Since I’m focusing here on behavior of a specific person, I’ll let pass fact that no one at this venerable bank—THE SOLE FUNCTION OF WHICH IS TO HANDLE MONEY!—was able to prevent blatantly bogus currency from infiltrating its stock. As disappointed as I was by this circumstance, I’ll keep to my teller, who (her immediate triggering of a hideous psychosomatic rash on my chin, notwithstanding) had still not committed most egregious and damaging of her offenses.

Hardly. When I protested her action and was, for a solid hour, left to watch her engage in round upon round of whispered phone conversations and huddled meetings, she had temerity to come back and tell me: "[The bank] has ELECTED [emphasis mine] to reimburse you."

Now I‘ll concede that, in matter of punitive measures, antics I’ve described prior to this point may not justify penalties more severe than a modest fine and several weekends of community service. But, in my judgment, when you add condescension to rampant imbecility—AND CONCOCT, IN THE PROCESS, AN ESPECIALLY PERNICIOUS MIX THAT CAN MAKE A PERSON’S PENIS COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR FOR ALMOST A WEEK!—you invite most terrible of consequences. Working for a great financial institution, spending her days not just behind a bullet-proof shield but in a hallowed realm of miracles like compound interest, this teller’s come to feel invulnerable—she actually believes that she’s in all ways protected from harm. To be sure, so neat a self-deception is worthy of admiration. But given her failure to curb arrogance her delusion has engendered (let alone her excess of witlessness) I think she should be disabused of said delusion forthwith. In fact, I don’t think it would be in least draconian to lie in wait for her after work, rip off her face and shove her smug countenance up her ass.

I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to suggest that we resort to violence and open ourselves to a potential penitentiary situation. But if I had a lapse there, it was due to cumulative toxicity of experiences I’ve reported and it only makes my argument. Exposure to undisciplined mindlessness can compromise most splendid of nervous systems in a trice, and people dealing with public who abuse stupidity must be discouraged from persisting. Collected now, ready to take a sensible approach, I’d say that legislation making gross stupidity in a public context a quality of life violation (and gross stupidity aggravated by a superior attitude a Class A Misdemeanor) ought to serve purposes of deterrence and remedy quite sufficiently.

Of course, should Bill of Rights fetishists thwart writing of such statutes, there’s a step I’ve been pondering that we could take on our own. Though it might require us to keep a bottle of Spirit of Ipecac handy (and would obviously be most effective when we’re sitting across a desk from phlegm-flecks like that teller), we could, just suddenly, throw up.

I’m not talking about pinpoint, or "smart," vomiting that’s directed at a specific, limited target, but vomiting which, fashioned after carpet bombing techniques developed in Vietnam, permeates everything in your immediate vicinity. It may not fix problem, but delivering remnants of Chili Surprise you had for lunch to clothing and workspace of a creep who’s making your life a roiling sea of excrement, would at least return favor somewhat in kind and figures to be immensely gratifying.

Plus, you’re not as likely to provoke interest of a criminal justice person as you’d be if you abruptly introduced an Uzi into proceedings. Quite opposite: you could be reasonably confident that law enforcement officers would keep their distance.

Now I’m aware that it’s not that easy to resist scams like this, even when they’ve been run on us before and there is good evidence to belie premise on which they’re based. Being mortal, knowing that—at any time and in any number of ways—the most terrible thing that can happen is definitely going to happen, we are obliged to grant at least possibility of substance to all but most patently ridiculous warnings of an impending catastrophe. (And, having been handed at birth a sentence reserved for worst of crimes, we’re not only primed to accept blame for catastrophes, but more than ready to suffer a little redemptive inconvenience as well.)

Still—Jesus!—as difficult as it may be to defend against our innate susceptibility to manipulation, we could make a better effort. At very minimum we could reduce frequency with which we’re victimized by keeping batteries fresh in our bullshit detectors and never forgetting that, more often than not, “emergencies” we’re presented with have an agenda behind them.

Recycling, for example, isn’t about saving planet. (And no, it’s not even about making money for somebody—not really.) It’s about winning personal salvation (indeed, recycling) of limited and earnest types who proposed and continue to insist on it. These people are coming from secret hope that if they suck up to nature by not wasting any of it, nature will return favor and arrange to perpetuate their existence in some other package once their current status expires.

Well I, for one, don’t appreciate it when people conscript me into service of their personal immortality projects, especially when they masquerade as humanitarians.

It’s not that I would, for a minute, begrudge them such a reward. But given its size I think they should be forced to earn it on their own, with no assistance from rest of us. I can’t speak for nature, of course, but if they stopped by my place a couple of times a week to do their sorting/rinsing thing that would certainly impress ME.

I didn’t say anything about them coming into house. Along with trash, I’ll leave my garden hose unraveled behind shed. They’re more than welcome to go back there and rinse anything it pleases them to rinse.