"Don't step in it. That is fresh dung!"
I knew that Bobo was probably right. He had been collecting what he thought was the creature's droppings since the 1980's. With my foot now planted next to, instead of on, the specimen we all gathered around to inspect it right there on the path.
"What do you suppose causes the coloration?" Cliff posed to no one in particular while bending over.
"Might be french fries," was the speculation that Ranae offered while pushing her glasses back up the prow of her nose into position.
"I tells you that is its dung!" Bobo was pretty insistent. He had already pulled out a plastic container to collect the specimen. I couldn't quite figure out where he had it stashed for our walk in.
"If it is then it can't be too far away." Cliff said causing me to look around nervously along with everyone else.
"I'm gonna see if it responds to some knocks and yells," Bobo announced and before anyone could protest he had already pulled out a pizza box and dropped it. We all looked around. Nothing. "Faaaawwwxxx Nuuuuueeeewwwsss!" He yelled out once. Then again when nothing responded.
Nothing.
"Naaaasssssskkkkhaaaarrrr!" Now Matt had joined in.
"Would you all shut the hell up you lunatics!" That voice came down from a woman yelling from her third floor apartment. We might have protested but just around then a group of drunken college students rounded the corner and we knew the scene was now compromised.
Another night on the prowl for our elusive prey. Another failure.
For some people there is Bigfoot. For others there is the monster of Loch Ness or the Bunyip. Some even still try to trap the Orang Pendek.
Me though? I'm trying to locate the infamous Sheeple.
What is the Sheeple? It is a mythical creature that reportedly believes anything a TV tells them unquestionably. There are reportedly variants of the creature that will also believe anything if it is printed. But those sound like the tales of drunken sailors to me. I'm interested in the classic Sheeple of legend: the type of Sheeple that honestly believes families discuss all their problems in a living room conveniently set next to a live studio audience and do so with witty quips every few seconds.
Now I didn't always believe in the existence of Sheeples. I figured they were the stuff of legend. Something to hear about around the campfire and then contemplate in your dreams that night while drawing away from the dark. But as I started to comb through reports of the creature I couldn't help but note the consistency in the descriptions.
Armed with this I decided to mount an expedition. That was why I had hired the Sheeple Field Researchers Organization. The world's foremost experts in the hunt for the creature. We had zeroed in on this section of the city because an overflight using an infrared camera had shown promising heat signatures.
But this had been our fifth night in a row with nothing to show for it except french fry dung.
Reconvening the next day in our field headquarters in the back corner of a Taco Bell we came to the conclusion we needed a local. A guide.
With that we looked up a guide. He promised to meet us the next day in the same Taco Bell. So now we were here waiting. His name, supposedly, was iRonic.
We finally caught sight of him while he was explaining to someone that he had hated dubstep before it had popular to do so and therefore now admired it.
iRonic had a strange sense of dress to him. A Che shirt under a button up tunic, faded too tight jeans, sandals, sunglasses all the time and a large cowboy belt buckle. Odd.
Nonetheless iRonic was sure he could find a Sheeple. He assured us he had not only hunted but hated the Sheeple his entire life. He expounded on how Sheeples were the bane of his existence in that they had forced him to be so hip by being so lame themselves.
Good, a motivated guide.
We found our first sign of a Sheeple near the parking lot of the Starbucks at Mission and Sycamore. Not the one inside the Safeway supermarket or at the far end of the parking lot near the old Blockbuster but the Starbucks nearest the intersection for people who don't want to travel all the way into the shopping center. Not the one by the corner with the grey bricks but the one right next to it with the wood trim. That Starbucks. Right outside it we found, on the ground, what iRonic identified as Sheeple trash: a half eaten Snickers bar and a bank card done up with a lolcat on it.
"Only a Sheeple would have such poor taste and do lolcat without a sense of irony," iRonic noted. Maybe he also rolled his eyes while saying it. With those damned glasses on I couldn't tell.
We interrogated the first person we came across.
"Have you seen a Sheeple nearby?" I calmly asked the elderly woman.
"A what? Sheep?" She threw us a suspicious glance.
"It would be about our height," Bobo began to explain, "with two eyes, a shirt, probably pants, shoes and normal hair."
"That sounds like it could be anyone!" She exclaimed.
"No, not anyone." Cliff butted in. "This is a Sheeple. A most foul creature."
The woman just stared at us for a second. "Well there is a pet store down that way," she replied while pointing down the street.
"The one next to the Starbucks?" I asked hoping for clarification.
"Goodness there may be Sheeple in there buying bland puppies so they can torture it with cute clothes!" iRonic quickly noted.
With this the old woman gave us a very questionable look, muttered something under her breath and departed.
Feeling we were on the right track we went to the pet store she mentioned. Inside we got the teenage boy behind the cash register to answer a few questions for us.
"Have you ever voted in an American Idol season?" Matt yelled as soon as all of us had drawn up to the register.
"Um, I don't think so." He tried to scratch one his bulbous pimples while answering.
"But you know someone who has?" Cliff asked.
"I guess." He answered still scratching the pimple.
"That person, do they believe everything the TV tells them?" Bobo inquired.
He looked at us for a bit. Looked nervously to the back to see if his manager might rescue him but realized he was alone. Besides we were buying crystal cat litter. He had better put up with our badgering!
"Only a retarded person would believe everything the TV tells them," he finally said.
"And where might we find this person known as Ree Tard?" iRonic asked.
The boys eyes again flicked back and forth between all of us. "Um, I think there's a home for them down in Herndon."
Herndon!
So now here we are. Parked right outside the Herndon Home for the Developmentally Challenged. Did our person of interest, Mr Ree Tard, work here perchance? To find out we walked in to ask the receptionist. A smiling woman who greeted us with a "hello" in some high pitch that probably could be used to torture bats.
"Uh, yes. We are here to meet someone." I announced on entering.
"Oh, and who is it?"she asked.
Seriously her voice is what nails on chalkboards have nightmares about.
"He watches a lot of TV," iRonic told her.
"Lots of our residents watch TV." She replied while I wondered if it would be rude to try and cram a wad of tissue into my ear canals before they flooded with blood.
"He is also very trusting, "iRonic continued.
"Well does he have a name?"
iRonic leaned in towards her. "Yep, Ree Tard." Then he relaxed.
After the echo-location-woman threw us out of the building we regrouped at a pub. There, gathered around the bar, was the local group of Sheeple hunters. Today had been a bad day all around.
"I thought I had one but after interrogation it turned out the guy had never even heard of Selena Gomez," mused one crusty old hunter. "If they don't know Selena then they can't be a Sheeple."
"I spotted one, at a distance, but it disappeared into a Walmart," grumbled another.
"If only I hadn't lost that one I had hooked back in 03," Seamus pined to no one in particular.
"Don't worry all," I spoke up to them, "one day one of us will not only document but will catch an actual Sheeple. Then they'll have to rewrite the text books."
"Arr, write them so easy even a Sheeple could read it!"
Seamus was always good for a laugh.
"What if," iRonic broke in while drinking a Pabst in a champagne glass, "we're the Sheeple for thinking they even exist?"
Oh those crazy hipsters.
I knew that Bobo was probably right. He had been collecting what he thought was the creature's droppings since the 1980's. With my foot now planted next to, instead of on, the specimen we all gathered around to inspect it right there on the path.
"What do you suppose causes the coloration?" Cliff posed to no one in particular while bending over.
"Might be french fries," was the speculation that Ranae offered while pushing her glasses back up the prow of her nose into position.
"I tells you that is its dung!" Bobo was pretty insistent. He had already pulled out a plastic container to collect the specimen. I couldn't quite figure out where he had it stashed for our walk in.
"If it is then it can't be too far away." Cliff said causing me to look around nervously along with everyone else.
"I'm gonna see if it responds to some knocks and yells," Bobo announced and before anyone could protest he had already pulled out a pizza box and dropped it. We all looked around. Nothing. "Faaaawwwxxx Nuuuuueeeewwwsss!" He yelled out once. Then again when nothing responded.
Nothing.
"Naaaasssssskkkkhaaaarrrr!" Now Matt had joined in.
"Would you all shut the hell up you lunatics!" That voice came down from a woman yelling from her third floor apartment. We might have protested but just around then a group of drunken college students rounded the corner and we knew the scene was now compromised.
Another night on the prowl for our elusive prey. Another failure.
For some people there is Bigfoot. For others there is the monster of Loch Ness or the Bunyip. Some even still try to trap the Orang Pendek.
Me though? I'm trying to locate the infamous Sheeple.
What is the Sheeple? It is a mythical creature that reportedly believes anything a TV tells them unquestionably. There are reportedly variants of the creature that will also believe anything if it is printed. But those sound like the tales of drunken sailors to me. I'm interested in the classic Sheeple of legend: the type of Sheeple that honestly believes families discuss all their problems in a living room conveniently set next to a live studio audience and do so with witty quips every few seconds.
Now I didn't always believe in the existence of Sheeples. I figured they were the stuff of legend. Something to hear about around the campfire and then contemplate in your dreams that night while drawing away from the dark. But as I started to comb through reports of the creature I couldn't help but note the consistency in the descriptions.
- The Sheeple is always pro government
- The Sheeple will willfully disbelieve obvious reality
- The Sheeple acts against its own interest
- The Sheeple is uninterested in facts or evidence
- The Sheeple has no curiosity
- The Sheeple thinks they've always been at war with Eastasia
Armed with this I decided to mount an expedition. That was why I had hired the Sheeple Field Researchers Organization. The world's foremost experts in the hunt for the creature. We had zeroed in on this section of the city because an overflight using an infrared camera had shown promising heat signatures.
But this had been our fifth night in a row with nothing to show for it except french fry dung.
Reconvening the next day in our field headquarters in the back corner of a Taco Bell we came to the conclusion we needed a local. A guide.
With that we looked up a guide. He promised to meet us the next day in the same Taco Bell. So now we were here waiting. His name, supposedly, was iRonic.
We finally caught sight of him while he was explaining to someone that he had hated dubstep before it had popular to do so and therefore now admired it.
iRonic had a strange sense of dress to him. A Che shirt under a button up tunic, faded too tight jeans, sandals, sunglasses all the time and a large cowboy belt buckle. Odd.
Nonetheless iRonic was sure he could find a Sheeple. He assured us he had not only hunted but hated the Sheeple his entire life. He expounded on how Sheeples were the bane of his existence in that they had forced him to be so hip by being so lame themselves.
Good, a motivated guide.
We found our first sign of a Sheeple near the parking lot of the Starbucks at Mission and Sycamore. Not the one inside the Safeway supermarket or at the far end of the parking lot near the old Blockbuster but the Starbucks nearest the intersection for people who don't want to travel all the way into the shopping center. Not the one by the corner with the grey bricks but the one right next to it with the wood trim. That Starbucks. Right outside it we found, on the ground, what iRonic identified as Sheeple trash: a half eaten Snickers bar and a bank card done up with a lolcat on it.
"Only a Sheeple would have such poor taste and do lolcat without a sense of irony," iRonic noted. Maybe he also rolled his eyes while saying it. With those damned glasses on I couldn't tell.
We interrogated the first person we came across.
"Have you seen a Sheeple nearby?" I calmly asked the elderly woman.
"A what? Sheep?" She threw us a suspicious glance.
"It would be about our height," Bobo began to explain, "with two eyes, a shirt, probably pants, shoes and normal hair."
"That sounds like it could be anyone!" She exclaimed.
"No, not anyone." Cliff butted in. "This is a Sheeple. A most foul creature."
The woman just stared at us for a second. "Well there is a pet store down that way," she replied while pointing down the street.
"The one next to the Starbucks?" I asked hoping for clarification.
"Goodness there may be Sheeple in there buying bland puppies so they can torture it with cute clothes!" iRonic quickly noted.
With this the old woman gave us a very questionable look, muttered something under her breath and departed.
Feeling we were on the right track we went to the pet store she mentioned. Inside we got the teenage boy behind the cash register to answer a few questions for us.
"Have you ever voted in an American Idol season?" Matt yelled as soon as all of us had drawn up to the register.
"Um, I don't think so." He tried to scratch one his bulbous pimples while answering.
"But you know someone who has?" Cliff asked.
"I guess." He answered still scratching the pimple.
"That person, do they believe everything the TV tells them?" Bobo inquired.
He looked at us for a bit. Looked nervously to the back to see if his manager might rescue him but realized he was alone. Besides we were buying crystal cat litter. He had better put up with our badgering!
"Only a retarded person would believe everything the TV tells them," he finally said.
"And where might we find this person known as Ree Tard?" iRonic asked.
The boys eyes again flicked back and forth between all of us. "Um, I think there's a home for them down in Herndon."
Herndon!
So now here we are. Parked right outside the Herndon Home for the Developmentally Challenged. Did our person of interest, Mr Ree Tard, work here perchance? To find out we walked in to ask the receptionist. A smiling woman who greeted us with a "hello" in some high pitch that probably could be used to torture bats.
"Uh, yes. We are here to meet someone." I announced on entering.
"Oh, and who is it?"she asked.
Seriously her voice is what nails on chalkboards have nightmares about.
"He watches a lot of TV," iRonic told her.
"Lots of our residents watch TV." She replied while I wondered if it would be rude to try and cram a wad of tissue into my ear canals before they flooded with blood.
"He is also very trusting, "iRonic continued.
"Well does he have a name?"
iRonic leaned in towards her. "Yep, Ree Tard." Then he relaxed.
After the echo-location-woman threw us out of the building we regrouped at a pub. There, gathered around the bar, was the local group of Sheeple hunters. Today had been a bad day all around.
"I thought I had one but after interrogation it turned out the guy had never even heard of Selena Gomez," mused one crusty old hunter. "If they don't know Selena then they can't be a Sheeple."
"I spotted one, at a distance, but it disappeared into a Walmart," grumbled another.
"If only I hadn't lost that one I had hooked back in 03," Seamus pined to no one in particular.
"Don't worry all," I spoke up to them, "one day one of us will not only document but will catch an actual Sheeple. Then they'll have to rewrite the text books."
"Arr, write them so easy even a Sheeple could read it!"
Seamus was always good for a laugh.
"What if," iRonic broke in while drinking a Pabst in a champagne glass, "we're the Sheeple for thinking they even exist?"
Oh those crazy hipsters.
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