Misanthropaea

Planet Ruth

I think it was Churchill who once said, ‘The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.’

And a perfect example of that just recently reared its ugly head at me as a result of an offhand comment I’d made on Facebook, proving that there is something irrevocably broken in this country. As a rule, I tend to avoid political debate or discussion in part because my own personal belief is that this ‘experiment in democracy,’ as it has often been called, has failed. And done so quite spectacularly. Insanity, explains a quote misattributed to both Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And yet we continue to do the same thing in this country during every election cycle, expecting different results every time, and then seem surprised and irritated that nothing has changed.

Again, just my opinion.

Musical prophet Neil Peart wisely stated, ‘If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.’ So I think choosing not to choose, when the time comes, would send a much louder signal to Washington than simply being a sheep and blindly following the best clinically enhanced smile with the least offensive rhetoric.

If only by the strictest ideological definition, I imagine I would have to be labelled a Democrat, ‘a person who believes in the political or social equality of all people,’ and not a Republican, though the general idea of a republic isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it’s handled in the correct manner.

Because I’m also a ‘liberal,’ I am, in the dim view of the ‘conservative Christian right'’ and, more to the point, the ‘Tea Party’ (that burgeoning neo-Nazi movement of the new millennium), essentially a heretic and blasphemer. I greatly fear the bigoted, myopic, bible-wielding zealotry which espouses ignorance, intolerance, homophobia, ethnic hatred, and whose delusional, twisted notions of ‘patriotism’ lead someone to create this hilarious and yet disturbingly bang-on meme… 

And so my personal views often put me at tremendous odds with that sickening and backwards We Got Ah-selves An Uppity Negra in The White House mentality which seems to permeate so much of the Tea Party (and, by extension, some Republican) rhetoric. 

Anyway, back in the latter part of December, 2011, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry was at a pizza party at Chuck E Cheese’s or something – I don’t know and I frankly don’t care – where he called the bail-out of Wall Street ‘The single biggest act of theft in American history,’ and took his fellow Republicans Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney to task for having supported it.

Some while later – I don’t recall exactly when – this story made minor headlines once  again when some Tea Partiers, like angry villagers in a 1930s horror film, and Perry himself referenced this statement and used it, not specifically but certainly indirectly, to imply that the bail-out was somehow the fault, and a commentary on the ‘failure,’ of the current administration. Because I abhor ignorance and deceit, I posted on Facebook that:

both the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the Troubled Asset Relief Program were conceived and executed during the tail end of the Bush administration. It's great to get all pissy about how this country is circling the drain like a giant turd, but learn your history before you point fingers... 

That comment got a few responses and then vanished beneath the deluge of feel-good inspirational memes, requests for help in games, and all the other usual Facebookery going on. So it came as a bit of a surprise to me when, ages later, this reply popped up in my ‘private’ messages:

Yeah, those 99%er's are just shitheads that live in their parents basements and are mad because the government won' pay off their school loans. And by the way good old Obama Jomama wants them to stay on their parents insurance until they are 26 years old. Thats because his plan to help people find jobs in not working! Those are the facts.

This came from someone I’ve known for about 20 years who, rather eerily and sadly, has forsworn grammar and punctuation and been indoctrinated into and brainwashed by the Tea Party into believing that people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are brilliant orators and tacticians, that George ‘Dubya’ Bush was The Great Saviour of the Nation, and that ‘It’s called the White House for a reason.’  Though he’d just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, hence the delayed response, I still felt it necessary to point out:

Your argument isn’t even relevant to the topic. My comment was nothing to do with the 99% v 1% issue. However, let me clarify that my interest isn't in defending the President. My interest is in the truth. People conveniently blame Obama for bailing out Wall Street and putting up more than $700 billion of our money - yours and mine - to pay for bad mortgages when it was Bush who did that. And *those* are the facts. Obama bailed out the auto industry, and they have paid back that loan with interest and emerged better for it. Or at least so far. Everyone can hate on whomever they choose – I don't care – but stop blaming the wrong person for the financial troubles.

Within minutes, the response was:

Eventually he is going to run out of other people's money to be giving to those that don't deserve it or have the desire or work ethic to go out and earn it on their own!!!

The ‘conversation,’ such as it was, went backwards and forwards like this for while, and I was reminded very much of my early days at Dribble & Whizz when I’d worked with an elderly woman called Ruth who simply loved to chat. Only thing was, her chatting  almost exclusively centred on a string of non sequiturs. I would remark, ‘It’s been a slow day today’ to which her response would be:

‘They painted those chairs blue.’

‘What? What chairs?’

‘Down to Jack & Johnny’s.’

‘What?’

‘They used to be regular but now they’re blue.’

‘Jack & Johnny’s closed years ago.’

‘Yeah… those vegetables need watering…’

And so I was beginning to have flashbacks of visiting Planet Ruth as my friend pointed out that the ‘Obama health plan sucks!!!’ or that participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement need to ‘get a JOB and stop crying!!’ or that ‘i have a birth certificate. it says i was born in pennsylvania, u.s.a. does he have one??????’

In point of fact, no, President Obama does not have such a document. He was born in Hawaii.

Finally it came down to:

I want my country back. I fought for it he did not!

No offence, I wrote, but I’ve heard this nonsense before. No-one took your country. Obama is not some maniacal dictator. And who do you think is ultimately responsible for the fact that you had to do a tour in Afghanistan? Who put us in that shithole of a country in October of 2001? It wasn’t this president.

Obama is a muslim that is hijacking the constitution and turning us into socialists!! This country was founded on the constitution and the bill of rights. They are the law!!!

He’s not ‘hijacking’ *anything.* Yes, the health care bill is seriously flawed and needs revision, and I’m sure it will be struck down – as it ought to be – but no-one is going to take The Constitution or The Bill of Rights away.

And, by the way, one of the primary tenants of the First Amendment to The Constitution – which you say you have fought to uphold because it’s the law – says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Or does that only apply to all the straight white Christians in this country? And even if Obama *was* a Muslim, he would be perfectly within his Constitutional rights to practise Islam in whichever way he saw fit to do. Because it’s the law. 

We are also granted the freedom of speech by The First Amendment, so you are also perfectly within *your* rights to voice your opinion – right or wrong – but you have absolutely *GOT* to know your facts. As I said before, my only interest is in the truth.

I received no reply to this rebuttal. However yesterday I got an invitation off him to his wife’s upcoming birthday party…

Proofreadng 101-B

Attempted internet memes about the checking of spelling, grammar, or punctuation are often much more effective when someone actually checks the spelling, grammar, or punctuation of their meme before they send it out into the cold, harsh world… 

How To Make An Enquiry

INCORRECT:

‘Yeah, I was looking for – you had it in your ad, I think, a couple weeks ago – like a can or something – see we’ve got these wood floors – well, I mean now we have the wood floors after we ripped up all the carpet. That stuff was a everywhere, you know? And, like the dogs had peed on it – not our dogs – we don’t have dogs. I mean, I had one a long time ago – a dog – but, like, my wife’s allergic to them now or something. But her mom had a couple of dogs – those little Pekingese dogs – you know, like the ones with those smashed-in faces and stuff? That’s what she had. I had a collie – you know, like Lassie? Only it was a guy dog, not a girl. I mean, Lassie was a guy dog supposably but it was really a girl dog playing a guy dog. His name was Eddie. My dog, I mean. I don’t know what they called the dog that played Lassie other than Lassie. I named him off of Eddie Van Halen. He plays guitar. Eddie Van Halen, I mean, not Eddie. He died when I was 10. Eddie – not Lassie. I don’t know when Lassie died. Eddie Van Halen’s still alive too. Maybe it’s that dandruff or something like that – I mean, the allergies my wife has to dogs. Or the hair. I guess that’s what you call it – that hair that dog’s have? Like the Pekingese? You just call it hair, I think. Or maybe it’s the fur or something. But it was all over – the carpet was, I mean, not the dog hair – with the pee stains, and we had to tear it up. See, we got the house from her mom – well, not really “got” on account of her mom was diagnosed with cancer and we couldn’t afford Hospice and stuff so we moved in to help her out as much as possible, but the pee was bad. On the carpet I mean. I mean, she peed too – not my wife – I mean she pees, but not on the carpet – but her mom does too. I mean, not on the carpet or anything other than that one time. The dogs. I mean, she doesn’t pee on dogs or nothing. But the smell was pretty rank – the pee, I mean, not the dogs or anything because we can’t have them any more because of the hair or whatever – so we had to pull it all up because her husband couldn’t do it no more. I mean, my wife’s dad. He was married once before, though. My wife’s mom was his second wife, not his first wife. His first wife was from Nong Phai or something in Cambodia, I think. He met her during the war after he shot up her family on accident in a raid along the Mekong in ‘68 or something like that. I guess they had real distant ties to Dézōng in the Qing Dynasty or whatever. I mean, why they were living in Nong Phai is anybody’s guess. But with his back – her dad, I mean, not Dézōng, ‘cause, I mean, he’d be, like, over a hundred now – I mean, my wife’s dad – he couldn’t do it and so we had to help him take care of it and so we exposed it – I mean the wood, not the things about China or nothing – and now it’s easier ‘cause there’s no more pee. But when her mom died and her dad got put in a VA place or something like that on account of the bad flashbacks we kinda got the house from them and so we want to try to take care of that. What do you think would do that pretty easy?’

CORRECT:

‘Do you have a cleaner to remove the smell of dog urine from wood floors?’

39 Steps To Fixing a Leaking Water Tap

Step 1. After noticing your shower head is determined to continue dripping ever so slightly many hours after you have theoretically shut off the water supply, turn the hot water tap further to the right to ensure it is completely closed for real this time.

Step 2.  The next day, after going to the basement to run a load of laundry and seeing there is clear evidence of water dripping on the floor at the base of the steps, closely investigate the hot water pipe located in the ceiling (which is to say directly beneath the bathroom) to determine the source of the drip. This will require water dripping in your eye and on your clothing.

Step 3. Search the basement for the plumber’s putty you knew you had. This should take approximately two hours.

Step 4. Drive to the nearest DIY centre to buy plumber’s putty.

Step 5. Apply newly-purchased plumber’s putty to troubled region of the hot water pipe and watch as water continues to steadily drip, defying you.

Step 6. Place empty large plastic storage bin at the base of the steps to catch the defiantly dripping water.

Step 7. Investigate the poorly-designed and ineptly-installed faucet assembly in your bathroom to determine the source of the water dripping into the basement . This will be located inside of a lidded ‘built-in’ providing both a much needed shelf area in the woefully-small and inexpertly-laid-out bathroom and, secondarily, as a housing for the faucet assembly to more or less correctly position it at the head of the tub.

Step 8. Vaguely understanding that one of the laws of fluid dynamics states that water seeks its own level, determine that the water appears to be coming from the hot water tap you are certain you had previously turned off, give the tap yet another turn to the right, showing it who is in control. Observe as the leaking ceases.

Step 9. The next day, seeing one of your cats in the bathtub having a nice morning drink of fresh water dripping ever-so-slightly from an unseen source in the general area of the spigot, investigate further to discover that the water appears to be seeping from just behind the handle on the hot water tap. Give it another forceful turn to the right – the tap, not the cat. Observe as the leaking ceases.

Step 10. Having decided you need to replace the washer inside of the hot water tap, locate the small box of various sized rubber washers you knew you had. This should take approximately one hour during which you will find the old jar of plumber’s putty you needed earlier.

Step 11. Drive to the nearest DIY centre and buy a small box of various sized rubber washers.

Step 12. With a flat-blade screwdriver, remove the tiny plastic cap with an H on it in the middle of the hot water tap.

Step 13. With a cross-head or Phillips screwdriver, remove the screw inside the head of the hot water tap.

Step 14. Attempt to remove the hot water tap in much the same way as you have seen it done countless times on DIY programmes or as you have done with other taps any other time.

Step 15. Determining, after copious swearing, that it will not slide off quite easily by hand, or with the invaluable assistance of a Stillson wrench, channel locks, or a flat-blade screw driver, search every conceivable centimetre of it for some sort of hex- or Allen screw holding it in place.

Step 16. Finding no reason for the tap handle to remain in place, return screw to tiny hole in the centre of the tap.

Step 17. Upon discovering the reason the screw will no longer seat correctly or ever stop turning is due to the fact that, in the process of turning it clockwise, the head has come completely off and is only connected to the tip of the cross-head screwdriver via magnetism, return the tiny plastic cap with an H on it back into the centre of the water tap with a firm smack and notice that the water has ceased to drip.

Step 18.  Put away your tools, whereupon you will find the small box of various sized rubber washers you knew you once had, and drink a beer in frustration, pondering, at the same time, just why you quit smoking four years ago or never pursued a romantic endeavour with someone who enjoys DIY projects nearly as much as you – like Amy Matthews or JoAnne Liebeler.

Step 19. Go to the internet and search for helpful tips on plumbing and repairing a leak in your water tap. On YouTube, stumble upon a video series featuring ‘John, on behalf of Expert Village’ and determine that you have done precisely what he suggests but to no avail. Also determine that his uninflected voice and deadpan expression will drive you to thoughts of grievous bodily harm if forced to endure it much longer.

Step 20. Knowing you will need to somehow extract the headless screw inside the tap before you proceed, and recalling that you had once seen an advert about a tool designed just for this purpose, search the internet to no avail.

Step 21. The next day, drive to the nearest DIY centre and ask a seemingly bored and indifferent employee standing idle in the tool department who probably would have ignored you had you not chosen to deliberately walk up to them if the store carry a screw extractor.

Step 22. Explain the essential function of a screw extractor and how it differs from the suggested tool called a ‘screwdriver.’

Step 23. Drive to another nearby DIY centre and engage in conversation with a more knowledgeable expert who directs you to the correct tool.

Step 24. Returning home, locate your hand drill. This should take approximately 30 minutes as you are resourceful and are learning where the children of your ex ‘stored’ things so that they may be easily found.

Step 25. Locate the chuck key to properly remove the last used and now rusted drill bit from the drill. This should take approximately 30 minutes.

Step 26. Using a hammer and channel locks, try to extract the rusted drill bit from the drill. This may be done in two sessions of approximately 15 minutes each and may include a walk onto the back porch to have a strong word with The Universe.

Step 27. Drive to the nearest DIY centre and once more find the seemingly bored and indifferent employee standing idle in the tool department who probably would have ignored you had you not chosen to deliberately walk up to them and ask if the store carry replacement chuck keys.

Step 28. As the employee  points to them – conveniently located on a bottom shelf at roughly ankle height – ask if the keys are, by chance, universal to save yourself the necessity of squatting down to have a closer look. Because the employee is shaking his head – an action you cannot hear as you are facing the indicated chuck keys – turn to him and repeat the question to discover that, no, they are not universal. 

Step 29. Squatting to peruse the indicated ankle height shelf in attempt to correctly determine which of the six offered sizes of chuck keys you will need, notice that on the left side of the shelf there are several different varieties of screw extractors hanging there just exactly as you were told there weren’t by the seeming bored and indifferent employee during your previous visit.

Step 30. As you drive home, consider disposal options for the potential body of the seeming bored and indifferent employee of the nearest DIY centre.

Step 31. Finding that you have chosen your new chuck key very wisely, place fresh drill bit in the drill and return to the bathroom.

Step 32. As the cord on your drill will not allow you to reach the vicinity of the hot water tap, locate an extension cord. This should take approximately 1 minute, as the extension cord had been recently used for another purpose and is blessedly close at hand.

Step 33. Remembering to shut off the water supply to the hot water tap, remove the lid to the ‘built-in’ housing the faucet assembly which more or less correctly positions it at the head of the tub and determine there is no shut-off valve provided for neither the hot nor the cold water tap.

Step 34. Travelling to the basement, being sure to take note of the relatively small amount of water collected in the large plastic storage bin at the base of the steps to catch the defiantly dripping water, trace the route of the hot water pipe from below the tub to locate nearest shut-off valve.

Step 35. Continue to trace the circuitous route of the hot water pipe far into the small room which houses your furnace and water heater, determining that the only shut-off to the faucet assembly in your bathroom is the shut-off for the entire water system of your house.

Step 36. Knowing that you have devoted entirely too much time to this project and that the idea of draining a 60 gallon water heater only to replace a 2¢ rubber washer errs on the side of being unnecessarily expensive as well as somewhat impractical, loudly curse the ineptitude of the imbecile who poorly designed and ineptly installed the plumbing in your house. Colourful expletives, including potentially difficult and clumsy ways in which this person might have intercourse with non-stationary baked goods, may be used. Throwing something is suggested.

Step 37. Thinking you might be able to replace the washer without disrupting the flow of water to the whole of your house and wasting more than 60 gallons of hot water, plug in the drill to find that it no longer functions and that the reason the last-used bit had rusted in place was due to the fact that the drill had apparently been immersed in water the last time flood water backed up into your basement and no-one bothered to tell you. This may also include a journey to the back porch to have another word with The Universe.

Step 38. Return to the basement for another look at the large plastic storage bin at the base of the steps to catch the defiantly dripping water and decide that the water being collected amounts to less than what is typically wasted in the average washing of dishes or brushing of teeth and that it could easily be reclaimed for other purposes until you decide to resume this project at a later date and with some assistance.   

Step 39. Drink beer.

Pizza Logic 3

So you are part of a ‘Focus Group’ for Domino’s pizza, sitting round a conference table in a small, windowless room, ostensibly having a private discussion about how the cheese on the pizzas has obviously got to be artificial in order to keep the costs in check. How do you not notice all the cameras in the room? You cannot get multiple angles – close-ups, two-shots, reverse angles, or inserts – in a tiny conference room without doing multiple set-ups. Did it ever feel like something was slightly amiss?  Did it not occur to you that an entire production crew hovering about to capture every moment somehow negated the sense of a ‘private’ discussion.

And when the walls are suddenly whisked away and you discover you’re at Truttmann Dairy in Blanchardville, Wisconsin, how is this a surprise? At what point did you not know you were in a field in Wisconsin?  How did you arrive at the conference room? Were you lured in somehow? Were you abducted, blindfolded and taken to a remote and undisclosed location? If so, wouldn’t you have more pressing topics to discuss with your fellow hostages than the relative merits of pizza cheese?  Did you arrive at Domino’s headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan as part of a contest or in response to a carefully placed advertisement in a local paper or internet site and then, as you had a nice chat and were preoccupied, did the entire room get transported via flatbed or possibly airlifted to the remote and undisclosed location? Did you not notice that the conference room was a small, detached building separate from the sprawling Domino’s compound? Did you not notice it was on a raised platform and looked suspiciously incomplete? Did this not raise questions?  How did you talk for the full duration of  the more than 7 hour trip to Wisconsin and not notice the motion of the room or hear the unmistakable sounds of the transportation process? Did you not feel the need to visit the toilet at any point and suddenly realise there wasn’t one and that you were moving? Did Domino’s not provide food and water for the journey?  Is it possible that the conference room was subjected to a dimensional shift or time portal violating Einstein’s general relativity? If so, did you not feel the unpleasant tug of  gravity in the pit of your stomach as the building and you shifted through time and space or did you pass that off to the pizza? Or if in fact, as suggested, you were already in Blanchardville, Wisconsin, how could you be so surprised to suddenly find yourself in Blanchardville, Wisconsin when the suspiciously incomplete and windowless walls of the conference room were whisked away? Did you forget? Do you suffer short-term memory loss? If so, how do you remember any details about the nutritional validity of your last pizza?  Did you think you would be somewhere else when the conference was through?

Is that really tasting the truth?

In Other New’s

Nothing screams podunk louder than Exquisitely Lame News. Except for when it is accompanied by the even louder cry of the Linguistically Challenged. Case in point, this monstrosity – a little something I stumbled across whilst checking for a weather report earlier today…

‘Fly’s?’  Really?  Not just once but three times? You couldn’t have figured out by the third time that you’d missed out two of the five letters needed in proper sequence to make this correct? Was there not a point at which you cocked your head quizzically aside and furrowed your brow, realising something was amiss? Was there no spell check available to you? Was there no-one round to suggest a fleeting microsecond of proof-reading?  Is anyone else but me perplexed by the apparent imponderable of how someone like this works for a news organisation and I don’t?  Needless to say I could not let this lie and was forced to leave our man Steve a comment…

Still More Stupid Shit I Heard Today - Illustrated

'What can I get for you?'

'Hey, how's it goin? Yeah, go ahead and give me the red one.'

'The red one.'

'How much is that?'

'Which red one?'

'Right there.'

'Does "the red one" have a name? '

'Yeah. That one there.'

'That one where? '

'The red one.'

*sigh*

Fingerpaintings of Dustclouds

There are about two people who will get that. And I applaud you.

Anyway, I’ve been cramming for midterms this past week and, like a diligent college student, this often includes drinking beer and procrastinating with the occasional hour or three of channel surfing or Facebook updates to bore and annoy those who so foolishly friend me. I wished I had been drinking beer tonight when I had to ‘enjoy’ my fucking computer class with Prozac Pete again. Tonight we learnt that ‘The chapter on Microsoft Word’ we had to read was ‘numbered with an “A” on it’ and we were advised to not ‘be confused by this.’

We also learnt that we could access the ‘thesarsus’ if we needed to, and that we could indicate the ‘recepants’ of our documents, and that we could use various ‘encrypton’ methods if we knew ‘what components is involved.’

To illustrate the full might of Microsoft’s powerhouse Office software, Peter then typed into the word processor:

Did you win the game. Most people are nosey.

When a green line appeared beneath ‘game,’ he stood back and furrowed his brow, expressing concern that Word had apparently alerted him to possible incorrect grammar usage for some reason. He deleted and retyped ‘game’ and the green line reappeared, causing him to frown.

Before I could speak up, someone two rows ahead of me said, ‘You need a question mark to correct that.’

‘Oh!’ Pete laughed sheepishly. ‘Oh, yes.’

So he typed:

Did you win the game. Most people are nosey?

I think I have a bruise on my forehead from where it hit the desk…

Mouseketeer Roll Call 5

And then there’s me, the Assistant Manager.

I stand at the cash register.

Mouseketeer Role Call 4

Fourth in our continuing exploration of the Liqu-O-rama staff is John Clod.

Probably one of the most iconic and recognisable phrases used by dismayed friends, relatives, and neighbours when describing an individual later discovered to be a serial killer is usually: ‘He was such a quiet boy.’

Another possible phrase would be like the one used by one of the stylists from the hair salon next door to us. She stopped in just a few days ago on her way home and mentioned that ‘the tall, grey-haired guy – I don’t know his name’ had got his hair cut that very afternoon. ‘He was very particular,’ she said with a certain sense of worry in her voice.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘John.’

‘Yeah,’ explained Phil who was, quite naturally, assisting her in her purchase because she was A) female and, B) attractive.  ‘We call it “weird.”’

‘Weird’ casually brushes the surface, however it hardly begins to scoop up the dark, brackish, urine-smelling creepiness that is John Clod. John has what might be best considered ‘a legacy position.’  His late father worked part time for Liqu-O-rama many years ago and so when John fell into a spot of trouble, his father pleaded that John be given a chance for gainful employment. This spot of trouble had to do with John, who holds two Bachelor degrees, instructing a student in the proper method of opening a locker. John was a substitute teacher at a nearby High School where had shown a certain young man that by having someone hold you roughly by the back of the neck and sharply and repeatedly introducing your head against the metal doors, a locker can be made to open quite nicely.

Unfortunately, when the youngster regained consciousness, John found his teaching methods called into question by the local constabulary and the school board and it was recommended that he spend a touch of quality time re-evaluating specific areas of his core syllabus in a small comfortable room with barred windows.   

So now John is employed by Liqu-O-rama where he spends his days as a part time employee who is treated as Sloan Gay’s special pet, given a posh nearly full time schedule which never includes weekend nights (unlike the rest of us) and almost no Holidays – ever.  In John’s world, the rest of the staff are employed simply to save him from the day to day rigours of customer interaction and allow him the full freedom to do as little as possible for as long as possible other than having to check his watch every few minutes to see if it is time to leave yet or to consult the printed schedule to remind him of what time his arduous shift is over.  He is gifted with the responsibility of ordering beer for the store – a job he almost always bungles (with no reprimand) frequently leaving us without sale items or with insufficient stock – and of stocking said product when it arrives, a job he could conceivably do in 6 hours but manages somehow to squeeze into 36.

He prefers ‘working’ in the cooler, wearing his Little Red Riding Hood jacket, for hours at a time, with the lights switched off and dutifully marching cardboard boxes to the giant bin just outside the back door.  Surprisingly though, after all the time he spends in seclusion, no product ever seems to be well stocked and the cooler racks are never really filled – especially on the weekends.

At 44, John lives at home with his mother who (he revealed inadvertently one day to stunned and uncomfortable silence) sets out two chocolate chip cookies for him each morning with his Corn Flakes.

And he’s such a quiet boy…