Voodoo Time Dot Com

My paranormally hypersensitive readers have no doubt noticed that things have gone a bit weird since Saturday. You see, all attempts at communication are going to hell in a handbasket for the next few weeks as the planet Mercury enters a retrograde period in our nighttime sky.

According to Dr. Manny Stahrs, chair of the Voodootime Institute’s Department of Astrology, “Planet Mercury is highly influential in matters of communication, technology, and a bunch of other crap. As Mercury moves backwards through the sky, you’ve maybe noticed that your computer is not working correctly. Or perhaps you can’t understand what your boss is asking you to do. Maybe your children and pets are not obeying you.” When asked how this was different from every other day of the year, Dr. Stahrs declined comment, citing an urgent and sudden need to visit the men’s room.

After this discussion, I started talking to myself. “Myself,” I began, “how is it that the movement of a tiny planet with a mean distance to Earth of some 150 million kilometers (approx. 93 million miles) can affect my communication with others? Well, because the planet Mercury was named after the Roman messenger god who was, incidentally, named Mercury. The Greeks knew him as Hermes. Mercury had winged sandals that he used to fly great distances to deliver messages to the gods. He is not to be confused with Sciaticus who delivered massages to the gods.

Since Mercury was the Roman god of communication, and the planet closest to the Sun is called Mercury, then it follows logically that said planet holds some dominion over communication throughout the solar system. Personally, I find that hard to swallow, but I cannot fully discount this theory as baseless. After all, I am seeing a disquieting trend this week at work. People keep calling me with computer problems, but I can’t understand a word they’re saying. Then when I tell them how to fix it, they disobey me.

Incidentally, this blog entry isn’t coming along so great either - Mercury in retrograde or writer’s block?

Anyway, I believe that a solution already exists for use in these troubled times. Think about this. What do English-speaking people do when we encounter someone who does not understand us? We speak s-l-o-w-l-y and LOUDLY and with extravagant hand gestures. So until October 6, it behooves all of us to walk around like we’re touring Istanbul or someplace. I’m not sure if wearing a Hawaiian shirt and dress socks with sandals helps, but it’s certainly worth a try. If you go that route, be sure to send pictures.

B-Y-E  F-O-R  N-O-W.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 19th, 2002 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Weird. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.