Chapter 7

Previously:

Very quietly, Alanna ground against me.

She uttered, “Unnh, unnh, unnnh, ohhhhhh. Oh my.” She trembled in my arms, obviously having herself a good cum.

She continued to grind on me, groaning for a minute and then stopped.

She said, “Crap. What did I just do?”

I said, “I think you know. We just enjoyed each other for a few minutes.”

She said, “Yes, but what will you think of me tomorrow?”

“I said, I will think that you are a very hot little lady and that you feel scrumptious in my arms. I will dream about you tonight. Besides that, I know you’re not interested in more than that right now. We’ve barely met.”

She said, “I did not see that coming! That’s odd. I don’t lose control like that.”

I said, “It’s all good. You’re human; you showed emotion.”

She said, “You jerk! There we were. I thought we were talking about stuff, and then wham! You try to seduce me.”

I said, “Not really, you’re so responsive. Plus, I’m much more capable of seducing you than that.”

She said, “You are even more seductive?”

I said, “Uh-huh,” as if I didn’t believe her because I didn’t.

She continued, “We had just begun mentioning school when you mauled my poor young body. Tell me more about your ideas on school today.”

I said, “Boo hoo, it’s tough to be a princess. OK, here it goes in a nutshell. I am sure Virginia has excellent schools and teachers compared to most states. It’s the curriculum that’s off track.”

After a pause, I continue, “I see what’s underneath the dysfunctional material. The basic fact is they want us to regurgitate this useless stuff. Much of it does not relate to actual real life or work today. Little of the necessary things you do need come through. It’s evolved into a mental exercise. You have to ferret out what’s real and what is not.”

I said, “It’s almost as if I peek around the garbage in the curriculum merely to pass their tests. At the same time, I extract whatever I can for actually living a good life. What use is knowing the year that the ‘First Battle of Bull Run’ Happened? It is like they boiled down the facts to a single date? They left out the fascinating parts. For a test, you must remember; First Run - Bull Run - and the Date.”

She said, “How do you do something like that? It seems hard to understand.”

“I said, “Um, think of a simple math problem; they present two numbers as pertinent details. You’re supposed to come up with the answer.”

I continued, “They add many useless parts to the problem. I read it and push the useless pieces to the back of my mind. Then I take the clean distilled problem and solve it. It’s something like that. Do you care about the terms subtrahend and the minuend? They may be important to a mathematician, but what do they contribute to the math problem? It’s unnecessary to solve the problem after you have done a few simple subtraction problems.”

I said, “Then there are the terms themselves. Who comes up with this stupid shit? Subtrahend and the minuend. What the hell? Sub and mini. Don’t they both imply they are small numbers? Yet a subtrahend is always the larger number. That’s absolutely counterintuitive. It’s unhelpful.”

Continues, “It’s like someone decided to purposely make a simple subtraction problem and trash it with useless and confusing wording. It should be something like Maxihend and Minuend. That’s a little more logical. Truly it would be even better if it were Overhead and Underhand. That would denote its location in the math problem.”

I said, “The useless parts bother the average student subliminally. This makes them keep going over the problem, looking for traps. Now you don’t trust the book OR the teacher. How dumb is that? You have lost confidence and are a little angry at a system you feel is unnecessarily complex, contrived, or rigged.”

She said, “Yes, that seems unproductive to proper teaching. It would be OK if the labels add value to the problem. The publisher wants to create a new book version to sell, so more uselessness is added yearly. Every new version of the book is worse than the last.”

I said, There’s more. Because of my recall abilities, I can quickly check the correctness of the answer. I back up the correct answer. I use old math. I quickly memorized the multiplication tables a while back. Using basic old-time math skills with logic allows me to find the answer in the time it takes to read it. Plus, my in-head calculator gives correct answers.”

She said, “Isn’t the first part what we are all taught?”

I said, “Only up to a point. Let’s use that math problem again. Do you remember the multiplication tables?”

She said, “No, we don’t have to. We have calculators and computers and phones and the like. Why memorize useless information.”

I said, “Or so they told us. Without your phone, tell me what 9 times 8 is. For hundreds of years, we almost instinctively knew the answers as 72. They have slowed us down by encouraging us to stick a machine between us and our thinking. We have been made slower, dumber, and dependent on machinery.”

I continue, “If you take the analogy further, with a more complex problem. You can input it into a computer or calculator, but is the answer correct? How do you know it’s correct? Is it because you trusted a machine to be correct? What if the machine or program comes from a foreign country hostile to our country? A software update to your phone or computer could screw us up badly.”

“Alanna, they get us to ignore the old ways of doing things. We are purposely being slowed down. At the same time, they are creating ignorance and slow minds. This destroys our ability to use the fundamentals of logic. It affects your ability to see and think with certainty, to see behind the B.S. I am almost certain it is purposeful.”

I continue, “It even has a name. The government calls it the dumbing down of America. They blame teachers’ unions and poor parenting. There have always been teachers’ unions and poor parenting. What’s changed? There lies the truth. Our generation has had its mind muddled. Corporate interests are behind it all. They want us all to be sheep in the field. To feel out of control.”

“Alanna, Think of the brain as another muscle that requires attention. For example, you know I’m into sports. If I work out to get my body stronger, why would I not want to work out my mind to be stronger? I don’t want my mind to vegetate whenever possible. Instead of having useful thoughts, my mind would drift through a sea of wants and desires. Everything would become about me. I would constantly complain like so many do.”

I said, “Think about boys and computer games. Many spend years playing games. This gets them fast fingers, but then they spend hours and hours on a useless endeavor. A two-hour fantasy movie is one thing. All-night binge game-playing does not make boys any smarter. When they are 25, they will not know how to relate to a woman or a boss.”

I Continue, “This appears to be a big plot to me. This has to be someone’s agenda to make us all as dumb as rocks. We are, as a nation becoming petty, selfish, bitchy, and self-important. Our country used to be proud of our American exceptionalism. Hard work and high education were important. Education today is very different. I read many books, many old ones from the library, and education has changed badly. Those days of American exceptionalism have faded.”

I said, “We used to have a significant manufacturing base. Throughout the 20th century, we made things for the entire world. Today robots make things. Mostly we are being fed cheap Chinese trinkets to keep us happy. Cheap electronics come to my mind.”

Alanna said, “So, I’m not the only one that thinks school totally wastes our time. Public school is a babysitting service. You say they are dumbing us down. Good-paying jobs are going away, and Wall Street is about cheating the system and getting rich. It’s sick, really.”

It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I had a semi-naked beautiful young girl in my lap. We are wasting time talking about our philosophies of life. I guess it was necessary, but I’d sooner do more necking. We occasionally moved against each other and touched each other to maintain that feeling of closeness.

Alanna said, “The other high school options are not good either. They seem limited to religious-based schools or boarding schools for kids. Boarding schools are for bad behavior or the occasional inconvenient kid. What good are twelve whole years of teaching us about Jesus? Sheesh!”

I said, “It is depressing.”

She said, “Yes, but I thought we were talking about you. We can cover schooling and its failings another time.”

I said, “Why any more about me? I talked for a while. It’s your turn now. Tell me about clairvoyance. What’s that like?”

She said, “Maybe later. I would rather go for a swim right now. I’ll tell you about it in the pool. Would you like to go swimming?”

I noticed how she asked. She didn’t want to talk about it. Secrets? Well, I have my own secrets.

I said, “I would like to go swimming; however, I don’t have a swimsuit here.”

She said, “That’s OK. They’re very optional here among friends. I can tell by the log I’m sitting on and your huge chest that you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Let’s skinnydip, huh?”

I said, “We haven’t even been on a date, and you’re OK going skinnydipping with me?”

She said, “Why not? My Mom will be there. Did you notice she was nude?”

I said, “Yes, pretty hard to miss that! So, you expect me to parade my naked alter ego in front of your Mom too?”