Jake can think of better ways to spend a Saturday other than at a conspiracy conference, but he hopes Francine might be at it.
What? It's not stalking. It'd just be a coincidence!
So far, there has been no Francine, but there has been plenty of talk about UFOs, reptilian bloodlines, media coverups, the master plan of the elite, and what toppings people want on the pizzas that the conference organizer is ordering for lunch.
When the pizzas do arrive, Jake ends up sitting at a table full of middle-aged white men, and they pounce on him about as much as they pounce on the pizzas.
"It's good to see a younger person here," one mustachioed man, mustache dripping with tomato sauce from the pizza, says, "I'm just surprised there aren't more. In the 60s, we raised hell. Young people today don't even raise tomatoes. By the way, how's your garden doing, Randy?"
Sitting across the table from Mr. Mustache, Randy wipes his mouth with a napkin, and says, "Good, I was trying to be entirely self-sufficient as practice for when civilization collapses, but I still had to go to the supermarket a couple of times. I kind of got sick of eating cucumbers in August. Salads, cucumber sandwiches, pickles . . . there's only so much you can do. The good news is that I shot a deer in my backyard, so I was able to make some venison jerky that went real well with the radishes."
"It's a little early for deer season, isn't it?" a man down the table says.
"What are you, a fucking Fed? The government doesn't tell me what to do. I'll shoot anybody or anything that steps on my property. I have enough "No trespassing" signs up. If that deer didn't read the signs, then it got what it deserved. Next time read the signs, Bambi. Anyway, Terry, back to what you were saying about young people. I think they're too busy playing video games to pay attention to what's going on. I have to admit that was a genius move by the controllers. They really made use out of that psychology research on rats. Keep 'em stimulated enough and they don't notice anything else going on around them."
Terry disagrees, "I think video games are good. I think they wake people up and clue them into the notion that this is all an illusion, a simulated reality. "It's like The Matrix . . ."
"Oh, God, can we not talk about The Matrix today?" someone from down the table says.
An argument breaks out about whether video games are just tools to brainwash and distract the young or whether they are valuable attempts to wake people up to the illusion of reality.
Jake quietly takes another slice of pizza and folds it up and takes a bite, as he exits the conference.
He's sorry that he didn't see Francine at the conference, but surprised that he didn't see Tom and Larry.
They would have loved it.
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.
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