Second Life is Like First Life

Did you ever go on one of those really, really long car drives to Michigan on the holidays when you were little? Say, the day after Christmas or something.

You and your little brother were in the back seat of the car. You had already eaten yourself sick of every single bit of candy left in your Christmas stockings. You played with your Etch-a-Sketch for nearly 100 miles but that had long since lost its charms. You marched the little plastic cowboys and horses around the back seat of the Pontiac.

You started playing "I spy with my little eye" with your little brother but as always, he kept laughing and going off track and spying the wrong stuff and rolling the window up and down a million times. He then kicked the front seat 100 times and bopped you on the shoulder 100 times to see if you'd do anything. Your complaints kept escalating but Mom and Dad were oblivious, arguing about the road directions, unfolding a huge road atlas, and cursing.

Your little brother keeps hitting you and knocking the little cowboys over and laughing hysterically like a hyena. When you yell at him, Mom turns around and tells *you* to be quiet, she's concentrating. She is in an utter state of obliviousness about your obnoxious little brother's antics and carryings-on there in the back seat of the Pontiac. She's looking for Flint.

Another 100 miles go by and your brother alternatively sings the Mickey Mouse song at the top of his lungs, spies the wrong I-spy stuff and keeps laughing hysterically like a hyena, or claims haughtily "I'm on the cow side" so that you lose *that* game too -- he even finds a Rhode Island license plate. Your cowboys are all scattered on the floor. Your Mom has turned around for about the millionth time and told *you* to be quiet *again* -- even though it's your little brother who is singing the "Ants Go Marching Song" on about round 1,972.

All of a sudden, Dad pulls the car over into a Savarin restaurant. Mom looks startled. Little Brother stops his song in mid-note. "Out of the car," says Dad tersely to your brother. "But Daaaaaaaadddd," he begins wailing. "I don't waannnna...."

Mom gets out and she and your little brother switch seats. He goes up front and and slams the door and settles in. You're glaring in the back seat and your Mom starts to tell you some long boring story about Michigan, stopping now and then to tell you that you should be nicer to your little brother and be setting him a good example.

Somewhere out of the corner of your ear you hear your Dad say, "Look in the glove compartment for the Lifesavers" and "Find me a station." Your brother, his cheeks swollen with Butterscotch rings, turns around toward you in the back seat, and gives you the biggest, gloatingest, nastiest, smug, shit-eating grin that a little brother who is in-trouble-but-not-really-in-trouble can ever give you. Because see, when Dad punishes him, he gets to run the radio stations and eat the Lifesavers.

You'd love to slap him, but you can't, Mom's droning away there next to you in the back seat and she'd kill you.

But...Dad gets only about 8 miles out of the rest stop when in it happens. You know the term they have for little kids, "projectile vomit"? All over the windshield, the dashboard, the front seat, Dad's raincoat. He pulls over again, a stony tower of glower. "Clean him up!" he barks to Mom, and she scuttles for the Bounty and the thermos.

"You get up here now," says Dad, turning toward you. Gingerly, stretching your legs from their long cramp in the back seat, you come up to the front seat. At last, the front seat is yours! You have maximum access to the Butterscotch drops. The radio tuner is within your reach. Dad's whistling a happy tune now, and the wailing in the back seat is now subsiding. Mom is singing a lullaby.

Life is grand. Except you're sitting in a seat damp with your brother's vomit, the window is stuck closed on your side, and there are still 600 miles to go.

Comments

[Frans Charming]

And everyone lost.

[informer]

o.O

if you think you are going to chase delphi and i away by boring us to death. . .

ugh. ya that may actually work.

can you fast forward to the part where you pick up that shaddy looking hitchhiker?

[Cocoanut Koala]

LOL - wonderful! I kept seeing Randy (from a Christmas Story) in the role of the little brother!

coco

[informer]

and rutger hauer as the deeply distrubed hitchhiker with a crazed look in his eyes.

http://www.brmovie.com/Images/Characters/Roy_Batty/brsm_roy_batty.jpg

[informer]

ok serious talk here. what happened prok?

first you close off comments then you mod comments and kick out people under fake names and stuff, now you writing readers digest stories.

is it me or did a linden telllll you something? did you get a "shape up or ship out" letter from linen labs? hamlet dropped you like a hot potato. i think thats a clue

from where i am sitting it looks like prok is trying to reinvent himself like some sleazy 80s pop star.

[Prokofy Neva]

1. I closed off comments not to the whole blog, but to rebuttals to forums attacks. That enables people to see more clearly that *first* a forums attack happens, *then* I rebut it. So often people overlook that "first" part and think I've mounted some attack myself first, when I am merely responding to a forums where I cannot participate. By cutting off people's comments, I can remind them again that I can't defend myself on the SL forums, and can't even read parts of them. I think that's a healthy thing to do periodically.

2. I'm not moderating comments, I'm taking out illegible spam like BLAHALHQ@#$!@#$$ like you would some penis enlargement ad, and I'm asking that people post under the SL names so as to take accountability.

3. You're not posting under your SL name, informer, and it appears that you aren't a non-SL player but either just yet another manifestation of the stalker with other names, or someone else fearful of taking responsibilty for your actions for inexplicable reasons. Your critique has been understood and replicated a thousand times. You hate me, believe I'm a hypocrite, and see it as your job to keep outing me. OK, we got it. Now start your own blog on these "dramatic things" if you wish to find a readership, I'm not obliged to provide it to you here. Post under your SL name. Otherwise I'm removing your posts : )

4. I didn't get any letter or communication of any kind from SL except the most routine or pleasant interactions not indicating whatsoever any of this lurid fanboyz stuff that I'm going to be banned and I have to "shape up". Um, what am I supposed to "shape up"? A blog outside of SL's jurisdiction? And...why? Because I criticize and fight back against people who attack me on the SL forums they fail to moderate sufficiently?

5. I'm not inventing myself like a sleazy 80s star or any other star. I just thought it would be boring and repetitive to tell the same story again -- how the FIC gets privileges and behaves in an exasperating manner; how their bad behaviour only serves to get them more privileges so that even in their punishment they are privileged; how they complain or act up nonetheless until finally somebody gets sick of them; how, even when justice is righted for a few minutes, it's a very incomplete and very mixed-bag kind of justice; how the FIC complains bitterly at this "unfairness" despite its over-saturation of privileges already, etc.

I dunno, all the traditional themes are always there on the forums and SL. They are banal to repeat. I thought putting them in the forum of a story/parable would be humorous.

Like I said, the intellect and humour in this blog is apparently pitched over your head? I can't help you there.

Bye, informer! Happy New Year!

[informer]

i post under an assumed name for 2 reasons

we all know what you do with your enemies. i don't want any part of that. and i think you should debate the IDEAS, not the PERSON.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

prok you never heard about the oposite story? when its thet grandbrother that get the privileges? due to his age?

[barnesworth]

I'm a sexy neast

[barnesworth]

dead on prok, you are acting like a child.

[Prokofy Neva]

Hi, Barnes, I guess you're missing the "who's who" on this fable, oh well, if the shoe fits, don't walk a mile in it lol.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Lovely :) First people complain that Prokofy is too blunt and aggressive on his blog entries/posts/emails/notecards, now they complain that he writes satire!

Prokofy, I admire your persistence for taking up so much of those nonsense on the replies here. I really do; there seems to be no limit to your patience, since you even take time to answer each (or most, at least) of the comments. *sigh* What can I say? If people "hate you" and "believe you're a hypocrite", I wonder why they are so worried as to what you have to say, to come here and make any nasty comments and ad homine attacks...

As for the satire/pastiche format, I loved it and was laughing all the way until the end :) I fear, though, that literary attempts at stylish article blogs simply miss the mark. You're wasting your talent — people aren't ready yet for that format, I guess. I was expecting a completely different sort of comments here. Well, perhaps I'm ever the naive optimist.

Speaking strictly for myself, I'm delighted, and interested to see what style of article will come next :) Hmm, and perhaps — who knows? — a "SL Reader's Digest" blog will attract a different audience ;)

Clean up the vomit, fix that broken window, and enjoy the ride :)

[Ossian]

If these are real memories (and I assume they are, because Flint, Michigan is a real place), you might consider that you're not remembering *everything* that happened. I had older siblings, and I can tell you, when they were scolded, it wasn't *my* fault.