{"id":360,"date":"2014-12-21T14:38:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T19:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/?page_id=360"},"modified":"2014-12-21T14:39:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T19:39:05","slug":"problem-solved","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/?page_id=360","title":{"rendered":"Problem Solved"},"content":{"rendered":"

PROBLEM SOLVED!<\/span><\/p>\n

I sat there at my desk, finger poised over the enter key. I kept asking myself, over and over, \u201cCan I live with myself?\u201d A world in turmoil, people starving to death, rampant, senseless, murder on the grand scale, I could end it all with the simple stab of a finger.<\/em><\/p>\n

Damn me to hell, I pushed it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

The Happy Crab is a local watering hole in Codorus, a small borough nestled in the Appalachian foothills of southern Pennsylvania. That\u2019s where I met Marvis.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d finished my afternoon run, parked the big yellow bus in the lot, and walked the fifty paces to the Crab. Things were clouding up, a storm on the way, and I was glad to enter the cozy little bar. About halfway through my first Yuengling Lager, a stranger, accompanied by the tintinnabulation of the wind chime hanging from the front door, came in from the blustery darkening outside.<\/p>\n

He was singular in appearance. A slight fellow, the first thing I noticed after that was the Bowler hat and, right below the brim, two black circles that were the rims of coke bottle lenses. The heavy frames accented his narrow face and almost nonexistent chin. His thin lips seemed almost pursed in a tiny smile. He wore a Sherlock Holmes overcoat, you know, the kind with the half cape, and had a strange shuffle when he walked.<\/p>\n

He came up to the bar next to me, tipped his hat with slender fingers, and said, his voice thin and scratchy, \u201cHello, I\u2019m Marvis.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a good natured guy. I went with it. \u201cWell, hello Marvis,\u201d I said, \u201ccan I buy you a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked at me and blinked his eyes, which, behind those lenses, gave the impression of those Navy signaling lamps. (Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cSure,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat do you suggest?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClyde, get Marvis here a lager on me,\u201d I said to the doughy bartender who complied with his usual disinterested sluggishness. I looked at Marvis. \u201cAnd a glass, too.\u201d Clyde snorted as if I\u2019d just asked him to build a pyramid but brought a pilsner glass.<\/p>\n

I poured the lager into the glass and said, \u201cThere you go, bud. Cheers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marvis held the glass up to his hawk like nose, sniffed, then took a sip. Narrow as it was to begin with, his face immediately scrunched up and his lamp eyes flickered a quick unintelligible message. In a moment he recovered and said, \u201cThat\u2019s good!\u201d His tiny smile widened just a bit.<\/p>\n

He tipped the glass again, drained it in one long chug and exhaled loudly as he placed the glass back on the bar. \u201cYes, that\u2019s good,\u201d he said. (Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cOoo . . . \u201c He erupted a belch that got the attention of everyone in the bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake it easy,\u201d I said, laughing. \u201cYou\u2019re not supposed to inhale it. Slow down and enjoy it.\u201d After a short group laugh the bar went back to minding its own business. I spurred Clyde to bring us another round.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what brings you to this little nowhere?\u201d I asked, \u201cIt\u2019s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell (Blink, blink<\/em>), now that you\u2019ve asked,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ve come to see you. I\u2019ve got something to give you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe?\u201d I said, incredulous. \u201cGive me what?\u201d I was thinking this could be good or it could be bad. I\u2019m no holy angel and maybe one of the skeletons from my closet has come back to haunt me or maybe I hit the lottery or something.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t give it to you here,\u201d\u00a0(Blink, blink<\/em>) he said. \u201cIs there some place more private?\u201d<\/p>\n

Like I said, I\u2019m easy. So, with Marvis shuffling and puffing behind, I\u00a0led him to my apartment, another fifty paces down the road.<\/p>\n

After we\u2019d settled in, I popped a couple lagers from the fridge. He drank from the bottle this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what you got?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cAhh, right to it, eh?\u201d he said. \u201cVery well.\u201d He reached in to a breast pocket in his coat and withdrew what looked like an obsidian stone about the size of my wireless mouse. \u201cThis,\u201d he said, \u201cis a Quantum Rectifier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oboy, I thought. A rock? \u201cAnd just what is a \u2018Quantum Rectifier?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cIt \u2018rectifies\u2019 things,\u201d he said. \u201cIt can recognize types and then remove them from current causal reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, whatever you just said.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cIt\u2019s easy. Say you don\u2019t like oak trees. Set the rectifier to recognize and tag oak trees, select \u2018remove,\u2019 and all oak trees will be removed from this reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s bullshit,\u201d I said. This guy is nuttier than squirrel poop. \u201cThat\u2019s not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not, and it is,\u201d he said. (Blink, blink<\/em>) He handed it over.<\/p>\n

It felt like it weighed about five pounds and it wasn\u2019t just obsidian. It was blacker than black, light didn\u2019t reflect off it, like some kind of black hole or something.<\/p>\n

\u201cConnect that to your Internet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>) His tiny smile got smilier<\/em> and he said, \u201cJust put it\u00a0in contact with\u00a0your computer. It’ll connect automatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took it over to my desk and put it on the slim line tower. The machine came out of power down by itself and the message, \u201cnew hardware found\u201d came on, followed by \u201cyour device is ready to use.\u201d That was followed by a popup with an \u201cOK\u201d button. It said \u201cQuantum Rectifier User Interface ready. Start?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo ahead and hit start,\u201d Marvis said. (Blink, blink<\/em>)<\/p>\n

This was turning into an interesting afternoon, I thought. I clicked it.
\nThe program opened with some fancy animated graphics spinning the words \u201cQuantum Rectifier\u201d around until they settled in the middle of the screen. Then it switched to a \u201cTypecast Identifier\u201d window. There it remained with the cursor blinking in a \u201cSearch\u201d field.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d I said, \u201cnow what?\u201d<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cThink of something the world could do without,\u201d Marvis said, \u201can organism of some kind, a species, a political movement, a manmade object, anything that exists in this reality. The Identifier can even tag abstract thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean with this device I could get rid of, say, mosquitoes?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly,\u201d he said. (Blink, blink) \u201cTry it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I typed in mosquitoes. I became aware of a very low humming sound and realized it was coming from the black hole thing. Images of all different kinds of mosquitoes flooded the screen. A popup appeared over top with two choices\u2014\u201cBrowse\u201d and \u201cAll.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAll?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>) \u201cChoose all, tag them and execute and no more mosquitoes. They\u2019ll all simply disappear. Gone forever.\u201d He tipped his hat.<\/p>\n

I clicked on \u201cAll.\u201d Another popup came with \u201cAre you sure?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ha! I thought. A world with no mosquitoes? I told you I’m easy, I went with it. Why not? I clicked \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another popup said, \u201cTagged. Execute removal?\u201d There were three choices: Back, Yes, and Cancel.<\/p>\n

I hit yes. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d it queried.<\/p>\n

(Blink, blink<\/em>)<\/p>\n

I took a breath, held it a bit, then hit yes again. A progress bar came up with the legend, \u201cRemoving.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at it dumbfounded as disbelief fought with my imagination. The possibilities of such a device cascaded through my mind, adding to my confusion. Could it really be true? And why me?<\/p>\n

Marvis broke my reverie. \u201cMy time is up, I must be going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust who in the hell are you, mister?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

He cocked his Bowler topped head (Blink, blink<\/em>), \u201cJust someone who wants to help.\u201d His tiny smile became an actual smile, his parting lips revealing sharp little corn row teeth. He tipped his hat again, shuffled in his odd way straight to the front door and left. I haven\u2019t seen him since.<\/p>\n

After he left I just sat there staring at the screen. Too crazy, I thought, and I took the “stone” from its place atop my computer.\u00a0The machine complained with a department store ding!<\/em> \u201cHardware removed\u201d appeared in a little popup.<\/p>\n

I held the little empty space in my hand, cool to the touch, turned it over and over, no marks on its black on black surface. Yeah, I thought, too crazy. I tossed it into my catch all drawer in the desk and didn’t think of it again. There were a few lagers that needed to be dealt with.<\/p>\n

So life went on, I drove my bus, added numerous casualties to my perpetual war on full lager bottles and, more or less, forgot all about the mysterious stranger and his strange device.<\/p>\n

That was until I heard the news story at the Happy Crab about how the number of malaria cases worldwide had dropped to zero. The story went on to say that, after a little research, no mosquitoes of any kind could be found anywhere on the planet.<\/p>\n

Time stood still for me as I realized the terrible enormity of what lay in\u00a0the catch all drawer in my desk at home. Me, a dumb ass bus driver, I had the power to change the world, solve all its problems with a few clicks of my mouse! Mind reeling, I got a six pack from Clyde and went home.<\/p>\n

I put the object back on my computer and was soon presented with the Typecast screen. So what could we all do without? I thought.<\/p>\n

And that brings us up to the present.<\/p>\n

Yes, I pressed the \u201cYes\u201d button on the \u201cAre you sure?\u201d popup. God forgive me.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemoving,\u201d the next popup said, and the progress bar ran up to 100%. Then it disappeared leaving only the search string I had chosen. \u201cWhite People,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PROBLEM SOLVED! I sat there at my desk, finger poised over the enter key. I kept asking myself, over and over, \u201cCan I live with myself?\u201d A world in turmoil, people starving to death, rampant, senseless, murder on the grand scale, I could end it all with the simple stab of a finger. Damn me … Continue reading Problem Solved<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":282,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-360","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/360\/revisions\/362"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chitlinchildren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}