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A kinder, gentler society was conjured by Enviro-Whiner tree huggers and fish kissers. Legions of effete Masters degreed sociologists and neo-Marxist economic twits who painstakingly divorced themselves from any profane allegiance with mortal actuality artfully fashioned the festering womb that incubated from conceptus to accomplished fact the demon seed of 1992 Los Angeles riots. The MBA philosophy - avoid risk at any cost, maximize short term personal profit, defer long term corporate debt, and never use your own money - triumphed. The field had been painstakingly surveyed, broken, fertilized, plowed and planted. It was now time for the harvest, the Fall of America!
Rodney King riot events unfolded with precise spin doctoring. Police arrested 11,000 civil insurrectionists with charges of felony looting and felony arson, and delivered them to the courts. The courts imposed probation and $100 fines to slake Accounts Receivable's unquenchable thirst. Insurance companies pointed to fine print and absolved themselves of $750,000,000 in damage claims. Self-appointed local and national civil rights leaders, clergy and preachers, and other hypocrites and charlatans basked in television's warm glow. When not a single green drop could be further squeezed from the rock of innocents' suffering, psychobabblers appeared for a final gleaning of the fields.
I listened to news radio as I motored, roguishly giggling as I luxuriated in the zeroeth deadly sin - knowledge. A noted (now, anyway) psychological expert had clawed her way between sports and the traffic report. Her lips set a furious pace as a thirty second sprint for wealth and power threatened to elude her grasp. "Post traumatic stress syndrome!" she whined, harking back to archaic lamentations of burned out war veterans and soft tissue injury artists. "It can develop years after viewing the horrors! It precipitates paralyzing emotional distress syndromes, self- destructive behavior, flashbacks, nightmares, alienation, sexual dysfunction, child abuse, and (zits, stringy hair, broken nails, fat thighs, low gas mileage, cockroaches) substance abuse! It demands immediate government implementation of massive counseling programs to salvage millions of people and avoid total social disintegration!" As she humbly offered her services to be Trauma Czarina, an oppossum splattered across the Pomona freeway usurped her slot.
My sweetie and I had viewed the LA riots on CNN, licking licorice twists and warmly nuzzling. I had enjoyed the comforts of my weapons, cleaning and reloading them with the expectation of bagging the limit of arsonists should the season Officially open in our Orange County neighborhood. What cognitive sanctuary had rendered her immune to affective distress syndrome and substance abuse? Could they strike at any moment, irremediably shattering her psyche into ruptured shards? The horrors were unfolding in my mind as I drove home. The kitchen radio was tuned to that same station. Had she innocently listened while distracted by housework, contaminating her unconscious? Was I too late?
I returned to find Linda consumed within the delayed shock of the riots. She vibrated in place, wildeyed, fondling pine nuts, extra virgin olive oil, and minced garlic. As I entered the kitchen door she assaulted me with an edged weapon. She thundered "Harvest the basil from the garden! I want to freeze a gallon of pesto sauce by sundown!"
Pesto Traumatic Stress Syndrome had her bouncing off the walls, ceiling, and floor. The opportunity for counseling had eluded us. There was no electroconvulsive therapy unit in the house. Linda was afflicted but I was damned.
She stood by the food processor, fangs bared and Parmesan cheese grated. Pesto Traumatic Stress Syndrome works its horrible tragedy upon the family. Each lilliputian basil leaf had to be trimmed from its petiole and examined for discoloration, insect damage or other imperfection. A gallon of pesto would require thousands of leaves and tens of thousands of scissor snips. It would generate a consuming universe of agony for yours truly to challenge and defeat, or I would be sleeping on the couch until St. Swithin's Day.
Basil fumes roiled about my head as green debris impacted under my fingernails. Methyl chavicol, cineol, linalool, and estragol warped my consciousness as they blanketed my lungs and seared through my integument. My fingers hosted blisters and then leper's sores as my skin was eroded by incessant rubbing against metal. The high pitched wail of the food processor heralded the birthing of a miserly half pint of pesto. My torments proceeded by sixteenths of a gallon as the sun arched across the sky.
Some weeks later, after we had both healed from misfortunes born of suffering a psychobabbler's sales pitch, one final manifestation of that machiavellian witch's curse surfaced. I entered my bed to discover Courtesan a la Pesto. When I finally resurfaced I pondered the utility of even a little olive oil sincerely applied to noble ends. Our Pesto Traumatic Stress Syndrome was in full remission at last.
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