Ferengi Plumber

All types of customers have crossed the threshold of the old barn. There's Eeyore, who was always gloomy. Cash Adams, to quote me Grandpa Joe, lived by the axiom of Get Cash, Pay Cash. Joe actually nicknamed Adams that because he didn't trust him; by labelling him 'Cash' Adams he shamed the man into paying up front for everything. California was a plumber who sounded exactly like, and I mean exactly like, Huckleberry Hound. And then there was the Ferengi Drain Cleaner.

For those of you not familiar with the Ferengi, they were meant to be the villains in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were a race of the future, and supremely, bizarrely capitalist, childishly obsessed with money making. They were the epitome of buy low, sell high. They were short, with oversized heads, ears, and bad teeth. They quickly proved too comic to be formidable adversaries for the Starship Enterprise and crew. 

One of them was somehow transported through a time warp to the late Twentieth Century, to become a plumber in Detroit and environs. He had an oversized head, massive ears, and was rather short. He was not bald, however, as our Star Trek, um, enemies were. Ferengi Drain Cleaner had quite a head of hair. So all you Trekkies out there, imagine Quark with an Elvis wig.

He also was manically concerned with getting things on the cheap. Ferengi guy constantly hassled me Pops and me for better prices. We learned through the grapevine though that his own prices were significantly above the curve. All, of course, for his own profit, as any caricature of capitalism would have it.

Ferengi Plumber. He was out of this world. He was out of his mind, too, if you ask me.

Sunday Star Trek

The world wears you down simply to get what it wants out of you. That's why it's important to be obstinate in accepting, believing, and promulgating what is true. When you know what is true you must cling to it as though nothing else matters, because the world meanwhile will continually insist to you that what is false is in fact true. The world is a master at gaslighting.

How obstinate should you be? I would go so far as to say that even when you begin to doubt, review in your mind what the facts are and hold your ground tenaciously.

I am reminded of the famous scene from Chain of Command, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Here it is: Picard's Lights Captain Picard is held captive and tortured, and his will is tested when his captor asks him how many lights he sees in the ceiling. Picard yells, "There are...FOUR...lights!" which was correct, even though he really believed by then there were five, as his captor pressured him to say. 

Picard stubbornly stuck with what he knew was true, even as the world, so to speak, almost made him bend.

I pray for such courage if I'm ever tested.