Note to new readers: (This means all except the three or four people who read the previous posts.) I re-started this Substack experiment a couple of weeks ago. It will consist of a series of short stories from my latest published short story collection. Because all of my stories within a given volume tend to be interlocking, FOOTNOTE NUMBERS can be a problem. Substack’s system re-numbers, so each story has a 1, a 2, a 3, and so forth. So I am going to the enormous trouble, for your benefit (yes, you) of including the original footnote numbers [in square brackets] in the footnotes. And also making whatever editorial corrections I can to help make this experience less painful. Sort of like novocaine. On we go. Here’s story #2 from That’s Life.
Mattress People?
Or beanbag people (to start off on an inclusive note.) Of course I'm using “people” here in the broad sense of intelligent beings, the framework in which we are inclined to define ourselves. One conundrum being: Would we know if we weren't?
The physicists Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Herbert York and Emil Konopinski walked into a bar … but that's a story for a different time. Actually the four of them were walking to lunch in the summer of 1950 just a few months before your author popped into the world. They were discussing the possibility of alien life and faster-than-light travel—the usual chit chat when physicists converge—and agreed that as big as the universe seemed to be, the first was likely and the second at least possible. Then Fermi piped up with something like, “But where is everybody?”
Word got around and Fermi was credited with his very own paradox. The thinkers who thought about it decided that if we were not alone there must be other technological civilizations out there among the many stars in many galaxies, and probably many much older than ourselves, so their versions of Hitler's radio tirades and “I Love Lucy,” and “Survivor” and cigarette ads would be beaming in at us from many light years away. But … nothing.
So what was the deal?
The two most frequent answers proffered were that either life on earth was completely unique for some imponderable reason, or, that technological civilizations always screwed up and died soon after they invented ball point pens or Velcro® or atomic weapons. Cheerful, eh what? Personally, to be clear, what I think is coolest about Fermi's Paradox is that we share a birth year. It makes me feel connected and, honestly, a little special. Am I not a little “paradoxical,” at least viewed in profile?
Professor Lee Cronin, who studies the chemistry of life at the University of Glasgow,1 speculates that the reason for the Fermi Paradox is not that “they” are not out there, it's just that we can't interact with other life forms because they are so different. (Mattresses? My idea, not his.) Further, that the explanation of the Fermi Paradox is that it starts from the assumption that if there is life out there it would be in substantial ways like life here, that our biology is the only biology possible. Or that all roads lead to telecom giants and SuperBowl Sundays® and boxed wine.
This, he observes, is a baseless assumption.
Furthermore, Cronin believes that even if there are earth-like planets, with much the same chemical makeup as our homeplace,and therefrom cooked up similar ribosomes and so forth, evolution is so dependent on chance that it couldn't possibly turn out the same way.
On another front, very strange DNA has been discovered in the Atacama Valley in Chile, unlike any ever seen before. Scientist and author Paul Davies opines that life could have originated on Earth more than once and to this day there could be a “shadow” biosphere that is simply too weird to fit into our definition of Earth life. [“Me and my shadow” … wrote Al Jolson, Billy Rose and Dave Dreyer. Did they know something we do not?]
As we discussed on page 19 [Of the print version], one significant nodal point for our development arrived in the form of a surprise visit from a very large asteroid. Absent that splashdown mammals would probably never have turned into us and there would be actual lizard people on TikTok® and Facebook®, not just behave-a-likes.
But if we allow ourselves to be somewhat more imaginative, maybe the basis of life on some other globes is a polyester/cotton blend instead of carbon. (I know polyester and cotton are carbon-based, but this is a “thought experiment.” I'm using this example as a hypothetical. I could have posited, say, molybdenum-based life, but then the mattresses would be uncomfortably hard.) So couldn't they have evolved into mattresses? [We could be reclining on aliens at night or sinking into their comfy beany selves and be none the wiser.]
The question then arises, “Okay, smarty-pants, if they're here, they're obviously a few jumps ahead of SpaceX®, so why haven't they said hello?”
There's an answer for that too. I've been talking to Terry [Protagonist of the previous story] about it. He thoughtfully inquired, “When was the last time you tried to explain calculus to an ant?”
He got me there. Maybe the mattresses in our midst are so much more advanced than we are that their attempts at discussion would be as pointless as saying d/dxn = nxn-1 to a member of Formicidae?2 They might not even think of us as “people.”3 After all, we scurry around doing all kinds of pointless things, wearing ourselves out—not unlike ants—while they just chill. Likely thinking great big thoughts. Maybe communicating telepathically. Musing on the uber ineffable. Playing eight-dimensional chess or nine-dimensional checkers, or, something way more complicated.
This sort of thing pretty much justifies my letting Terry in here—off-kilter or no—in the first place. He gets me going.
But none of that is what this story is about, at least moving forward. This, I think, will have to include Carol, since she's the only other living character involved so far. (Julian Jaynes reached his date of expiry in 1997.) I suppose, given that she's a dog-person, it could involve Schnallen. This would give us an opening to introduce another character! Oh, goody! Whence Schnallen?
Well, life does what it does, for better or worse. In this case Schnallen was a “for better” item before another thing got worse.
Schnallen was a gift.
You have to know someone pretty darn well before you even think of giving that someone a dog. Pets require responsibility and you are handing that someone ten or fifteen years of it—if all goes well for the pooch—as well as the heartache at the end.
Friedrich is of German ancestry, as you surely could infer, given his name and his breed of choice. As we determined in the previous paragraph he and Carol were—emphasis on the past tense here—close. “Close” to the point that they frequently frolicked in the all-together, though they didn't live together, which proved a great relief to both when they parted. Splitting up is messier for cohabitants.
Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, research reported in the February, 2022, issue of Harper's®, which I perused yesterday, has revealed that men experience more heartache than women after a breakup. This tells us that Friedrich likely took it harder than Carol, but, honestly, it was his fault. If he'd been in bed with just one woman when she dropped by that fateful Saturday, that would have been one thing, and there's no way of knowing what her response might have been. Two created a bridge too far, particularly since one of the pair was Carol's sister!
Family Feud® for certain! (Family Freud?)
Riva apologized, but it took a couple of years before Carol came to terms with the whole mess, a resolution made more difficult when Riva moved in with the philanderer. On the flip side, while Carol remained unhappy with the pair, as predicted by the research I read yesterday she was not personally unhappy. She got right over the heart hurt.
Meanwhile she had fallen in love with her Schnauzer, in the sense that one might fall in love with a dog, having made the unsurprising discovery that man's best friend can be a woman's BFF as well.4 [Well, not “forever” forever.]
As noted in our previous story, Schnallen is Carol's constant companion. If the pair hadn't clicked and she had handed the pup back to Friedrich, the “best friend” thing would have bumped directly into the male heartache phenom. The dog would have been a constant reminder of both Carol and his own having blown the best relationship he'd ever had. A constant source of lament.
But for Carol? For our protagonist the canine became the silver lining released from the storm cloud that was “what's-his-name.” Along the yellow-brick-road of life she and Schnallen had now found Terry, who, we recall, like all my best characters is a cat person, but, importantly, is not unkind to dogs.
This brings us to General Rule #1:5 “In successful new relationships it is best if only one of two candidates has a dog.”
“Why?” I hear you asking, even if not aloud.
Dogs are needy.6 They need the attention of anyone in their near vicinity. It's fine for a conjoined couple to acquire two dogs so the neediness is spread around from the get-go, but if two dog owners get together and the other's dog starts exhibiting that neediness in regard to the new person … it just doesn't work out. The panting and slobbering and whining almost inevitably drives the participating humans apart, particularly if one of the canines exhibits greater affection for the other person. Trust me on this.
So, Carol and Terry are on safe turf, but what about Riva and Friedrich? Despite their moral failing, don't they have some redeeming features? Are they going to “make it?”
So far so good, given that neither arrived in bed on that fateful Saturday in possession of a dog. [Corollary #1a:7 “It is better for neither candidate to have a dog than for both.] On the downside, neither had the inestimable good sense to fraternize with a cat. Being in their late twenties there's still time for that.
As for Celine, the other participant in the fateful frolic, she has two dogs, and after the blow-up decided that three was a crowd so she won't figure in the rest of this story. Maybe later.
Riva is an excellent cook, by the way, which is actually what led to her being in that compromised situation, though of course it hardly justifies it. She had cooked a splendid dinner at Carol's apartment for the three of them and the merry way to a man's heart took it's storied route. When Carol had excused herself to the facilities after the meal, Riva and Friedrich locked eyes as he licked his lips and they both knew the upshot was inevitable. He had a hunger and she had the recipes. It was only a matter of time.
A week, it seems. Rather, less. One Saturday night to the following Saturday morning, implying as it does that it was actually a Friday night sleep-over. General Rule #2: “Philanderers discovered in bed with philanderees8 in the morning generally landed there the night before.”
Taken altogether, what with Carol not being desperately heartbroken and relatively optimistic regarding Terry and/or other potential “replacement parts,” Friedrich deeply entrenched in Riva's culinarity, Terry hopeful regarding Carol's affection, Schnallen Schlummern9 at Carol's feet, and Riva not unhappy that Celine had made herself scarce [though you just know who invited Celine in the first place, Riva, oh Riva]—we have ourselves a set of happy campers.
Unlike, say, Jimmy Buffet®, who “stepped on a pop-top, cut my heel had to cruise on back home.” This, obviously bifurcates.
Cutting one's “heel on a pop-top” is one of those cultural “moments” that obviously didn't endure. During a brief period in the late 20th Century, beverage companies installed throw-away openers in their metal containers. Tug it out and toss it for the next heel to hit on.
Oops. Lawsuits much?
With remarkable speed the packaging industry came up with openers that remained ensconced in the body of the container. [Whew!]
On the other hand, whether or not Buffet actually blew out his flip flop and stepped on a pop-top—one suspects it was a rhyme thing—the ensuing song made him enormously rich.
[Latitude Margaritaville® anyone?10]
Leading of late to Latitude Margaritaville® retirement communities. That boy sure knows how to monetize. Set up a space where those “Fins to the left, Fins to the right” Boomers can spend their golden years “wasting away again.” I'm not being snide. Jimmy caught the zeitgeist and entertained us all the way down to the goalposts.
In any event, it looks like our little clump of characters are happy just now, so this is probably a good time to wind things up, before one of them steps in it or on it again.
1 [23]As of March, 2022, if you're reading this in some far off future.
2 [24]First use of Latin in the current volume!
3 [25]i.e.: intelligent beings.
4 [26]For those of that particular bent. Here at the cat ranch we agree that the dog thing is overworked. There's a cat on my chest as I type these words, purring. Try to teach a dog to purr … lots of luck!
5 [27]Pretty darn amazing. We're only on page 23 and we've already stated a General Rule, demonstrating that your author is socially responsible. An important function of the current volume—That's Life for those of you with memory issues (see the header on this page)—is to offer such.
6 [28]Which is why cats are, IMHO, better companions. They are self-assured and confident and very rarely slobber.
7 [29]Oh, we are on a roll! Add Corollary #1b: “The dog rules do not apply regarding cats.”
8 [29]Is that a word?
9 [30]Language lessons work best with repetition.
10 [31]One of three (and counting) retirement communities Buffet co-owns. [Buffet has, of course, reached his date of expiry since I wrote this story.]