While shopping for used clothes at the local Salvation Army, an elderly woman struck up a conversation about how she liked the new price tagging system. The store staples small paper price tags to the waistline of pants and the neckline of shirts. In trying on pants, I scratched the back of my hand several times resulting in three cuts.
I showed the woman my scratched and bloodied hand and said, “As long as you don’t scratch yourself.” She oohed my owie and said, “That’s dangerous. You better rush home and doctor that up. Did you see that show on Oprah where the woman got a cut and it got infected with a virus? What was the name of it? It was a flesh-eating virus.”
I thought, “Oh boy, you’re talking to the wrong person,” and replied, “I don’t watch Oprah,” and I showed her a long ridge of scar tissue on the back of my hand. “See that? That’s from a rusty ax.” I showed her two more long scars, “Those are from cat claws. I don’t put anything on my cuts.” Undaunted, she continued to caution me about the dangers of bacterial infection.
It does not require any great intelligence to “talk shop,” repeat the conventional epigrams and popular slang or to become a member of the great throng of human phonographs that stalk the social stage and mechanically repeat common talk. The ridicule and gibes of the unthinking herd tend to prevent people from doing independent thinking. The ridicule of the mass is a juggernaut beneath the wheels of which millions of thought-babies are sacrificed.” –Herbert Shelton, Fasting for Renewal of Life
Thousands of people die every year from taking aspirin whereas you can get booked on Oprah for a flesh-eating virus, it’s so rare. But the germ mania encouraged by the pharmaceutical companies relies on women like this to spread fear-based propaganda. And why do sincere people like this believe it? Because they don’t think!
Hee hee. “Thought-babies.” I love it.
