Osama bin Laden, or El Niño.
Wasn’t it a pleasure when we could shift responsibility for anything
that went wrong to Khadafy, the Ayatollah Khomeini, or the astronauts
landing on the moon? |
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Then my reading glasses broke. Next it took seven email exchanges
with tech support so they could tell me what I knew in the first
place—in spite of the wrong information one of their own gave me
midway through the exchanges—yet they still neglected to answer my
question and tell me how to cure it. Then a car ran a stop sign, almost
plowed into me, and the driver followed me around for a while screaming
through his windshield. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
Yes, it could have been just “one
of those days.” But aren’t you tired of blaming things on a vague
“one of those days”? I am. Besides, we could use a new scapegoat. We
don’t have a good one right now and they’re very handy things to
have. I long for the days when we could blame everything on Russia,
Osama bin Laden, or El Niño.
Wasn’t it a pleasure when we could shift responsibility for anything
that went wrong to Khadafy, the Ayatollah Khomeini, or the astronauts
landing on the moon? Even Idi Amin, a great scapegoat in his day, is
dead and gone, so we can’t even consider recycling him as an excuse.
It’s true the Republicans still have the Democrats to blame for
everything, and the Democrats have the Republicans, but that’s so
Hatfield and McCoy. It’s not even scapegoating, it’s just a bad
habit at this point. So why not pin the blame on Mercury?
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Try using Mercury in your personal life. The next time
you‘re late for work just look the boss in the eye and say, “Mercury
retrograde.” |
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Since Mercury is going to go retrograde whether we like it or
not, and we can’t stop it unless we send Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck,
and Owen Wilson up in a rocket ship to blast it into another orbit, we
might as well use it to our advantage. You can’t find weapons of mass
destruction or the guy you say had them built? Blame it on Mercury.
Power goes out in seven states for 24 hours? Mercury again. You say
you’re a resident of California and you’re the only one on your
block who missed the deadline to run for governor in the recall
election? It’s Mercury, of course! How better to explain why two
companies which have developed an impotence drug they hope to have on
the market soon, Bayer Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline, have signed
on to be “Proud Sponsors of the National Football League”? Okay,
that’s greed. I guess we can’t blame everything on Mercury. But you
have to admit you’re going to giggle every time you see a commercial
that tells you to, “Score with Levitra!”
Try using Mercury in your personal
life. The next time you‘re late for work just look the boss in the eye
and say, “Mercury retrograde.” When you forget your wedding
anniversary for the third year in a row you can shrug your shoulders and
say, “Hey, Mercury’s retrograde.” And if you climb to the top of
the tallest building in town and snipe 24 innocent people—hey, it’s
Mercury! You’ll probably never find a more useful planetary scapegoat.
©2003 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
If you can't find one, blame Mercury.
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