Fuck you, asshole

The Terminator ponders his choices

Did you know the original “Terminator” movie cost about $6.4 million to make? What a friggin’ piece of genius that was.

One scene in particular has piqued my interest today…

Cleaning Man at Flophouse: [Damaged skin on the Terminator is rotting from gangrene] Hey, buddy. You got a dead cat in there, or what?

[the Terminator visualizes: ‘POSSIBLE RESPONSE: YES/NO; OR WHAT?; GO AWAY; PLEASE COME BACK LATER; FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE’]

The Terminator: Fuck you, asshole.

Now that is a high quality screenplay!!!

Part of what makes this scene genius is that it illustrates that the Terminator Model T-800 learns. At the beginning of the movie the Terminator is sent back in time. Like all time travel in this movie franchise, the trip is made completely naked. Therefore one of the Terminator’s first tasks is to obtain clothing. He encounters some punks and says, “Your clothes. Give them to me. Now!”

The punk leader (played by a young Bill Paxton) and not knowing who he is up against responds, “Fuck you, asshole!” The T-800 then displays his surgical skills and knowledge of human anatomy by removing the punk’s still beating heart. Classic movie magic!

Later, when the cleaning man asks the Terminator about the smell emanating from his room, the Terminator runs through his decision tree, including his newly acquired knowledge, and decides how to respond. As we all know, he wisely selects, “fuck you, asshole,” and maximizes the odds that he’ll blend in. The cleaning man shrugs and moves along.

The reason I bring all this up is that I believe I have encountered the gerbil version of this phenomenon.

Regular visitors to Abyssia will already know that The Key was obtained from the gerbil about eight days ago. We were so happy we celebrated with some Ewok Karaoke. But then the dark times came as documented in The Gerbil Strikes Back.

Today there was even more action. I’ll attempt to build to it quickly.

Having a gerbil in The Nest can present a myriad of difficulties. One of those takes the form of the gerbil’s closet friend and ally: The magical and mysterious Little Mouse.

Who is the Little Mouse? Imagine that there are two children who have been left alone to play together. Suddenly something happens. Maybe it is a broken vase. Intense investigation reveals that neither child did anything wrong, though. Neither of them did anything. How is that possible? You’ve just had an encounter with the Little Mouse!

The Little Mouse is the ultimate miscreant. Who ate the last piece of pie? Who left the heat on all night? Who took a few pieces of currency from the wallet? Time after time, invariably, it turns out to be the Little Mouse. The Little Mouse is one busy guy.

Let me tell you: When the gerbil was a full-time resident here in The Nest, there was a lot of unexplained phenomenon. Our Little Mouse was very, very busy indeed. Who ate the raspberry bar? The Little Mouse! Who broke the window blinds in the gerbil’s room? The Little Mouse! Who left the side door to the garage completely unlocked? The Little Mouse!

In a busy life there are a lot of loose ends. Did I have $13 in my wallet or only $10? That little sliver of existence with that shadow of doubt is the special place the gerbil and his good buddy the Little Mouse call home.

With the gerbil around you can never really know anything? Was it me and I forgot? Was it my wife and she forgot? Was it the gerbil and he’s lying? Or was it The Little Mouse?

Today started with a call from our aunt who had gotten the gerbil his job. They work at the same place and commute to work from our fucking drive way. A little over a year ago the gerbil needed a phone and, because he had no job, only the best fucking phone of all time would suffice. He went and got himself a phone with keyboards, video cameras, music, ringtones, yada yada yada. A very expensive phone and one with a lot of bells of whistles. Of course the gerbil never made his payments and the phone has been shut off for over a year. It’s now the world’s handiest paperweight and a testament to the will of a gerbil. So our aunt gave him her spare phone so he could be responsible and keep in touch about his job.

This morning my wife receives a call from our aunt. “Had we seen the gerbil?” she wanted to know. “Nope. Didn’t he make it work work?” my wife asked. “Nope. He wasn’t at the bus stop, I mean your driveway, and he hasn’t shown his face at work.” Sometime later we got word he had finally gotten to work with a lame bullshit story about dead cell phone and missing charger, etc. Gerbils are remarkably un-autonomous. If you don’t wipe their asses they tend to smell. And so forth.

So eight days ago we got The Key back directly from the gerbil. We finally knew each and every time the gerbil would be in our house because he’d have to go through us. Of course I speculated about the possibility of him making a copy of The Key, after all he’s had well over a year to do it, but even after all we’ve been through we still try to give him the benefit of the doubt.

My wife came home for lunch today and found that the gerbil’s Facebook chat was open on her computer yet there was no other visible gerbil spore. Now this was mysterious indeed. The gerbil had been in our house this morning! My wife looked around and – lo and behold – the side door to the garage was unlocked. Just like we often found it when the gerbil was still around. What the fuck?

After lunch my wife called me at work and caught me up on current events. I checked Facebook and said, “Hey. The gerbil just hit on a girl six minutes ago. He must be screwing around at work.”

“He’s not at work,” my wife said. “He had a short day today.”

MUTHAFUCKA!

As Sherlock Holmes, the patron saint of gerbil parents, might say: Something is afoot!

This was clearly the deepest example of “daytime nocturnalism” we’ve ever encountered to date. (This is when a gerbil invades The Nest surreptitiously and only when it knows parental forces will not be present.)

We came up with a plan. I took an hour off work and headed home to surprise the gerbil during the prime daytime nocturnalism hours. I’d take a different route to the house, park a few houses away, then sneak up on the house. My wife had placed a bit of leaf in the front door. We would know if the gerbil had entered via that door.

I walked up the drive and checked the door. No leaf! I was a bit relieved. Perhaps this was all a big misunderstanding. I had my cover story in place just in case: I was sent home to get a CD for work. I crept quietly into the house and even surprised our cats. 🙂

Not expecting much, I walked down the hall and … WHOA THERE! Gerbil sighted, right ahead! In my wife’s arts and crafts room the gerbil was sleeping on the carpeted floor. (A prime time scrounger like a gerbil often sleeps directly on the floor. It is their way.)

I saw an eye open. The gerbil had recognized that I was near. “Hey, what’s up?” I said.

“I am so tired. So tired,” the gerbil replied.

I tried to act casual. “Say, you surprised me. I had to come home and get a CD for work. You startled the hell of out of me. How’d you get in? Do you have a key to our house?”

Boom! I had just popped the big question of the moment. This was it. The gerbil was corned and had no where to run. I was breathless from the wondrous excitement and electricity hanging in the air.

This was when the gerbil cocked his head and I saw that look. The gerbil was just like the Terminator and was going through his response options. And it took him about the exact same time as the T-800 to select his response. One full second.

“Aunt Mable loaned me her key. I need to look for the cell phone charger. Have you seen it?”

Wow. The gerbil is good. At this point, two thoughts crossed my mind. First, I had no idea if Aunt Mable had loaned the key or not so I didn’t respond with Global Thermonuclear War. Second, if she did loan the key, that was a key she would not have for very much longer.

The gerbil got up off the floor and, trying to appear casual, went to my wife’s computer and typed furiously. He was covering his tracks! Duh.

Then he walked up to me and said, “Hey, there is a job at the Burger King if you want one. I just applied for it myself.”

Well played, gerbil. Well played! The old “I’m looking for a job” maneuver. This classic gambit has been used on many a gerbil parent to distract, confuse, astound and amaze. Gerbils can sense this is a wonderful way to distract a parent who is suffering from FENS (False Empty Nest Syndrome) and desperate to have their own lives back. Luckily my shields were up and I didn’t fall for it.

“So you got a key to our house, right?” The gerbil nodded. “Will you please lock up when you leave? I gotta get this CD back to work.” He assured me he would.

I got in my car and notified my wife. She was sure Aunt Mable hadn’t loaned out our key but she would call just to make sure. By the time I was back to work we had confirmation: Aunt Mable had not loaned out that key!

Bad move, Mr. Terminator Gerbil. It is fucking game on now…

P.S. When I came home from work tonight the gerbil was loitering in our front driveway again, talking to a girl … with a car! By the time I parked in the garage the gerbil had made his getaway in her car. Apparently the gerbil wasn’t in the mood for chit chat. Now why might that be??? “Fuck you, asshole.”

Stay tuned for more details on this same gerbil station as they become available…