Fahrenheit 298
(The temperature at which DU mods burn.)
By David Glenn Cox
My name is Winston Smith, or Winston Churchill, or Winston cigarettes, but you can call me Sam, or Lenny, or even "Hey, you" if you like. You see, I’ve come here to this place to where we are truly free.
Big Brother or Big Kahuna or Charlie Tuna or whatever we’re calling him this week, you know who I’m talking about, that guy on the TV barking out all the orders at us, he's gone and ruined everything. See, for years I worked at the Ministry of Truth and it was a good job. All I had to do was report the news, to give my opinions and then to go home to air conditioning, cable TV and Swanson Hungry Man TV dinners. I had it made, right? What could be easier? It beats digging ditches in the hot sun, but then this guy came along and changed the rules.
One day they put up a sign in the office where everyone could read it. It said:
"Don’t point out errors. It is only an error if you point it out!"
I stared at that sign for a couple of hours, working up my courage to ask my boss, Mr. Shofensleginstuffer, about it. Finally I went to his desk and asked, "Mr. Shofenslen, uh, Mr. Shofargone, uh, Jimmy, what does that sign mean?"
"It means what it says. It is only an error if you point it out! In this department we don’t make errors and my name is pronounced Mr. Shofensleginstuffer! Do you understand?"
"Gotcha, Jimbo, but I do a lot of sports stories. What if the center fielder for our team drops a routine fly ball and lets the other team win?"
"You will report it that the other team won despite a heroic team effort on our part. Anything else wouldn’t be constructive."
"What about this, Jim? What about if the other team drops a routine fly ball in the ninth and allows the winning runs to score and we win?"
"Well, that’s different," he explained. "It is completely acceptable to point out the other side's deficiencies."
"Doesn’t that make hamburger out of your sign there, Jimmy?"
His answer was quick and abrupt, "Read the sign! Read the sign! For God sakes, read the sign!"
Well, that didn’t help me much, but it’s always fun to get a rise out of Mr. Shofenslen, or Shofenfurtter. He had one of those big, thick necks and always wore his collar buttoned so when you made him mad it made his neck look like red Play Doh squeezed out of a sausage machine.
So I went back to work on a sports story and turned it in to the editor. It wasn’t thirty minutes before Shofensdarter, or Shefendiaper, you know, Jimmy, was standing over my desk so red faced he looked like a pimple with beady eyes and glasses about to pop!
"Can’t you read the sign?" he shrieked. "What’s wrong with you? Look at this title!"
I looked at it and read it back to him, "White Sox lose 10 to 2. So?"
"Don’t you understand? You are pointing out errors! You idiots, you’re a bunch of fucking morons!" I decided right then and there that I was adding another ten bucks to the cardiac pool, because at this rate Jimmy wouldn’t be with us much longer and next month was my month in the pool.
So I asked innocently, "What’s wrong with it?"
Thunder and lighting, earthquakes and volcano eruptions, "If the White Sox lost 10 to 2 it implies that errors were made! Are you too dense to understand that?"
"Well, Jimmy, if they lost 10 to 2 it not only implies errors were made, it just about guarantees it."
"Didn’t you read the sign? Can’t you understand the sign? Do you want to hurt us and our supporters?"
"I’m not trying to hurt anyone, Jim. I’m just pointing out the dang score because that’s what the folks want to hear."
"But you are wrong, Winston. The people don’t want to hear the score; they want us to tell them the score. And do you know what the score is, Winston?"
"Lay it on me, Jim, I’m all ears!"
"The score is good!" he explained.
"Okay, Mr. Shofenpoolskimmer. How would you rewrite the headline?"
"Simple, my dear Winston. The White Sox Played a Good Game Today!"
"That is a dandy headline, Mr. Shofenschoolspecial. But what are you really telling people?"
"Yes, Winston, I see the light bulb inside your mind has come on. Yes indeed, what are we telling the people? You are so close, Winston, but now invert that thought. The question, Winston, is what we are not telling them.
"We are not telling them about errors! Admitting errors hurts the team! Do you just want to hurt the team? Telling them that the team they love and support lost because the pitcher couldn’t get the ball over the plate or the first baseman let an easy grounder go between his legs hurts the team!"
"I don’t know about that, Mr. Shofencaryskinner. Maybe if you mention to folks that the team has a weak pitcher or a lousy first baseman then maybe the team would go out and find some better players. Then we could win more games and I could write headlines with words in them like 'stomped' and 'crushed,' and maybe a little 'kicked ass' thrown in for good measure."
"You don’t understand at all, Winston. It is not about how many games you manage to win; it is about how many winnings you manage to game. You think the score is up there on that board out in center field, don’t you? The score is whatever we tell them it is. When we win it is because they donated money and rang door bells, and when we lose it is because they didn’t give enough money and didn’t ring enough door bells."
"But what do the people win by deceiving them, Mr. Shofenlazurus?"
"They get the thrill of playing along and of catching the occasional foul ball."
"I don’t think you understand, Mr. Shofenhowitzer. It’s their game. It belongs to the people. They have a right to know when the pitching sucks and they also have a right to beef about it because that’s the only way it will ever get fixed is by people making noise!"
He was moaning now and beating his palm against his forehead. "Winston, Winston, Winston, why can’t you just read the sign? Please just read the sign. The sign will answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems, so just read the sign."
He was weary now; I had worn him out. He would probably go into his office and take a slug of Jack Daniels and maybe smoke a coffin nail or two. It bothered me more and more and the thought just wouldn’t let up on me. My anger built until I could no longer stand it. Trying to manipulate something as trivial as sports scores, and then I thought to myself, "Just imagine how heinous it would be if someone tried to do this with politics."
Oh, that was such a scary thought that I finished my headline and decided I would run off from there to where they would never find me. Later they said when Shofenshoesniffer saw my new headline for the baseball game and he liked it so much that he wanted to congratulate me.
"Bright Lights! Cold Beer! Green Grass!"