Life Lessons 2

It had been a rather long day and I was weary with creating. I'd been assigned to work the prototype humans with a fellow spirit. This partner I’d been paired up with was not too quick witted, but a pleasant enough fellow once the day was over and we could go for a pint at The Kings Arms.

I was frowning over the blueprints this one day, when he comes up behind me and points down at the page.

"What's this then, down near the bottom of the body?" he asks.

"Looks like some sort of ventilation unit to me. The designers were pretty vague when I asked about it."

"What's its purpose?” he says.

"According to the guide book it's to let the food out after they've eaten it."

"Why do they eat it in the first place if it’s to come out later on?" he asked.

"Beats me. You know how they are up in the planning office. Always messing about with details makin' things way more complicated than they need to."

We perused the drawings a little longer and glanced over toward the clay model laying on the stainless steel table.

"Here, look,” he says, "wouldn't it be far more efficient if the waste vent was right up there?" He pointed at the neck area. "That way the food can go in that hole in the face and pop right out the back of the neck, since getting it out again seems to be what they’re set on."

"It's not supposed to work that way", I replied, "There’s supposed to be some process where it mixes up inside them and have the nutrients drawn out. Besides, having the waste vent on the neck would be fine through the Dark and Middle Ages, but once they start Ballroom Dancing they're supposed to be cleaning themselves up a fair bit."

"Why don't we just give them the nutrients and bypass the elimination procedure? What's the point of all that food turning to waste?"

"I don't know, Archie", I said gently, "the folks in the Food Dept planned it that way and there's no telling how they arrive at their half-witted ideas."

"By the way", he says to me, "have you signed up to get into one of these things when we're done?"

"What, with all that phlegm and mucous muckin' about in their heads? You must be joking!"

"I hear we're all supposed to take a turn, that's what the grapevine is saying. There's some will be exempt but most of us are scheduled whether we sign up or not." He looked grave.

"Well, I'm not going, you can bet on that. And who are the exempt ones, by the by? I'll tell you who. The ones who invented the darn thing in the first place, that's who. Trust the one's up in Planning to come up with a design for intestines and then beg off when it comes to actually tryin’ them out. Makes me sick thinkin’ about it."

"Hey, look at this!" He waved the guide book over the blue prints toward me. "According to page 116 the food not only has the option of leaving through the vent hole, it can also come back up through the face."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard", I said. "Why are we making them eat in the first place if the food's got two escape routes?"

I made a quick call up to the Inquiry Desk to ask if it wasn’t some sort of typo. I was assured that it wasn’t. When I asked further I was directed to the Efficiency Committee who explained that the food might have to come back up if the sample turned out to be bad. Could the human in question not tell if the sample was bad, I asked? Not always, was the reply. Most humans were not intended to be very sharp.

I switched off the intercom. “Get a load of this, Arch. They say the food might have to come back through the face if it’s bad”

“Why couldn’t they just send it on through, bad or not?”

“They said they were given a list of unpleasant experiences to apply to the model. Someone mentioned this one last night after a round of drinks and they all laughed so hard some of them puked right then and there. Apparently when they submitted the idea it went over so well they were all given an extra weeks vacation.”

-The Celtic Warlord