User:One-eyed Jack/Reality check
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A reality check is the method whereby the universe taps one of its users gently on the shoulder and whispers "May I, the Universe, have a word with you?" When it has the user's attention the universe checks the user's grasp of reality by smacking him on the side of the head with a dead mackerel.
Historic Reality Checks[edit | edit source]
The reality check has a long history as a curb on unrealistic or delusional thinking. While prehistoric man probably received periodic reality checks -- for instance, a mammoth tusk to the groin -- our account begins with written accounts of reality checking.
Ancient Mesopotamia[edit | edit source]
Prince Shamash-gamil was leading a regiment of his personal army troupe, the Sumerian Silken Thighs, in practice maneuvers just west of Ar Rutbah. The soldiers had finished straightening their stockings and begun touching up their lipstick when a squad of foreign soldiers in distinctive bronze helmets appeared over a nearby hill.
"Oh shit!" screamed Shamash-gamil. "Hittites! Run like hell, sweeties!"
It was indeed a definitive reality check, and the chance inclusion in the Sumerian clay tablet version of "Uncyclopedia" preserved the account for posterity.
Imperial Rome[edit | edit source]
The Roman general Gluteus Horridus had a reputation for cruelty. He once had a captured Visigoth, Garnfilth the Obstrepetous, stripped naked and hurled into a pit full of rabid Nubian minges. And after the capture of the Frankish city Cremiçorn he required the townspeople to sing Nidor in Aequora everywhere they went for a month. There were many suicides, especially after the Franks realized the lines "Frank Zappa and the Mothers / had the best place around" did not actually refer to their people at all.
In 203 AD Gluteus Horridus was in northern England subduing a revolt among the Celts. Stricken by intestinal revolutions of his own he hobbled off alone to enjoy his misery. After squatting in a clump of elms and moaning for awhile he looked up from his labors and found himself surrounded by blue-painted, silent Celts.
"Er, good evening...?" he squeaked. "Oh, centurion? CENTURION!" No one answered.
"Um, why are you carring those sharpened stakes?" Gluteus Horridus asked the Celts.
"It's time for a reality check, man," said the Celts.
Windows 3.11[edit | edit source]
The year was 1128 AD. The Catholic persecution of the Aubergines was reaching its bloodthirsty apex, the Black Breath (a nonfatal but repulsive plague) was sweeping through Eastern Europe...and Bill Gates introduced Windows 3.11. This new Windoeƒ for Wurkgrupƒ promised a radical shift in Dark Age computing. No longer would the user have to memorize the arcane Booke of Ye Commandƒ of Ye Doƒ; no longer would an ox be required to create a file folder.
Then the first crashes occurred. Users faced a black parchment with little white letters on it.
"Hey!" they yelled. "This is just DOS! It's just fucking DOS!"
Reality check.