I could be wrong, but I think, for the most part, Program vets have a pretty high natural immunity to clams.
I remember one day in around 1985, I was staying with my dad cause I had broken up with my boyfriend. My daughter was with her father for the weekend. So, being fairly broke and somewhat down-in-the-mouth, I decided to go down to the Swap Shop and look for some inexpensive stuff to brighten the back room that Dad was letting us share with some of his most treasured antique tools and periodical collections.
So there I was, browsing carpet remnants and nick-nacks, all by my lonesome when a small group of young people approached me and tried to sell me some Dyanetics. I may have been a little depressed, but it was circumstantial. Plus I was little sick with the chronic bronchitis that hung with me for around a decade after the Program. So I probably looked like an ideal mark.
Well, looks can be deceiving. I didn't know much about the clams back then. But I was pretty big on sci-fi paperbacks as a kid and not at all impressed with the guru of Dyanetics. When I finally put it together that the author of book they were hawking as the true Bible for the ages was none other than, I started laughing and told them I didn't think I could use any life changing advice from a half assed scifi writer.
MAN! Did that piss them off! It was amazing. I thought they were just selling books and would just move on to the next mark. But they sort of tried to surround me and started yelling at me about how great and wonderful their master of the universe was and what an impudent little bug I was in comparison and how I'd be sorry one day for dissing him.
Well, that seemed quite familiar on the one hand. But set and setting are just so important. Instead of a group of brainwashed zombies ready to throw my ass on the floor of a warehouse behind closed doors, I was surrounded by Saturday bargain hunters and vendors in an open air carnival atmosphere. And I was deeply grateful to the universe for granting me the liberty to laugh hard and say "What a bunch of FRUITCAKES!" as I walked off to check out some nice deep pile buff carpet just about the size of my safe little nest in Dad's apartment.
I've also had similar aversions to the kinds of social and ecconomic ties that rely on shallow pretense or that are susceptible rank ad hominem attacks. Those who know me know me well and all the rest can go to Hell.
The most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of
knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness.
--Thomas Jefferson
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
American P.O.W. 10/80 - 10/82
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
Anonymity Anonymous