The Guy In The Basement

I have mentioned in the past that I suffer from tinnitus. A bit more than a month ago, Kathy was outside, chatting with a neighbor, the Gladys Kravitz of our neighborhood. Kathy happened to mention that I have been having trouble with ringing in the ear, and Gladys popped into her house, did a search on her computer, then sent a text to me containing the link you see pictured at the top of this article.

In the event that you cannot make out the details of the photo, it is a photo of a woman with a clove of garlic shoved in her right ear. That’s right: a clove of garlic in the ear.

*Sigh*

In 2018, the US spent on average $14,891 per year, per pupil, for the 12 years of primary through secondary education. The same year, the US spent on average $15,908 per year, per pupil, for post secondary education (college, community colleges, technical schools, etc.), and $33,063 per year, per pupil, for graduate and post graduate education. We spend a ton of money every year on education.

So why do we still have people on this Earth who can be suckered by witch doctor medicine?

And it isn't just medicine that fools people who should know better. Surely you have seen the internet ads that tout some previously secret method for cleaning toilets, or tightening loose skin on the face and neck, or saving hundreds of dollars on automobile insurance, and the like. There have been so many ads featuring baking soda and apple cider vinegar that I no longer even look to see what these two miracle chemicals are supposed to do. I gather, from the ads, that baking soda and apple cider vinegar must solve about 5,237 household problems.

I lay the blame for this gullibility to the nature of our citizens. We are all slightly rebellious, and generally distrustful of authority. So when an internet ad begins with “the major drug companies don't want you to know about this simple cure for [fill in the blank]”, we are naturally inclined to say “Yeah, screw those bastards!” And we end up with some of our citizens walking around with garlic cloves in their ears.

So, where do all these implausible ads come from? I have a theory. I can't prove it. You can't disprove it. In other words, it is a perfect theory.

Somewhere there is this not-quite-middle-aged chap, a college graduate, with something on the order of $100,000 in college loan debt. That is why he lives in his mother's basement. The reason he has made no progress on his student loans, and hence lives in his mother's basement, is that he has no useful skills. His degree is useless. Who needs a degree in the Transgender Anthropology of the Hakowiee Indians, or Critical pre-Columbian Queer Feminist Theory? The poor fellow is bitter: he has no future, and he chastises himself for not majoring in, say, English. At least with an English degree he could go door-to-door explaining Shakespeare for tips. But no, there he is, in his underwear, in his mother's basement, scouring the internet for some porn he hasn't yet viewed.

"Why me?" he asks. “I'm a lot brighter than most of those mouth-breathers who know nothing about Jacques Derrida's contribution to post-structuralism, or Michael Foucault's theory of the historical, non-temporal, a priori knowledge that grounds truth and discourses, thus representing the condition of their possibility within a particular epoch. Why, then, am I such a loser?”

Let me count the ways.

As the weeks in the basement become months, he begins to lose confidence in himself, until he actually begins to sound like John Blutarsky, aka Bluto in Animal House: “Christ. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f***ing Peace Corps.”

But then, he has an idea, a brilliant one, an idea that will restore his sense of self-importance. He will show just how stupid the mouth-breathers are. He will come up with the most idiotic ideas he can imagine, post them on-line, and then watch to see the mouth-breathers take the bait.

And that is why we see ads touting garlic cloves in the ear to cure tinnitus, vinegar and baking soda enemas to cure prostatitis, and nonsense like that.

As I noted, it is the perfect theory.

You can buy the theory, or not. But please, PLEASE, when you look at those internet ads that promise the simplest of cures for mankind’s most perplexing problems, stop for a second before clicking on the link, and remember that fellow, in his underwear, in his mother's basement.