Early on in his schooling Hobbes the Robin learned the expression “the early bird gets the worm”.
While he didn’t enjoy learning that he would have to get up earlier to see if this expression was true or not, still he resigned himself to it.
His parents allowed him to use an alarm and he got up while it was still dark and got himself ready to test the truthfulness of the saying. His Uncle Bob had warned him it’s a matter of statistics, that there might not be more or better worms the first time but if he did it 10 times it should be shown to be true.
Hobbes was out of the house before the sun’s first rays were visible. His head felt a little funny and his eyes burned from getting up so early. Still, when his eyes first adjusted to the dark he immediately saw his first worm and went to it.
The worm tried to go underground before Hobbes got to it but it was too late. Hobbes had his breakfast as quickly and as easily as he had ever had it.
Hobbes loved the saying that inspired him. So much so that he mentioned to Uncle Bob that he was going to try to be the early bird in another way.
“Where did you hear about this other way?” asked Uncle Bob.
“I don’t know.” said Hobbes. “It’s just something that was in the air. In the interest of completeness, I think I must test this to see if it is true, too.”
“It’s dangerous. I think what you heard was just worm propaganda.”
That spring, Hobbes headed north 3 weeks earlier. He had wanted to do it even earlier but his Uncle Bob had insisted. “You might be able to live for 3 weeks without food, but not much longer.”
The flight up to his summer stomping grounds was colder than he expected. At first he flew over patchy snow which is what it looked like when he normally arrived at his destination. This time he flew hours and hours over solid snow before he arrived at his favourite summer tree. It had a notch in it that Hobbes figured would keep him sheltered and warm.
Hobbes hadn’t imagined where the worms would be in any of his thoughts previous to arriving. In the cold winter he was now stuck in, he realized it was probably under the snow. That could wait for tomorrow to find out.
After all the flying he had just did he normally would have slept deeply. Instead he slept fitfully and his alarm woke him up before the sun.
His eyes adjusted but there were no worms to eat. He decided to work on a patch of snow that seemed lower than the rest. He shoveled the snow away with his feet. Halfway through his feet were numb with cold. He warmed up for another couple hours in the notch before returning to his work.
There looked like there were no wormholes at the site when he was finally through. But that was okay. Astute robins would use their beaks on the ground to uncover holes. Hobbes pecked at the ground. It had no give and was frozen solid. He tried for awhile longer before giving up.
The next two days were cold and hungry. The third day was warmish with rain. It was unpleasant to fly in the rain. Still Hobbes did some exploring. At the end of light on that third day, there were other spots where the ground was visible. Hobbes tried pecking at that ground and penetrated a couple millimeters before hitting the hard ground again.
The rain turned to snow the next day and in the stretch of time that it stayed cold, Hobbes vowed to torture the first worm that he found. He would do it worse than when a cat tortures a mouse.
It had been over two weeks and only that one day had it been rain that came down. Light snow came down a couple days but a sunny stretch melted the snow enough that the patches of ground reappeared. Two and a half weeks in it became warm enough that Hobbes beak could penetrate the ground to the depth of the average wormhole.
He dug and dug and dug with his beak until finally seizing something that tasted like worm. He pulled it out and was gratified that it was indeed a worm. He was so hungry that he didn’t torture the worm and gobbled it down.
When the rest of his family arrived in a few more days, Hobbes had had another couple worms.
“Well, did you manage to prove me wrong?” Uncle Bob asked.
Hobbes had seen his own reflection in water. He was still unhealthily thin. If he lied his family would see through it.
“It’s worm propaganda. Now let’s not speak of it ever again.”
Blinking To My Own Beat
The other day I was distracted watching a news broadcast when the interviewing reporter seemed to blink erratically. I came out of my suspension of disbelief (something a non-fiction consumer of news needs to have these days), and thought of all the great possibilities of being a reporter yet getting my own message out by blinking my eyes in Morse Code.
Now I know the power of Morse Code due to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew who it seemed got captured every book and manage to transmit S.O.S. by some means to the rest of the world and thus get freed again. S is three short blips in a row, followed by O, or three dashes in a row, and then back to S.
But as I imagine my career as the Morse Code reporter, I realize it is hard to say one thing by mouth and a complete other thing by my blinks. As such I intend to keep my blinks to very simple things. If this means I don’t have to become fluent in all words Morse Code, so much the better.
I will start my career as a lowly roving reporter. That is where I plan to use my first Morse Code insertion. As a shout out to the pioneering Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, I will blink out S.O.S. at random times in my roving reporting. I hope enough people notice that I will be promoted (and thus helped by the S.O.S.) to an in studio broadcaster and commentator.
For the next step, I will learn the phrase, “Blah, blah, blah.” Or if I’m feeling cheeky, “Bob Loblaw” (say this out loud three times fast to hear what it means [It’s an Arrested Development joke.]). I will save blinking out this message until I find the interviewee pontificating too much. Which should be easy as long as the target of news broadcasts, the politicians, are of the usual order.
Then once I have built up my audience and they trust my commentary, I intend to learn one more word of Morse Code. That word will be, “Liar.” I intend to be as honest as I can and only use it when I truly believe the mark is lying. This will allow many, many people to be in on the truth especially during times of campaigning. Can I swing an election? I don’t know but at least I’ll have an opportunity to try.
And finally I will be able to be a truly fair reporter. I’d be calling the politicians on their BS while still keeping my likely slanted broadcaster in the dark.
Of course I could just stay away from reporting altogether and readily say whether the politicians are being truthful or not. But that usually just gets dismissed as random ranting. A long convoluted plan using lots of subterfuge just sounds better.