Butter Nightmares Begin
The Men With Excessively Big and Expensive Hats were having an image problem.
This was serious.
The hats were the image.
They had always been the image.
The hats needed to look large because the men needed to look dominant. They needed to occupy more vertical space than everyone else. They needed to appear capable of blocking the sun, directing the weather and making goats fall over from several yards away.
The hats were expensive because expensive things suggested success.
Success suggested authority.
Authority suggested competence.
Competence suggested that no one should examine the machinery too closely.
This was why people with conspicuously different or contrary points of view were dangerous. They interrupted the visual arrangement. They looked directly at the hats and failed to understand that they were supposed to feel smaller.
The WOACA was especially irritating in this regard.
She looked at the hats.
Then she looked at the men underneath them.
Sometimes she appeared to be wondering whether the hats were heavy.
This was not the intended response.
The Men With Excessively Big and Expensive Hats were becoming increasingly upset by her, but they now had another problem.
No one really wanted their signs, bumper stickers and flags around anymore.
There had been a time when the signs looked rebellious.
There had been a time when the flags appeared defiant.
There had been a time when covering a truck, mailbox, boat, house, hat, cooler, mobility scooter and household pet in political stickers communicated independence.
Or something resembling independence.
From a distance.
In poor lighting.
But the Intrusive Method of Operation had begun to backfire.
The Men With Excessively Big and Expensive Hats were looking less like rebels and more like the people who had arrived at a pleasant picnic with a public-address system.
They looked obnoxious.
Worse, they looked self-serving.
This was a huge problem.
Rebels were interesting.
Self-serving people with public-address systems were tiring.
The public had begun to notice that the Men demanded freedom from everyone who disagreed with them while requiring visible demonstrations of loyalty from everyone who did not.
Membership began leaking.
Not dramatically.
People simply removed a sticker.
They stopped putting out a sign.
They decided that one flag was sufficient.
Then they decided they did not need the one flag.
They stopped attending meetings because the meetings had begun to resemble disciplinary hearings.
Loyalty was starting to feel like parole with supervision.
Members were expected to report regularly.
They were required to display approved materials.
They had to explain suspicious friendships.
They had to account for unregulated thoughts.
They were discouraged from traveling outside approved information districts.
Failure to become angry at the appointed hour could result in a loyalty review.
People became tired.
The Men had inserted themselves into every available space.
Lawns.
Vehicles.
School boards.
Coffee shops.
Community festivals.
Weather reports.
Conversations about soup.
When their footprints were discovered in the butter inside the refrigerator, they found themselves increasingly unwelcome.
No one knew why they had stepped in the butter.
The Men denied having entered the refrigerator.
They accused the butter of political bias.
It was yellow! It was Chinese!
This did not help.
People loved eating Chinese food.
But hope remained.
It was nearly their time.
The Season of Signs and Stickers was approaching as surely as pumpkin-flavored lattes.
Soon the lawns would bloom with names.
Bumper stickers would reproduce overnight.
Flags would emerge from garages and storage sheds.
Entire neighborhoods would be divided into brightly colored territories by people who had previously limited their disagreements to property lines, drainage and the location of garbage cans.
The Men With Excessively Big and Expensive Hats could feel it.
The air was changing.
The first pumpkin beverages had appeared.
It was time to dance.
The Department of Public Certainty activated its political advertising machinery.
Copper tubes warmed.
Glass jars illuminated.
Gauges trembled dramatically.
Grainy photographs were prepared.
Prison gates creaked.
Shadowy figures moved across screens.
Real grief was separated from chronology and placed carefully beside the face of the designated enemy.
The Men congratulated one another.
But signs, stickers and frightening advertisements were not enough.
They needed new members.
Young members.
Young male members.
“We shall target the boys,” announced the tallest and most expensive hat.
The committee murmured appreciatively.
“We shall teach them that their elders are stupid.”
Several hats nodded.
“We shall show them citizens unable to identify major countries on maps. We shall show them foolish answers, confused faces and comments explaining that voters are ignorant.”
“Excellent,” said another hat.
“We shall teach the boys that elections produce terrible consequences because ordinary voters are incapable of understanding anything.”
“Brilliant.”
“The boys will lose faith in the intelligence of their elders.”
“Yes!”
“They will distrust the judgment of voters.”
“Yes!”
“They will question the information placed before them.”
The room became quiet.
The tallest hat adjusted himself.
“Not all the information,” he clarified. “Only the other information.”
Everyone relaxed.
This distinction seemed perfectly manageable.
They would teach young men that videos were evidence of widespread stupidity.
Then they would place political advertisements beside those videos and expect the young men to receive the advertisements without question.
They would encourage contempt for manipulation while manipulating them.
They would demonstrate that media selectively portrayed reality and then immediately present selected fragments of reality.
They would teach the boys to distrust authority while assuming that distrust would never extend to the Men With Excessively Big and Expensive Hats.
It was an unfortunate use of resources.
It was an astonishing waste of time.
They had spent millions of dollars teaching intelligent boys not to trust what appeared on their screens immediately before showing them what they wanted trusted.
No one had considered that the boys might apply the lesson twice.
They never considered their influence would suddenly sour like milk.
Churn Churn! someone screamed. Make butter! Everyone loves butter!
But butter is Chinese!
Everyone loves eating Chinese food!
A man with an excessively large hat by his bed sat up sweating, heart pounding, breathing hard. It was all a nightmare.
