August 23, 2009
If Socrates were alive today and found himself in a car pulling up to a McDonald's drive-thru window at 6:08am, would he order the Sausage McGriddle with cheese? And were he to make that choice, would he also select the orange juice as his preferred beverage or would he instead choose the coffee?
Let's look at the evidence.
In Willard, the 1971 horror film starring Bruce Davison and Ernest Borgnine, Willard is a creepy dude who lives in a big ol' house with his irritable mother. He likes rats a lot. I don't remember why. I was in 5th or 6th grade when this film came out and my ability to examine cinematic plot points had yet to be developed. At that time I was aware of baseball, motorcycles and tits, none of which played a part in this film. And I'm sure if there had been at least one scene with Sondra Locke wearing a baseball cap, riding a Harley, roaring down the highway with her bazooms flapping in the wind, the film would have pulled in WAY more coin.
But back to Socrates.
So Willard makes friends with a large, white rat and decides to name him Socrates. They begin to have long, philosophical discussions through the wee hours of the morning. While Willard enjoys these conversations, he begins to feel frustrated with Socrates' habit of never answering a question directly.
"Wanna bite of my sandwich?"
"Are you offering the sandwich or simply making it available?"
"What? I don't know, look, do you want a bite or don't you?"
"Is it a sandwich by its own nature or because you call it a sandwich?"
"Why do you have to be such a pain in the ass? I'm eating a sandwich, I probably won't finish it, and I'm just asking you if you would like some of it?"
"So you're offering me scraps because I'm a rat?"
"I'm not offering you scraps! I'll give you half the sandwich, OK? It's called sharing! Do you want half my sandwich or don't you?"
"Did you make half of that sandwich with me in mind or did you make the whole sandwich for yourself and then realize you couldn't finish it?"
"OK, fuck you, Socrates."
"Is that a dismissal or a cross-species offer of lascivious congress?"
As time passes, Willard becomes increasingly isolated. His mother humiliates him, his boss berates him, and a guy named Doug tells him that his polyester pants give him camel-toe.
"Ha ha! You got a bagina!"
"What? What did you say?"
"Bagina! You got a bagina!"
"Are saying vagina?"
"You a girl! You got a bagina!"
"Stop saying that! I don't have a vagina. The fabric of my trousers creates an unusual fold in that area, that's all."
"Naw, you got a bagina! Ha ha! You Bagina Man! Where you goin', Bagina Man?"
Willard is soon paralyzed by fear and paranoia. Weeks go by as he remains locked in his basement arguing with Socrates.
"The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true."
"What? What did you just say?"
"The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm just giving you paradoxical statements to see if you can assign them a consistent classical binary truth value."
"Look, you're not Eubulides and I'm not Xenophon."
"But what about this? A single grain of sand is certainly not a heap. Nor is the addition of a single grain of sand enough to transform a non-heap into a heap. Even when we have a collection of grains of sand that is not a heap, adding another single grain of sand will not create a heap. And yet we know that eventually we will have a heap. At what point do we have a heap?"
"Stop saying heap! I don't know! I don't know how many goddamn grains of sand make a heap! Stop asking me about sand and heaps! You're giving me a headache!"
"Alright, I'm sorry. Jeez, you sure have your panties in a bunch today."
"What? Why did you say that?"
"What?"
"Panties in a bunch. Why did you say that?"
"I don't know, it's an expression. You never heard that before?"
"Yeah, I just..I don't know. It's the second time today someone made a reference like that to me."
"Oh."
"Doug, that idiot, called me Bagina Man."
"He called you..what?"
"Bagina Man. He thinks my pants give me camel-toe so he called me Bagina man."
"Bagi..what are you saying?"
"He's got a speech impediment! He meant vagina. He was calling me Vagina Man!"
"Oh..oh, I see. Yeah..mm hmm."
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"Come on, just say it."
"Well, think of it this way. What you have not lost, you still have. You have not lost a vagina. Therefore, you have a vagina."
"But I don't have a vagina."
"Have you lost it?"
"No!"
"Well, then it must be around here somewhere."
Now, I don't want to ruin the movie for you but this is when Willard loses it, Socrates gets killed, and Willard befriends another rat, this time named Ben (not Plato or Aristotle, for some reason). Then Willard, Ben, and all their rat buddies kill Doug, Willard's mother, and Ernest Borgnine, all leading to the final scene where a pest control guy brings up the camel-toe thing, Willard flips out, and they have a gunfight on Main Street. Something like that, I don't remember. I had begun drinking by this point, a bender that lasted until my mid 40s.
All this, of course, leads one to the inevitable conclusion that Socrates, were he alive today, would certainly choose the Sausage McGriddle with cheese, and undoubtably select coffee as his accompanying beverage.
I hope that was clear.
Copyright 2009 John Bizarre