Gravity is what makes us crazy and causes confrontations

By McAvoy Layne
Special to the Bonanza
May 2, 2008

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It’s a question we all ask ourselves at some time or another, even those of us that don’t play the lottery.

“What I would do if I won the lottery?”

I should be playing the lottery for all the thought I’ve given to what I’d do if I won it, after all, as somebody once pointed out, “Good luck is being prepared when opportunity knocks.”

First things first, I should take my wife out to dinner at Soule Domain to unveil my plan. There, over a nice dinner and a magnum of champagne, I shall divulge to her what I’ve been plotting for years.

Given that the source of much of the discomfort in today’s world emanates from a festering sore that we have learned to live with, that being the hostility between the Palestinians and Israelis, it behooves us to put a balm on that sore, and let it heal. So here’s what I envision a little lottery money might be able to accomplish…

We recruit two respected common-law judges, one Palestinian and one Israeli, let’s call them Abu & Aaron, and we ask them to go along with our strategy for peace.
Next we hire a commercial orbital transport service to send them into orbit for three weeks, where they will rely on each other to complete various experiments involving plant life. During this three week odyssey they will not be allowed to discuss politics or talk on their cell phones.

You see, it’s my contention that people get angry 80 percent of the time because of gravity, and 20 percent of the time because of cell phones.

Just look at it! From dropping the soap in the shower to free-falling down KT-22, gravity really ticks us off, sometimes causing us to take our irritations out on somebody else. All the distrust that we witness in the Middle East today probably began in 12 BC when some hapless camel trader fell asleep on his dromedary and tumbled off onto an unsuspecting foreigner’s hat.

It’s my theory that three weeks in a gravity-free environment will facilitate the letting go of age-old grudges and promote amnesty.

When Abu & Aaron return to earth they will be allowed to discuss politics for the first time since leaving the sphere of their peers. I expect the conversation will go something like this:
“So, Aaron, what do you say now about an independent Palestinian state?”

“Sounds reasonable enough to me, Abu. Hey, if you and I can live together and work together in such a confined space, well, I see no reason why Israel can’t pull back some of her settlements and make it work!”

Abu and Aaron are welcomed back to their respective homelands, where they use their celebrity to command a bully pulpit and apply the salve of goodwill that it sometimes takes to free people from history itself. Following the lead of Palestinians and Israelis, the rest of the Middle East decides to lay down their arms, the United States sees no need to stay in Iraq or Afghanistan, and so on and so on…

Does it seem as ironic to you as it does to me, that the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow because of a Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan?

So there’s my plan should I win the lottery, and I’m sticking to it. Now I just need to get myself over to Kings Beach and purchase that lucky ticket, as my wife’s already calling in her markers on that dinner at Soule Domain.

McAvoy Layne is an Incline Village resident who visits area schools as the ghost of Mark Twain.