Is that fly shit or pepper?

A Whole Lot of Flickin’s Goin’ On!
by Joseph Walther


I received an email this past week from a youngster by the name of Darlene Reba. Darlene is a 15-year old attending high school in Cholas Heights, a northern suburb of San Diego, California. She quoted a phrase I used in a previous column dealing with politicians and the way they do things. She thought that the phrase, “flicking fly shit out of pepper”, was funny but she wasn’t sure what it meant. I am not going to quote her entire email but I am going to explain what I meant, as well as answer a couple of other questions she asked.

I’ll get to the phrase in just a couple of minutes. First, though, I want you readers to understand that Darlene’s email simultaneously made my day and scared the daylights out of me. It made my day because she mentioned the fact that her grandmother told her to email me. This, in addition to telling me her grandmother’s maiden name, brought flashbacks—the good kind—of a time long ago. It scared the daylights out of me because it made me realize that a 15-year old, and maybe others, is reading my stuff. I guess I’d better watch my language and the spirit in which I say things.

I have been using the phrase, “flicking fly shit out of pepper” for over forty years. I have no idea who authored it, but I doubt that I did. While it can mean, “making a mountain out of a molehill”, I enjoy using it to refer to people who are slaves to placing too much emphasis on useless detail. Such people are all round us. I call them nitpickers. Well, that’s what I’ll call them now that I know 15-year olds read my stuff. I used to call them other things; but I won’t go into that. The bottom line is the fact that you know the kind I mean, the ones who live only for process as opposed to substance. Legal and political obfuscators, along with their brain-dead bureaucratic compatriots have this down to a fine art and science. It’s a way of diverting attention away from stupidity personified and onto some ridiculous justification for the stupidity.

Bill Clinton did it when he said. “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” At the time, I had no idea what the word “is” had to do with whether or not oral sex constituted a form of sexual intercourse. Thanks to ole Bill, I learned the importance of hashing this out before the fact instead of afterwards. George Bush, Ronald Regan, Dan Quayle, Lyndon Johnson, and many other public figures have all flicked fly shit out of pepper.

The legal profession is notorious for doing this. When I was growing up, lawyers were a respected lot. Oh, there were a few ambulance chasing bottom-feeders. But, these constituted a minority of the profession. It seems that the reverse is true now. Thirty and forty years ago, lawyers, judges, and juries paid as much attention to the spirit of the law as they did to the letter of the law. In other words, people not only had to comply with the expressed terms of the law, they also had to be in harmony with the reasoning behind the applicable law.

Today, all that counts is the letter of the law. When people retain lawyers nowadays, they have to ensure that they find one who is better at flicking fly shit out of pepper then their opponent’s lawyer is. In fact, most law schools do not attempt to differentiate between the letter and spirit of the law. The results are obvious. The more adept lawyers are at flicking fly shit out of pepper, the more cases they win. The more cases they win, the higher the fees they can charge. Who wants a loser as a legal representative?

Who wins? The lawyers do. I just received a coupon for 50% off on my next weekday car rental from Enterprise, Inc. This windfall, about $20, is the result of a class action lawsuit. I won $20 for reasons I was not aware of in the first place and had no idea I was part of the suit. Oh, goodie! I only wish I had received notice before my bank had closed for the weekend. I don’t know how you feel; but I think this is unconscionably inconsiderate of them. Now I have to wait two days before I can get those twenty dollars into my bank account to start accumulating the .000000123% periodic compounding interest I am so used to receiving. Oh, before I forget, the lawyers have received $7,000,000 to date and seem upset with that. Flicking fly shit out of pepper pays!

Who loses? We all do; not to mention the toll such nonsense takes on our justice system. Flicking fly shit out of pepper intensifies our propensity to be legalistic. It replaces fairness and common sense with incessant nitpicking. Our justice system can’t be all things to all people. Flicking fly shit out of pepper forces our system to do the impossible. As hard as it tries to be all things to all people, the more miserably it fails and ends up nothing to most people; looking all the more foolish to boot.

Nine years ago, a 14-year old girl dyed her hair PINK and GREEN. Her parents wanted to… well; let’s just say that the lawyers would still be flicking fly shit out of pepper over what they wanted to do. The young woman went to school with her hair dyed. Teachers combed the dress code trying to find a way to discipline her. The assistant principal kept his wits about him, though. He called her in and congratulated her on the “new look”. He raved about how young it made her look and that “practically no one” would ever believe that she was soon to turn 15. Two days later, she dyed it back to its original color! There was no need for the ACLU to sue on behalf of her “civil” liberties. Everyone lived happily ever after. END OF STORY.

Contrast this with the story headlines across the nation 5-years earlier, about a 13-year old girl who came to school wearing condom earrings. She took two condoms, still wrapped inside the aluminum foil wrap, punctured holes in one of the corners of each condom pack, and hooked them to a pair of clip-on earrings. The fly shit flickers came out of the woodwork and went out of their minds with Dr. Laura Schlesinger leading the pack. Hell, the best Laura could do was posting her nude pictures on the Internet. And they were not very good ones, either!

Back to the Condom Kid… The principal suspended her for violating the “good taste” clause of the school’s dress code. Curiously, I would still like to know how he knew what condoms tasted like. Anyway, the school board stood in support of the principal, as did the teachers, most parents, and most of the students. Unfortunately, the girl’s parents were not happy campers and took the case to the ACLU. The ACLU took up the child’s cause, stating that nothing in the code specifically forbade what she had done. “Besides”, they reasoned, “whether a condom tastes good or bad is a matter of personal preference.”

This brought flicking fly shit out of pepper to a completely new level. The best fly shit flickers in the world fought tooth and nail for almost two years. After spending tens of thousands of dollars, the school board got cold feet and reversed the school principal. The kids, having won, were free to wear condoms on their ears, both boys and girls. Helen Kelleher, the founder of the ACLU, would have turned over in her grave. She couldn’t stand people who flicked fly shit out of pepper. I have lost count of the times she said, “The only thing dumber than flicking fly shit out of pepper is spending tens of thousands of dollars to do so.” Oh, and as a matter of interest, no other student attempted to wear condom earrings after this incident.

We blame a lot of our fly shit flicking on our “Founding Fathers” and the intent behind their actions. The First Amendment to the Constitution, for example, prohibits the establishment of an official state sponsored religion. Thomas Jefferson told me many years ago, that the Brits gave boring sermons and that we were not going to have that crap in the United States. “The Archbishop of Cantaloupe or wherever”, he kept telling me, “constantly pronounced the word marriage as ‘Malwage’. What a complete dweeb”, ole Tom used say.

Be this as it may, the first Amendment does not prohibit the Christians from putting a Nativity display in the Post Office. Similarly, it does not prohibit all of the other religions from displaying religious symbols. However, with all of that stuff all over the Post Office, how’s a customer supposed to get to the stamp counter to buy stamps? So, in the interest of sales, it’s best to keep such religious displays the hell out of the Post Office.

Neither does the Constitution prohibit public school children from beginning the day with a prayer. But, gee whiz, Batman, by the time we get through the Muslims, Jews, Catholics, and unlimited Protestant Sects,—I mean, the number of different Baptist denominations, alone, could take a month or more— there is no time for teaching anything. So, no organized praying. If children OR teachers want to say a prayer, they should do it before arriving at school. I know, as a matter of certainty, that the TEACHERS have been doing this for years!

What about the Atheists, you ask? Well, the sensible ones… the ones who are confident in their convictions, have no problems with people saying prayers. They simply keep their mouths shut and ignore the noise. Unfortunately, there are Atheists who are not very strong in their convictions. These people go catatonic and call the ACLU at the first sound of the word GOD. We need to supply them with a large supply of Valium. They’ll still hear the prayers; but they won’t care. By the way, these kinds of Atheists are wussies. They are just as bad as their equally unconfident religious counterparts. Also, both groups are among the most adept flickers of fly shit that the world has ever known.

That’s it, Darlene. I hope you have a better understanding of my meaning. Remember, there’s a whole lot of fly shit flicking goin’ on, kiddo, over just about everything you can imagine. Your generation is young and the only hope we have for bringing some sanity back to the human race. My group has already blown it! [FLICK] [FLICK] [FLICK]

Well, that’s all, folks. I’ll talk to all of you next Sunday.

PS.
Darlene, ask Bullets, I was the only who got away with calling your grandmother Bullets, if she can still do that trick with the quarter. Don’t push her for details! Tell her I have thought about her often over the years and I’d love to hear from her.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: TheTrueFacts@comcast.net