The Magic Wand

Once upon a time, in a place not far from here, there existed a magic wand. Although not elegant, or even pretty, the wand possessed incredible power over people and things. No one in the kingdom quite remembers who had discovered this evil devil or how it had cloned itself and inserted copies into all the homes of the land. But there it was.

In spite of its addictive power and the inevitable heartaches it brought, everyone wanted one. But, alas, there could only be one for each brain box. The brain box, you see, was the devil-companion of the wand, and the wand was the key to owning and controlling the brain.

By default or fiat, a member of each family (usually the eldest male...but I digress) was the WACO (Wand Activator/Control Operator). Upon entering the household and quickly acknowledging the underlings of the family, the alpha male would seize the wand, use its magical powers to activate the brain and sit before the box and not move for hours on end. Well, that is not entirely true, for a master wander did move one of his thumbs, and he did so with amazing dexterity and speed.

Pressing the wand in mysterious ways he would beseech the brain to tell him the news, to entertain him and to let him see wonderful games taking place far away from where he sat. Eventually, the box told the man how to think. So compelling was what he saw that after a while he hardly needed to move to have his needs met. Food was brought to him on plastic platters, and he only had to get up to take care of bodily functions. Eventually he developed a very low fiber diet which, along with his inactivity, decreased one of his functions to once a month.

Due to lack of exercise, these people's muscles atrophied to a point where they became immobile. Eventually, their cerebral cortex vanished as the brain box took over their thinking processes. Sadly, the race died out as machines replaced them. None of this would have been known if archaeologist digging in the wastelands once called North America hadn't actually found what is believed to be the only brain box in existence (it is in the museum now...but I digress...again). At first, no one knew what the box was until it came under the scrutiny of Dr. Silbs, a 150 year old professor who thought it looked familiar. Although senile, something about the box stirred some deep memory in the professor's mind. "That's it," he is reported to have exclaimed as he pointed to the diodes that, even after all those decades, kept flashing 12:00. No one know what it means.

Paddle safe...

DS