My new sig line
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"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons." ~Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers' Guide
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Here I am, brain the size of a planet....
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In "Starter Villain," by John Scalzi, there's an evil island-living character who has, on his payroll, a bunch of snarky, nasty, sharp tongued talking (yes, talking) dolphins.
I'd like to think that Adams' version of dolphins is more accurate.
“Do they talk?” I asked.
The dolphin chittered something. “Who is this fucknugget?” is what came out of a nearby speaker.
“I guess that’s a yes,” I said.
“Fucknugget! Fucknugget!” the other dolphins started chanting in unison.
The woman in the wet suit turned to the dolphins. “It’s your new boss, you thumbless cretins.”
“Fuck him! And fuck your manucentric world view!”
“‘Manucentric’?” I asked.
“It’s not what you think,” the person in the wet suit said, getting up and coming toward me. “Manus is Latin for ‘hand.’
‘Manucentric’ is their new go-to word when they want to accuse us of bigotry.”
“Fuck your fingers!” the central dolphin said.
“Finger fuck! Finger fuck!” the other dolphins chimed in.
Speaking of hands, the woman in the wet suit held out one of hers. “Astrud Livgren. Cetacean relations.”
I shook her hand. “And how are relations?”
Astrud looked back. “About usual.”
“She’s an asshole!” the central dolphin said.
“So they’re always like this?”
“We’re right fucking here! You can ask us, you bipedal scrotemonkey!”
I raised my eyebrows at Livgren.
“‘Scrotemonkey’ is new,” she said. “They mix and match insults to see what works. You get used to it.” She“She motioned to the dolphins. “Please, be my guest.”
I approached the dolphins. Their chittering died down.
“Hi,” I said. “You’re the first dolphins I’ve ever met.”
“Well whoop-de-fucking-do,” the central dolphin said.
For the very briefest moment I wondered about the translation software that had the capability to take the chittering of a dolphin and translate it to “whoop-de-fucking-do,” but I pressed on. “I’m Charlie Fitzer.”
“Hi, Charlie,” the dolphin said. “I’m Who Gives a Shit, and these are my associates Don’t Care, Fuck You, Fuck Off, Burn It Down, and Eat the Rich.”
“Who Gives a Shit snorted. “As if you care.”
“I was in a union myself,” I said. “Chicago Tribune Guild.”
“But you’re not anymore, are you? Now you’re management! A suppurating bourgeois fistula of oppression!”
“Bourgeois fistula! Bourgeois fistula!” the rest of the dolphins chimed in unison.
“Not going to lie, I appreciate your way with words,” I said.
“Don’t condescend to us, you ambulatory collection of skin tags,” Who Gives a Shit said. “If you’re just going to continue your uncle’s repressive labor policies, you can fuck off right into the sun.”
“Sun fucking! Sun fucking!”
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Spend an Audible Credit on the collected Adventures of Tom Stranger, Inter-dimensional Insurance Agent
