September 30, 2005
Overheard at Starbucks
"I've been imagining I'm under surveillance. That a few of my neighbors working for FEMA, or whatever part of the alphabet that does that stuff nowadays, are watching me with see-through-the-wall radar."
--"Paranoid?"
"I picture somebody watching me on a screen in bright glowing colors while I'm busy stuffing my face, picking my nose, taking a crap or wanking. It's their sad disgusting job to watch me 24/7, to watch my every move."
--"Who would want to watch you?"
"Exactly! 'What and give-up a job with Homeland Security?'
...'This crap's dedicated to the freak watching out there...the technologically advanced secret eyes and ears of Homeland Defense...ya'll know the service you're providing, the awesome responsibility you bear... this crap's for you!' Isn't it perfect?"
--"I mean who would want YOU watched? Who pays, who benefits?"
"You're saying I couldn't be an enemy of the state? A fabricated but necessary threat to the status quo, the Masons, the Mormons, the sexed-clubbers?
I've seen things. I've seen cops in uniform getting freebies from hookers; I've seen boxes of drugs delivered to the Art Institute's shipping dockin the middle of the day; I've seen pedophile pimps working the City's Zoo. I've seen death squads using ConEds' and the phone company's trucks."
--"Sure you have."
"I could be a witness."
--"You can be a pest."
"Couldn't being a pest be reason enough?"