Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's been a while since I did one
Speaker 1: of these where it's just me and you and you
Speaker 1: listen to me talk on my own, no interacting with
Speaker 1: the chat, no guests, And I thought we needed a
Speaker 1: break from all this because it's just been too much lately,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you need a good laugh. Sometimes you need
Speaker 1: to shake your head and be like what the hell
Speaker 1: and have it not be completely depressing. So over the holidays,
Speaker 1: I received a letter in the mail and I didn't
Speaker 1: get around to reading it because I put it aside
Speaker 1: and I forgot it was there. You ever put something
Speaker 1: in like plain sight that just becomes like the environment,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you're like, wait, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what what is that? Oh? Oh, And so
Speaker 1: someone sent me an analog super chat, that is, they
Speaker 1: send something to my PO box with a with either
Speaker 1: cash or a check or money order in it. And
Speaker 1: the person said, who sent this? I have an important
Speaker 1: anecdote to share with you and your listeners, if you
Speaker 1: choose it's cautionary tale, ignormal your peril. This is a
Speaker 1: true recounting of real events. I choose to believe him
Speaker 1: that this is a true recounting of real events. But
Speaker 1: after I read this, you may choose not to believe that.
Speaker 1: So this is the way it starts out. Prior to
Speaker 1: last Christmas, I received no one of my phone, not one,
Speaker 1: but four delivery failure notices in regards to a present
Speaker 1: I had bought online for me and my well loved
Speaker 1: second generation Ford Ranger. My honey is a step side
Speaker 1: three point three lead manual, but with a four x
Speaker 1: four drive train, skid plate, etc. A great blend of
Speaker 1: off road capability and decent mileage. You don't see many
Speaker 1: of them around, That is a rarity. Step sides are awesome.
Speaker 1: I actually have a step side, not a Ford, but
Speaker 1: he goes on it seems my driver Prakesh. You see
Speaker 1: where this is going right, couldn't find my house for
Speaker 1: reasons that are both obscure and obvious, depending on which
Speaker 1: fact of the matter you consider. And since it was
Speaker 1: a Friday, I saddled up the Ranger and headed out
Speaker 1: to the industrial park north of the airport. All the
Speaker 1: new logistics companies have set up shop there. I intended
Speaker 1: to find my new swaybars links goddamn it, so I
Speaker 1: could install them over the weekend. Before had handled the
Speaker 1: on ramp badly given the broken swaybar links, but would
Speaker 1: practice a clarity. I emerged smoothly and lit out between
Speaker 1: the freeway in third gear at thirty five hundred RPMs.
Speaker 1: After a short haul north, I exited onto Vindaloo Boulevard
Speaker 1: and pulled up in a likely spot with the Ranger
Speaker 1: quietly idling. I patiently waited. I was sure to spot
Speaker 1: what I was looking for from my vantage point in
Speaker 1: the seven to eleven parking lot across from the Circle
Speaker 1: eight motel. Soon I was rewarded. It was one of
Speaker 1: those tall white Sprinter type vans with not one, but
Speaker 1: two pajets in the cab. The one in the shotgun
Speaker 1: seat was stabbing at a weird looking tablet device while
Speaker 1: animatedly exclaiming something to the driver, swinging down the boulevard
Speaker 1: in almost drunken fashion. The van was moving away fast,
Speaker 1: so I let out the clutch on the Ranger and
Speaker 1: gave chase, even with that messed up swaybar. The van
Speaker 1: sported a logo on its side with a sort of
Speaker 1: perverted looking disneyesque pink elephant, which gave onlookers a knowing
Speaker 1: wink while its trunk curled around a cardboard box. This
Speaker 1: was a exactly the image that accompanied the delivery failure
Speaker 1: notices from the praqush guy. Getting warmer, though my forward
Speaker 1: slewed about badly, I kept up with the rogue delivery van.
Speaker 1: A light rain began to descend, and I saw the
Speaker 1: van make a left into the forecourt of a prefab building.
Speaker 1: Seemingly it was just one of a series, but on
Speaker 1: drawing closer, I could actually see and sense the enormity
Speaker 1: of the menacing metal structure now looming over me. It
Speaker 1: made me nervous, but I knew my truck parts were
Speaker 1: somewhere inside. I pulled into and once having gotten out
Speaker 1: of my truck, I took care not to engage with
Speaker 1: any of the various pajeet drivers. There were many, many pagets,
Speaker 1: all jabbering and jocking for their place in front of
Speaker 1: the big main doors, waving their tablet devices. Imagine the smell.
Speaker 1: Damn were those tablet things round? What the hell was
Speaker 1: to deal with those? I smiled sheeplessly and shrugged, etc.
Speaker 1: While I edged forward. You do what you gotta do
Speaker 1: when easing your way through a brown, jabbering, tablet waving
Speaker 1: gaggle of Third worlders. The rain had gotten heavier and
Speaker 1: beaten noisily on the roofs of the growing squadrons of
Speaker 1: delivery vans. I got closer to the office door on
Speaker 1: the right side. This was Pajeet Central. I took a
Speaker 1: deep breath, opened the door, and pressed on inside. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming the deep breath was to hold your breath, because
Speaker 1: I can only imagine. I shook off the rain while
Speaker 1: my eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly lit interior. With
Speaker 1: light shining through the glass transom, I could make out
Speaker 1: an African gentleman seated at a desk, again with a
Speaker 1: weird round tablet device. He was poking at various of
Speaker 1: the dark segments on the screen in an agitated manner,
Speaker 1: and beyond him stretched a long line of pajeetes, each
Speaker 1: holding a box or a brown envelope. Above the man's
Speaker 1: teetered a pile of similar packages, threatening to avalanche and
Speaker 1: bury him pending the slightest upset. Sounds like pictures of
Speaker 1: trash heaps that I've seen in India. They just take
Speaker 1: the trash right outside the city and pile it five
Speaker 1: hundred feet high. Again, imagine the smell. What to make
Speaker 1: of this sorting facility? That's sort of like vooting. He's
Speaker 1: spelling it swording That kind but misspelled description was written
Speaker 1: in multi colored crayon on a large swat swatch of cardboard,
Speaker 1: which was itself suspended over the infernal pile. The scenery
Speaker 1: resembled the Doctor Seuss cartoon depicting some kind of weird
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial post office that paints a picture, doesn't it like
Speaker 1: you can literally see it? In Doctor Seus's style, getting
Speaker 1: a results seemed to very venturing farther into the Getting
Speaker 1: results seemed to favor venturing farther into the building. It
Speaker 1: was a gigantic space. As I have mentioned, I believe
Speaker 1: it was intended at first as an aircraft hangar, since
Speaker 1: it had no internal structure to support its enormous volume.
Speaker 1: Huge drifts maybe dunes is a better word, stretched off
Speaker 1: into the gloomy distance. These hills were entirely composed of
Speaker 1: cardboard boxes and brown padded envelopes, uncannily large, enormous heaps
Speaker 1: of packages piled on one on top of the other,
Speaker 1: forming huge wave of like structures. The whole scene was
Speaker 1: illuminated by a big crescent shaped window high on the
Speaker 1: south wall, deafening hooting and babbling assaulted my ears, and
Speaker 1: unsettling smells filled the dense atmosphere. I can only imagine, Man,
Speaker 1: God bless you. Way up above, exhausts from the main
Speaker 1: delivery vans inside the space and other noxious gases seemed
Speaker 1: to be forming a mixture. I could distinctly see on
Speaker 1: an otherworldly form of weather swirling round up high in
Speaker 1: the rafters built the gaseous streamers of I knew not
Speaker 1: what were curling around and round the apex of the
Speaker 1: ceiling high above. Uh oh. Everywhere pajeet swarmed over the
Speaker 1: colossal heap of packages. The clever ones had donned headlamps
Speaker 1: of the kind you take camping. I could see them
Speaker 1: moving over the piles sorry of boxes and whatnot. Some
Speaker 1: pajeets were taking their discoveries down to a central area
Speaker 1: on the floor, and some others, having completed a similar mission,
Speaker 1: we're heading back upward, heading back upwards again. Awestruck, I
Speaker 1: wondered how best to describe the scene, and long ago
Speaker 1: memory of my childhood surfaced. He's writing to me now,
Speaker 1: question for you, Pete, when you were a kid, did
Speaker 1: Dad ever load your family into the car and take
Speaker 1: you all to the dump so you could look at
Speaker 1: the bears. I'd have to say, no, that is not
Speaker 1: something that we ever did. Does it sound like fun
Speaker 1: kind of bears hang out of the dump? Is this something? Okay? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like that. I mean, you painted
Speaker 1: a picture for me. I can only imagine. I observed
Speaker 1: a large pagete swat another smaller one and claimed some
Speaker 1: prize out of the pile. It took its fine down
Speaker 1: to the central area that had a large sort of
Speaker 1: mandela shaped dias dias on the floor. As I approached
Speaker 1: his platform, a pajet confronted me. Here we go. He
Speaker 1: was the largest of all the brutes I had observed
Speaker 1: so far, standing well over four feet at the shoulder.
Speaker 1: He was directing the activity all around. His jaw swung open,
Speaker 1: and he seemed to ask me my business. I said
Speaker 1: it seemed to because, though open, his jaw did not move,
Speaker 1: His dead looking eyes did not focus or track, But
Speaker 1: I swear I heard words come out of him. With
Speaker 1: dawning horror. I'd observed a small pink elephant perched upon
Speaker 1: the pajit's shoulder. It had a ginger neck beard and
Speaker 1: wore a set of those green eye shades that accountants use.
Speaker 1: The ensemble was topped by a black fedora, so got
Speaker 1: libertarian elephant here. The tiny animal's sinuous pink trunk was
Speaker 1: inserted into the pajitte's left ear, and he was obviously
Speaker 1: directing the brown brute's motion and speech. Uh. Things had
Speaker 1: now taken a disturbing, even frightening turn. I bet you
Speaker 1: didn't think we were going to enter into a Willam
Speaker 1: Burrough's novel, did you. That is who I'm thinking of,
Speaker 1: isn't it Naked Lunch William Burrows? Let me look, look
Speaker 1: that up. I haven't read him in so long that Yeah,
Speaker 1: william S Burrows. I was correct, m s are one
Speaker 1: for me. Clearly the real business of the swortsing facility
Speaker 1: was conducted here by this weird hybrid. The puny package.
Speaker 1: Aram and I perused each other in the gloom for
Speaker 1: what seemed like a full minute. The elephant spoke, Hey, Jethrow,
Speaker 1: It said, you don't look so good. You need a
Speaker 1: little bite. Maybe. The minuscule mastodon had produced a fig
Speaker 1: from somewhere and was waving it at me with one
Speaker 1: of its pink paws. Speechless, I nodded negatively and produced
Speaker 1: my phone to show the diminutive Dumbo all the failed
Speaker 1: delivery notices. Hold it still, it said, since the phone
Speaker 1: was shaking badly in my hands. Quote OIVEI it's mirror.
Speaker 1: We as backed up and that prakeuchh. He only knows
Speaker 1: how to turn right. It takes him all day to
Speaker 1: get anywhere. An acid tiny animal, he tossed away the fig.
Speaker 1: Let me get this going here. He tossed away the fig,
Speaker 1: and a passing paget launched itself upward like a trout,
Speaker 1: snatching the treat out of the air with his mouth. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the elephant wiggled his pink trunk deeper into his pajete's ear.
Speaker 1: The pajete upon whom the packagerm perched, tipped his head
Speaker 1: skyward and began to belch deeply in the direction of
Speaker 1: the ceiling. He was soon joined by all the other
Speaker 1: pagets in the swording facility, all belching and farting in unison.
Speaker 1: In some kind of smelly ritual designed to recover my package.
Speaker 1: One would assume, hold on already, our team of logistics
Speaker 1: professionals will find your package for sure. Be a mensch,
Speaker 1: shouted the tiny elephant above the racket The rhythmic belching
Speaker 1: sound continued from the brown choir as the head paget
Speaker 1: inserted his index finger through the screen of his dark
Speaker 1: round tablet device and was now swirling it around like
Speaker 1: he was on his second date with the fucking thing.
Speaker 1: Everybody with me, give us a minute, it's starting to work.
Speaker 1: The elephant yelled high above us. All the big crescent
Speaker 1: shaped window grew brighter, and the swirling massive gas near
Speaker 1: the ceiling now resolved into something resembling a gigantic brown peach.
Speaker 1: But that was no peach, Oh god. Brown boxes and
Speaker 1: envelopes began to blast downward from an orifice in the
Speaker 1: center of the definitely not a peach. Individually at first
Speaker 1: and then by the score brown missiles crashed toward us,
Speaker 1: accompanied by a crescendo of flatulent noise from the brown
Speaker 1: logistics professionals of the sorting facility. I was struck on
Speaker 1: the head numerous times, and I grew faint as a
Speaker 1: pile of packages grew around and over me. I'd collapsed
Speaker 1: under on the floor under the rain of boxes, all
Speaker 1: the while listening to the hooting exclamations of the pajets
Speaker 1: being exhorted to find my package the elephant, quoting from
Speaker 1: the Bill of Lading like a verse from Leviticus. My
Speaker 1: vision faded. I felt an overwhelming desire to sleep. What
Speaker 1: was to become of me? Ready? You following good, doing
Speaker 1: better than me. When I regained consciousness, I realized I
Speaker 1: was in my truck, parked in the drive of my
Speaker 1: own house, engine off, but the keys still in the ignition.
Speaker 1: I had no memory of escaping the sewording facility or
Speaker 1: of driving myself home. It was well after midnight, so
Speaker 1: it was all a dream. Kell it was. On the
Speaker 1: shotgun seat was my package and a note apologetically offering
Speaker 1: a very small discount on aluminum siding. Also, rather than
Speaker 1: a traditional signature, the note sported a tiny pawprint. The
Speaker 1: wife's brother teaches paleontology at our local university, and he
Speaker 1: told us the print resembled that of fossils from a
Speaker 1: tiny creature Elephanticus Hebrewcus, a proto elephant thought to have
Speaker 1: gone extinct six million years ago. It's been about a
Speaker 1: year since the incident, and gratefully it's fading from my mind.
Speaker 1: The truck rides great now, though sometimes I notice it
Speaker 1: smells funny. I don't talk about it, And I don't
Speaker 1: want to know what happened out there, Pete, but I
Speaker 1: beg you and implore you, you and your listeners, if
Speaker 1: you need automotive parts, go to a locally owned auto
Speaker 1: parts franchise outlet. We have to stick together. Take your
Speaker 1: trade to someplace owned by one of our guys and
Speaker 1: operated by our people. Reduce your exposure to global big
Speaker 1: tech and above all big pajeet, and look out for
Speaker 1: giant brown peaches. Watch the skies, keep watching the skies.
Speaker 1: And so what do we learn from this story? Well,
Speaker 1: I think at the end there the recommendation, the emphatic
Speaker 1: pleading to do business locally with your own people. That
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Now doing business with big
Speaker 1: tech and big paget also very important. Look out for
Speaker 1: giant brown peaches. I would have to say that, given
Speaker 1: what's been said here, that would probably be very important
Speaker 1: to do. So was it all a dream? Is there
Speaker 1: really an Elephantsicus hibraicus that his thoughts had gone extinct
Speaker 1: six million years ago? Or is this humor? I would
Speaker 1: say upon reading this that I believe him. It makes sense.
Speaker 1: There's no reason why I should question somebody's experience. I
Speaker 1: would say that if you do order something online and
Speaker 1: Prakesh can't find the house, can't find your house is
Speaker 1: putting undeliverable. Whatever it is, consider it lost. Eat the cost.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere where you can you have to interact
Speaker 1: with Pajeet's being controlled by elephants on their shoulders, being
Speaker 1: exposed to that smell in anywhere. Giant peaches can land
Speaker 1: on you, causing you to not be able to remember
Speaker 1: the rest of the day. Wise words important to remember.
Speaker 1: Be back in a few days. Take care, sa