The Bureau Of Stoopid People Prevention

The Bureau of Stoopid People Prevention

Was busy one cloudy, late autumn morning, as usual. A backlog of casework stacked like tobacco leaves at a cigar factory on every desk. It was cold out. The radiators hissed, windows dripped condensation. As always, the offices were somewhat underlit given the amount of close scrutiny going on, but budgets were tight. Staff got on as best they could. Everyone’s head was down, reading, pencils wiggling away on files and reports. 

The Bureau occupied one of the corner complexes in the Cultural Adjustment Division of the Dept of Greater Clarity main HQ. The CAD was the superstar of the Dept, its labs and staff generally considered world leaders in the field. The standards they set had been adopted by dozens of countries that lacked funding enough to do their own research. Boasting a branch office in every provincial capital, and some of the top young minds in the field, the atmosphere had a snap to it born of pride and passion for excellence, attention to the most surgical level of cleanliness, and a hyper focus upon the perfection of detail. World class stuff. 

If the labs and its super scrubbed staff were the cutting edge of the undertaking, the Bureau was a bit more like an odd little sister. Not that the Bureau didn’t have some fine thinkers, but it just lacked the staff, especially during the rush season, making it a bit more stressful. By comparison, it’s an understatement though accurate to note the Bureau was a bit underfunded. Now, to tell the honest truth, the need for a dept whose task was controlling stupidity in the nation, and in particular preventing stupid people fromu proliferating was questioned by some higher up pols down at the Big Office. 

“Whadda we need to devote taxpayer bucks to preventin’ stoopids since chances are they gonna do some ‘hey y’all watch this’ kinda thing ennyways?

”Ralphie, gimme the data on stoopid deaths ytd will ya?” …“We got any demo graphics on the stoopid population?” …“Life expectancy, and well, you know, all that pertnant stuff?”

“Now, lemme see…”

Yeah, it was a fairly good argument all in all, and it had a lot of folks’ sympathy, but the fact was, stoopid didn’t seem to be abatin’ at all, it seemed on the rise. And, by the height of them case files stacking up on the Bureau’s desks, there was plenny to do yet. 

Now one of the greatest achievements at the Cultural Adjustment Division labs was the invention of a non-toxic solution that when applied would help Bureau counselors to easily identify stoopids so they can be sent for retraining, reeducation, and of course, having’ the glaze that forms chipped off. See, that’s the thing, the Big Office had decreed everybody had to start using the special solution in the shower, and after a couple applications like lather, rinse, repeat it would change the epidermis ever ever so slightly so’s when people’s dumb stuff (everyone has it on occasion) accrued over a while, a very thin almost carapace like crust would eventually build up. Initially, it was almost undetectable, but gradually it showed up, incrementally becoming kinda almost like a lady’s nylons, pretty see through in early stages, but becoming progressively less flexible until it was like three day old sun burnt skin. You could peel it off in flakes. Or, the hard to reach parts, get a friend to do for ya. 

Needless to say it took some while before folks adjusted to the decree requirement, but they did bit by bit, and before long entrepreneurs started poppin’ up with little clinics, kinda like drive thru car washes folks joked…if ya didn’t heed the tv and radio promos that made it sound like yore gettin’ a Brazilian wax or something really cool, you know, like fancy people with money all wanted. 

Well, anyway, for fairly cheap actually, you could go to the “clinic”, and get the crust peeled off if it had not been too long between visits, or chipped off if you were on a tighter budget, and had only the monthly silver level plan, or, if you was kinda meticulous, and spare no expense was your style, the Platinum twice a week service got you a quick and easy dusting with the “secret powder”. Secret maybe, but every clinic had what they all claimed, and touted was their own special proprietary formula, but it was the same active ingredient that the CAD lab come up with. 

After a while folks pretty much liked the fact that their stoopid could be gently, chemically induced to seep to the surface like resin from a stem cut plant, and then just get it safely removed. Folks claimed that after a dusting, a good peel, or a chiseling, which clinics kindly called it “detailing”, sorta like getting your Porsche really super cleaned (the fancier clinics even alluded to that in their marketing by having some butt ugly stoopid looking girls wheeling up to the porte cochere, then stepping outta their sportsters looking all crusty, and afterwards sashaying up, and getting back in looking for all the world like Melania Trump, who by this time had gained some kinda semi divine icon style status). Well anyways, folks claimed that after the “treatment” they had more creative thoughts, fewer forgetful moments, knew how to calculate stuff like the area of circles even if no one almost ever needed to do it, and what’s more, reports were piling in at the Bureau that folks had stopped slapping their kids for stoopid shit that they did. I mean, kids is kids, right? Oughtn’t they get a little leeway? Well, when parents and aunties and uncles had been “clarified”, as it was generally called, folks started sayin ‘yeah mebbe so’, and before you knew it slapping kids for stoopid shit became hardly a community issue at all. 

This ended up having an unforeseen spin off benefit because all those years a late night tv public service ads that the Cultural Adjustment Division's folks was paying for, you know, Slap A Child, Get A Career Pickin Up Litter, Shame On U For What U Do, All Kids Is Stoopid, But Why Are You an’ the like just stopped, much to everyone’s relief because, really, these campaigns never worked, but the ads were endless. But Stoopid Away (the most popular formulation) sure did, and so it kinda made everyone think the CAD was doing a pretty good job. 

Now you’d think that with such an outstanding culture adjusting improvement as the Stoopid-b-Gone (another popular anti stoopid dip) body wash treatment that it might have, more or less if not actually prevented stoopid, at least contained the outbreaks. But, the reality was different. Turns out that another of the Cultural Adjustment lab’s signature finds was that …well, first I better explain something.  

The labs at the CAD had some of the top theoretical physicists in the whole wide world. These folks, was primarily working out what was the cosmological implications of Stoopid… is there some sorta physical constant at work in the universe, and had come up with all kinds of interesting, but almost impossible to fathom, theories for it, and other stuff. They was so smart, despite talking in virtual hieroglyphics, and scribbling’ out formulas, and equations, and whatnot that no one had a clue wtf it meant that sometimes practical stuff came out of it, accidental like you know, but nevertheless useful. A bit of a work culture phenomenon at the CAD started showing up. When you got dozen different focuses of department responsibilities, each with its own little subculture bubbling away, sometimes the interplay was a hit or miss. The Theoretical guys was so darn smart that there was hardly anybody they could talk to. Everyone not a TP hadn’t the neural horsepower to understand 2% of what those folks was talking about, so the TP’s kinda ended up just talkin’ amongst themselves. Now, it’s true that they would talk to the Astrophysics guys, but it was kinda like talking to raw rookies when you was Ty Cobb or sumpin, or Y.A. Tittle teachin’ Jimmycrackedcorn how to throw touchdowns. Know what I mean? Still, it did happen that every occasionally or so the AP guy might say something to a TP that got a laugh, and if there’s one thing everyone knew about the TP boys at the lab is they seemed to have a good sense of humor. No one knew or understood wtf they was laughin’ bout, but regular folks could tell that the TP guys & gals had moments. So, the TP staff would, on occasion, suffer a chat with an AP for amusement, but at meetings, you know the AP guys was mostly just quiet. 

Anyway, the Bureau was given the task of figurin’ out and reportin’ back about why was it that Stoopid Away body shampoo wasn’t actually preventing stoopid? You’d think if everyone’s using it, then over a long enough period of time it’d be like monkeys in a locked room full a typewriters; sonnets occur. Or, to twist the metaphor a bit, stoopid does not. Well, it nvr happened. Why not? I’ll tell ya…

But first a little story. When I was growing up there was a guy in the neighborhood who liked exotic animals. Back then, and where we was livin’, stuff like that was kinda strange, or at least not the usual kid stuff you’d find. Well, he was fun to go visit cuz he had Iguanas in his bedroom, and some cool lookin snakes, and a big ass Monitor lizard living in a pen in his backyard that ate pheasants the kid raised. Well, like most kids in our neighborhood I was kind of a stoopid red neck boy, and didn’t know much a anything. To me, that guy was like a scientist or sumpin. You’d never expect one to live down the lane, but Bubba, that was his name, was right on the same woody swampy road as me. Now, Bubba wa’nt his real name, but ever since he was borned, people called him it. Bobbie was his name. And because his daddy was a Balzac, everyone knew Bobbie as Bubba Ballsack. Seemed a natural. 

Bubba Ballsack wa’nt nothing but a red neck kid himself, and talked like it too. He had a twang, and the singysongy kinda voice like some a them country singers you mighta heard back in the ‘50s. I tell ya what, after, well, it’s been near bout forty years since me an Bubba last had a drink together, but every time I see a real stoopid it makes me think of that twangy voice a him. Bubba’d say about some dumbass up the road “that boy ain’t nuthin’ but a foo, useless as a fart in a spacesuit”. And his voice it be crackin’ an hitting notes sounding like wounded warblin itself. But Bubba wa’nt stoopid himself. Nuh uh. In fact, he wound up running the whole damn Bureau before he was even 40. ‘Magine that! Bubba Ballsack in charge! Still keeps an Iguana in the office. 

Anyways, Bubba had an uncle, Uncle Jimmy, who wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but he wa’nt bad neither, he was jes kinda goofy, and looked odd. All rangy and skinny. I remember being at Bubba’s house one day, we was messin’ round with his snakes, and Uncle Jimmy, everyone called him Uncle Jimmy, even they wasn’t family, that’s who he was, Unka Jimmy. So’s Uncle Jimmy come roun’, and he was out on the porch, looking thru the screen door like maybe it was locked, and he couldn’t get in, but it wa’nt locked, Uncle Jimmy was jes being Uncle Jimmy. He got his lips all pursed up, and pressed inta the screen, an makin a silly face like with googly eyes, and wiggling his ears up n down. Wa’nt saying a word, jus goofin’ roun’ until Bubba tells him “Unka Jimmy cut it out a get in, you know momma been waiting for ya”. Then, to emphasize it, Bubba feigns like he’s hollerin’ back to the kitchen, “hey mumma, Unka Jimmy come roun’, n’ he’s out on the porch makin’ stoopid faces”… and then Bubba, in a slightly different voice mimicking his mumma, says “what?! Tell your Uncle Jimmy get on roun the back, and pick up all his crap he left last time, an then I’m gonna have words with him”. Bubba could sure do some funny stuff like that. We was best friends for a long while. 

Well, it was Paw Paw harvestin’ time roun’ here, an Bubba’s mumma, everyone call her Sammie, but I nvr knew why, she was just Sammie. Well, she was hopin’ to make a batch a some Paw Paw jelly, and wanted Uncle Jimmy to give her a hand cuz Uncle Jimmy knew the best spots for finding Paw Paw, and anyways he always took an interest in helpin’ out Sammie on account a Bubba’s daddy havin’ left for Texas long time ago…to get some hill country sausages, or so that’s what I heard he said on his way out the door anyway, but he never come back. Now Sammie was kinda a strong person, and truth be told, she didn’t have much truck for stoopid nonsense much, an if there’s one thing I ever remember hearing Sammie curse it was sumpin Bubba’s daddy done, an’ it musta been pooty stoopid to make Sammie say what she did. But for Bubba, his daddy gone on, an’ not coming back was fine n’ dandy. Bubba, even he was as easy to git long with as anybody, took a dislike to that man. Bubba’ll never say it out loud, but I heard him mutter it “useless as a fart in a spacesuit”. 

Well, I’m guessing that same sorta sense for having no truck for fools musta got in Bubba’s blood too, cuz where’s he now, but sitting at his big ol’ desk running the whole darn Bureau of Stoopid People Prevention, and doing it as well as can be expected, short staffed, and treated all little sister like by the big boys up at the Culture Adjustment Division.

Well, gettin’ back to the point about why it’s been so troublesome puttin’ a end to the problem about stoopid people. Bubba has had his ups and downs over the years, and you know them pols, all full a their own selves, every now n’ agin stir up a rukus, callin’ Big Office meetings n’ issuin’ letters askin’ bout what’s up. Bubba going down on more an one occasion having to defend the Bureau at budget meetings, and occasionally even the local news wants to know what’s up. Well, what’s up is some stuff never gonna change, and even you say “out damn spot!” all ya want, and still the spot’s gonna be right there. 

I’ll let Bubba do the talkin’. “Well, let’s see! Y’all know about the problem of recidivism among folks we’ve identified for retraining and reeducation, which is part of what our counselors contend with every day, but the bigger part of the issue is that there’s a category of stoopid folk that’s so stoopid they don’t know they’re stoopid. Now I ain’t makin it up, it’s rock solid science stuff, and those fellas at the lab can verify it for you if’n y’all curious. So stoopid they not only don’t know they’re stoopid, they think they is special. That’s how stoopid!  Now, thanks to the likes of Stoopid-Away, everyone can kinda like wash their sins away so to speak, right? And, it don’t take too long before a stoopid starts to crust on up if they don’t apply it right, or forget to use it, and when we see recidivist crusties, sure, we can get ‘em back in for counseling, but there ain’t no law about being stoopid, otherwise y’all be buildin’ lots a new re-ed centers right? Oughta be laws maybe, and that’s sure debatable, but we can’t detain em just on account of being the way they is. So whadda we do? I’ll tell ya what makes me kinda cringe crazy. You’ll see these absolutely self-assured, I’m smarter than the average bear folk, but theys actually so stoopid they don’t know it, and they soon enough endin’ up lookin’ like a gol darn prayin mantis walking around on its hind legs, an theys gotten so crusted up you could crack em open like theys a roasted june bug, but they think it’s plain normal”.

Yeah, Bubba oughta make a recording of that, and just send it next time he hasta go again. “Y’all come on down the Bureau office anytime” he said. Just another day for a working man I reckon.  

So, you might be wondering by now about that other signature finding the lab guys came up with, and I mean to tell ya about it. One day shortly after Bubba got his first Stoopid-b-Gone dip he come to visit Sammie, and here’s what happened….