Gravity Sucks...in which UncleDuke verifies a Fundamental Law of the Universe

I have been experimenting of late with the Law of Gravity. It has seemed to me to be increasingly oppressive, and to be honest, it’s starting to piss me off. We have all heard that older people are in a bad mood much of the time. I am beginning to believe that bad moods may be the effect, but Gravity is the cause.

Personally, I recognize that I can be cranky. I acknowledge that I might seem to some to be persistently crabby, inordinately grouchy, unremittingly irritable, assiduously argumentative and endlessly cantankerous. In a charming sort of way.

I do in fact recognize that I am out-of-sorts a good deal of the time. Believe me, it has been pointed out to me. More than once. It is not my best side, I admit, but I would argue that most of the aforementioned ill-humor is due to the effects of Gravity. Gravity is leaning on me harder than it ever has in the past, and I appear less able to resist its influences.

This is not an excuse exactly. It’s just that I am exhausted a fair amount of the time. Gravity is just plain wearing me down. I have already given up almost 2” in height to its incessant downward forces, and I don’t believe it’s near done with me yet.

There are many other Laws with which I contend more successfully. These include, but are not restricted to: orders, writs, ordinances, decrees, regulations, edicts, executive orders and proclamations. Also unsolicited advice and/or suggestions. I consider most of them to be mere social contrivances, and generally I am not good at obeying or even paying much attention to any of them. I roll the dice with parking restrictions regularly, pretty much ignore my dermatologist’s tireless advice and also have a laissez-faire attitude toward some IRS dictates. Fines, health alerts and life sentences do not have the fearsome consequences they once did.

But the Law of Gravity is a matter of another several orders of magnitude. It being one of the Four Fundamental Forces of the Universe, it is more difficult to ignore than most of the other arbitrarily imposed laws. Gravity has a certain Universal weight to it that is physically hard to get around. I know I have battled with it in the past, and I can’t remember hardly a single time when it came out in my favor.

It is a constant reminder that I am mortal, a temporary being, a small player in a very large game. And as such, it is an irritant of no small magnitude. When I wake up in the morning, it is the first of an increasing number of limiting forces that I have to deal with. My feet hit the floor and there it is— jumping into my arms, smiling like a 400-pound Cheshire cat and trying to pull me down to the center of the Earth. That is not its only task, to be sure, but it does seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time and energy in that pursuit. Humiliation, I suspect, may be its main goal.

As a for instance, I present to you the matter of climbing stairs. If my calculus is off when I begin ascending, if I am over-confident and do not apply sufficient energy at the bottom, if I do not give it a good running start, nor lean into it properly, or if I get distracted and decelerate mid-stairs, there will be inadequate momentum to get me all the way to the top. There will be insufficient thrust to finish the task. The consequence of this is that it will be necessary to gather my lumpy, corporeal self, recalculate, re-energize, put it back in 1st gear and begin anew. This is not, of course, the end of the world, but it is inefficient and an acute embarrassment to boot.

In previous years, why I remember bounding up stairs--two, three at a time. With no more energy than I might use pedaling up that long, steep hill to get to my grade school. It was hardly worth thinking about.

But that was before Gravity began to turn on me. Gravity, I am now pretty convinced, is conspiring to keep me on the ground floor, figuratively and literally. Further (And don’t ask me how I know this!) its long-range plan consists of finding a hole for me and then, at some undisclosed date, planting me permanently in it. I tell you, it is aching to get me underground. I am apparently too great of an annoyance moving around here above ground. It is an insidious plot, a dark scheme, just the kind of thing one would expect from this Universal Force of Attraction whose tentacles go back to the beginning of Time and reach way out to the ends of the Universe.

Yes, sir. I smell a Conspiracy. Gravity holds some sort of grudge and is turning the screws and trying to kill me. And I am beginning to take it personal.

As an example, I fell off a ladder not long ago. I was on it, and then I wasn’t. It was not a very tall ladder—maybe 6’. It was a short fall. By my calculations I should have been going maybe a couple of feet/second when I landed. An inconsequential dust-up with the ground.

But my internal odometer told me I was at or damn near terminal velocity at ground zero. About 100 times faster than I ought to have been going. It was like I fell off a water tower. And the ladder, on which I landed, looked like it had been hit by a good-sized meteor. I tell you, this was the work of a Demon Force, insidious and malicious in its intent. Out to get me, for sure.

Additionally, there is another less noteworthy but equally prevalent aspect to this force that is picking on me and causing detriment to my quality of life. Gravity seems more and more to me to be not just a physical law but an organizational tool (read: Conspiracy) that the Universe is using to keep me down on the farm—or in my case, in my house. It not only makes it harder to get up from wherever it is that I have gotten down into, it arranges tasks and things I must do before doing something else, such that it is quite nearly impossible to do anything without doing several dozen other things beforehand. I call this EXISTENTIAL GRAVITY.

I tried for 45 minutes the other day to get out of the house but continually needed one more thing—glasses, gloves, mask, hat, wallet, sunglasses, hearing aids, vaccination card, keys, scarf, water bottle… I forgot first one and then the other. I cursed a blue streak and Gravity was the target of most of it. Is this any way to live?

Getting dressed is another example of Gravity’s harassment. Particularly in the Winter. You got socks, shoes, pants, underpants, layers of shirts, undershirts, sweaters, hats, gloves, jackets. This all adds up and soon becomes hard work. An arduous task!

And all of these undertakings have a certain order associated with them that one must follow or it will be necessary to repeat some or all of the process. This happens to me all the time. You? What I’m saying, Friends, is that Gravity is The Culprit!

I find that shoes and socks in particular have been edging further and further from my individual center-of-gravity. It is a long way down there to my feet, and my arms seem shorter and less useful in this process than they have been in the past. I would go without both shoes and socks if it weren’t so damn cold.

Did I mention there is a reason why it takes so long to get through airport security these days. That reason is that all the geezers have to both take off their shoes and then put them back on. This all takes time, for the aforementioned reasons. And those lines back up. Then you miss your flight. Who is to blame, eh? You tell me.

I am myself ascribing all these mortifications to Gravity. They are, in my opinion, Gravity’s work. It is just the sort of thing that a domineering physical force, an arrogant scoundrel like Gravity might do. Annoying old people with prevarications and trickery. Just for fun.

It has been a “Law” for some time now, but who actually proposed such a restrictive regulation? Sounds like something the EPA might have put into effect.

And who voted for it? I certainly didn’t.

And who actually understands it? Only university “professors”. Elitist of the highest order. What does that tell you?

I for one am absolutely incensed that this “Law of Gravity”, as they call it, has been mandated state-wide. And perhaps even further for all I know. We are not given the option to accept it or not. And they teach it in all our schools! As if it were a proven damn fact!

I tell you, there is no such thing as a Free Country if such an outrage is allowed to continue to stand. It violates my Constitutional rights—my rights to move about as freely as I please. As I used to. Am I to live out my life in its oppressive bondage? This so-called Law is a blatant overreach by the Physical Universe into my personal freedoms, intruding over-and-over into my individual liberties. I will not remain sheepish in the face of such persecution, under this yoke of tyranny. I refuse to stand down! Gravity has no place in a free society and absolutely has to be overturned and abolished.

And I have the Solution. I have appealed to my friends in the Mizzourah legislature. Or The Anti-Government Government, as I call them. They are a Super-Majority and have a tremendous amount of experience in illogically and unscientifically opposing, with the most contradictory and incongruous logic, even the most long-standing and reasonable procedures and directives.

I have simultaneously contacted Eric Schmitt, and I fully expect that our Attorney General (who is of course running for the Mizzourah Senate seat and is eager to see his name connected to even the most absurd headline) will be filing suit directly to overturn this egregious, unconstitutional and still MANDATED “Law of Gravity” in this great state.

Suffice it to say that Gravity has gone on for too long now. It is both an unauthorized and illegitimate Law, and we finally have the right people with the right mentality in Jefferson City to overturn it. These guys know where their duty lies, and they also have the votes. So I fully expect a Gravity-free state in the very near future. God, I love Democracy.