I live with my daughters, the Viper Girls. Both girls are in their Terrible Twenties now. Mayhem and chaos.
My oldest, Jessie, has some juicy acquaintances. The girl with the pink hair is one of them. She is pretty as a rosebud, so petite and her hair is three different colors. It is black on the bottom, white in the middle, and pink on the top. I do not like tricolor striped hair. It confuses me. I like pink. So I shall call her Pinky.
Pinky scares me. I am political, so I asked Pinky and her boyfriend if they vote. They both said NO. Why not? sez I. And the answer set me back bigtime.
Pinky said authoritatively "We are currently ruled by Reptilian Aliens who are breeding us for food and slaves and Obama is one of THEM. Voting is just silly." Boyfriend nodded and hitched up his pants. I sat there kind of stunned. I looked in her eyes. Pinky does not look stoned and she is not stupid.
I asked Pinky for her evidence this is so. Pinky said "I saw it on YouTube. Lasers were shooting out of his eyes.* You could see it." A prudent person would give up the conversation at this point. Not me.
I pointed out that, although photographs and films were once considered good evidence, they can now be altered in fantastical ways. So a YouTube video is not good evidence, sez I. You got any other evidence? sez I. And Pinky said the sentence that made my blood run cold.
What do you do when someone says something kind of out there, you ask them to prove it, and they say "I know it is true because my heart tells me so."? And all you have to argue with is facts. Or maybe logic. Or the Rule of Law.
Essentially, this is the same argument as "God told me to do it." Or "The voices told me to do it." I think this is a very important question because this argument (God, the voices, my conscience, my heart, the lawn gnomes told me to do it and my ethics require that I do so.) is fast becoming a common defense for intimidation, stalking, assault and murder in our courts:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/...
When Angel Dillard was arrested for sending threatening letters to Dr. Mila Means, her original defense was that it wasn't a "true threat." She wasn't really going to put a bomb under the doctor's car, her lawyer argued, so it shouldn't count.
But now Dillard is taking a new approach. She is counter-suing and now claims God was speaking to her.
I do not know the answer to my own question.
I am entertaining some answers. And I plan to list my answers in The Girl with the Pink Hair - Part 2. I am not yet satisfied, however. Do you have an answer? Well, if you do, give it up in the comments below.
MORE TO COME. - Note: Leave me alone about my creative grammar. I feel Mark Twain-ish today.
Update: My daughter Jessie read this and she said I got it wrong. I am so embarrassed. What Pinky actually said is "You can see his extra eyelid blink." Maybe it was the Boyfriend who is into laser eyes.