Obscenities spur astute reflection

So there I was, outside on the patio, futzing with the electric schematics of my new hot tub. I was almost ready to fill it up but was having a heckuva time figuring out if the thing had been set to operate on a 220 line or a 110. It seemed important to get that particular point right, since electrocution doesn’t sound all that relaxing, but the diagram in the bleeping manual wasn’t corresponding especially well to what I was seeing in the bleeping power box, and after a few minutes of confusion and frustration, I decided to stand up, walk around and unleash a high-powered turbo stream of time-tested and semi-satisfying American expletives.

Then, as I was taking a breath in order to fire up another salvo of verbal fireworks, I thought of that Iraqi boy who was unlucky enough to have his arms blown off because of an errant bomb sent his way by the last superpower on Earth.

That image shut me right up. Instantly humbled, I thought: “If I’m getting borderline apoplectic about having momentary difficulties figuring out the wiring for my new aquatic sensory-pleasure machine, I wonder how many megatons of ultra-hissy I’d be packing if I’d just had my arms blown off by the last superpower on Earth?”

After a few moments of reflection, I concluded I would indeed be packing a major-league red ass, one that might last for about 50 or 60 years. Then I thought about Hosni Mubarak.

It’s not often that we pay much attention to quotes from the president of Egypt, but he said something in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad that may, unfortunately, be worth remembering. He said our actions in Iraq may well have created 100 Osama bin Ladens.

There is an excellent novel by Nelson DeMille called The Lion’s Game. In the book, the Lion is a Libyan terrorist who flies into JFK one day in extremely dramatic fashion, setting the stage for an excellent story centered on Muslim vengeance. His burning desire for retribution against America stems from being a young boy and living at the compound of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi on the night Ronald Reagan tried, via jet attack, to take Gaddafi out. The dictator wasn’t hurt, but the kid who grew up to be the Lion wasn’t so lucky. On that night, the blueprint of his life was drawn. He waited for his time, waited for years, and when his time came, he made his move.

And so I stood there, thinking of the Lion and the armless boy and the PBS special last week called Avoiding Armeggeddon, with its description of how a van might, one day, park in downtown New York carrying a nuclear bomb packing a Hiroshima-sized punch, and what that punch would do to all of us.

“Damn,” I thought, noticing some tension in my shoulders and neck, “a soak would be nice.”