Once upon a time there was a little wheel named Scooter. He was born in a wheel factory in Brooklyn, and when he was about 3 months old--5 years in human terms--his parents moved to Sandusky where he attended Firestone Elementary School. The first lesson a wheel is taught is to be quiet. Scooter just couldn't handle this rule at all. He was an energetic kid who could not sit still. Once his lugs were tightened and the car would begin to move, he would express his exhilaration with a loud "WEEEEEEE!!!" Well, as you can imagine, this was completely unacceptable.
"Now Scooter," his teacher would say, "wheels are supposed to be quiet. You must stop this screeching every time you begin to move."
Scooter was an inquisitive youth, and didn't understand why he must repress his excitement. "Why?" he asked.
"Because that is what wheels do. They rotate quietly." was the reply.
"But why do they do it that way?" he asked. "It's so boring!"
"Because they do."
Not only was Scooter an inquisitive kid, he was strong-willed. His parents and teachers called this quality a "rebellious streak." But Scooter had no interest in being a rebel, he just wanted to know why he should behave in a particular way. If he didn't have a good reason for doing something, he didn't do it.
He was soon kicked out of public school, and his parents sent him to Our Lady of the Good Year catholic school. Scooter was hopeful that here, things might be different. Well, as you might imagine, the methods were different, but the goal was the same.
"You must resist your sinful desires because that is God's will," said Sister Whitewall.
"Why are my desires sinful?" asked Scooter.
"Because it says so in the Bible, and the Bible was written by God himself," replied the nun.
"May I talk directly to God, then, and ask him?"
"You may talk to God, but you must talk to him through me, because I am the only one around hear who can communicate with God. You ask me a question, and I will then ask God, and I'll tell you what he said."
This seemed utterly ridiculous to Scooter, and as you might guess, he was expelled from Catholic school for being immoral.
Scooter's parents were at a loss. They did not know what to do with him. They professed that they loved their child, but they continued to believe that in order to love him, they must show him how to model acceptable behavior, and coerce him to be like everybody else, just as their parents lovingly did to them. They decided to send him to a military school called Bridgestone Academy. It was at this moment that they lost their son. Scooter's tearful mother gave him a hug, and his father stoically offered a handshake, as their son was taken into custody by a man in a very authoritative costume, with bars and stripes and everything.
At Bridgestone Academy, Scooter's will was finally broken. Using methods of trauma-based mind control developed by secret factions within the military-industrial complex, they successfully subdued Scooter's will. Unfortunately, this came with a price. Scooter developed a bad case of rotational vertigo as a result of the repression of his emotions. No matter how hard he tried, as soon as the chassis he was fastened to began to move, and he began to rotate, he would become dizzy and puke. His drill instructors tried to show him all kinds of tricks. They told him about spotting, a technique dancers and figure skaters use to prevent dizziness while whirling around in circles. Didn't work. They taught him about mind-control and self-hypnosis, which were of no help at all. No matter what he tried, after a few minutes, he would become dizzy, and toss his cookies all over the pavement.
Scooter managed to make it through the rest of school by increasing his stamina, and being able to hold off the dizziness for up to seven minutes, which was just long enough to pass his exams, and graduate from Bridgestone. He enrolled in Michelin State University, because that's what he was told he was supposed to do, and soon found himself in way over his head. He dropped out of college, and picked up a crappy job on the most pathetic of all vehicles, a Dodge Caravan, but his vertigo continued. One day, just before the vertigo was to seize him again, he let out a sound.
"WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" Vertigo gone.
The vehicle slowed and stopped. The driver got out, and looked at Scooter. Not being a mechanic, he didn't know what to do. He got back in the van, and drove it to the repair shop. The mechanic looked the van over, and did a thorough diagnostic evaluation. He found nothing wrong with Scooter. As a solution to a problem he could not identify, the mechanic decided to grease up the wheel in the hope that it would no longer make a sound. It worked. Scooter's joy was drowned in grease. It was like a dream in which you try to scream, and nothing comes out. For the rest of Scooter's life, whenever he would manage to squeak out a sound, he would get a mouthful of grease, and the rest of his life was a living nightmare.
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