Primitive Pete's Life Lessons

My favorite time in eighth-grade wood shop was watching the educational films--the best of which was The ABC of Hand Tools, starring the inimitable, Primitive Pete. That young fella couldn't understand why everything he did in his shop went wrong, because he did everything right. No one could convince him otherwise. Pete's specialty was multipurpose tools, which included all tools. His favorite was the claw hammer. It was designed to work with screwdrivers, files or virtually any other tool. In fact, claw hammers would do anything but drive nails. For that he used a monkey wrench. Primitive Pete has millions of kindred spirits in today's culture. For instance, there's Primitive Pia, whose definition of physical attractiveness includes a deep, tawny skin tone. The obvious best choice for that outcome is the infrared tanning bed, or in mid-summer, the sun. Skin cancer? That's for wimps and old folks. If you were to tell her that regular tanning multiplies her likelihood of getting melanoma, she'd just look at you vacantly, check her cell phone and run off for her next tanning appointment. Does she know that melanoma is one of the hardest cancers to eradicate? Does she know that melanoma has to be cut out of the flesh, leaving massive scars in her toasted skin? Poor, prematurely aged Primitive Pia won't find that one bit attractive. Then there's Primitive Perry, whose hormones force him to pursue sexual contact with anything that breathes. Hugh Hefner is his idle, and the Playboy bunny is his icon. Multiple partners are cool, 'cause variety is the spice of life. But Perry doesn't notice that the more he indulges his hormones, the less control he has over his life. He becomes as two-dimenstional and shallow as the porn he's addicted to, and each "conquest" gives him less satisfaction. Ultimate frustration awaits poor, emotionally repressed Primitive Perry, driven by his drive to avoid it. Primitive Pricilla's singular passion is to look like Hollywood's skeletal starlets who grace gossip magazines' covers. If she can't reach that ideal, she believes she will surely die. Trouble is, no matter how hard she exercises and diets, no matter how thin she gets, she always sees thirty pounds of fat flabbing back at her from the mirror. And though she believes she will die if she doesn't reach her ideal look, poor, emaciated Primitive Pricilla will most surely die if she keeps trying. Primitive Preston simply must reach the crest of corporate success. That materialistic mania consumes his every waking moment--every dream. Hard work, endless hours and cut corners are the rule of his life. Relationships? No time for that. Family? It can wait. What won't wait is the heart attack lurking in poor, rich, powerful Primitive Preston's not-so-distant future. Success is a fickle lover. Primitive Pieper won't feel complete without a dominant male in her life. The more dominant the better. His belittlement and beatings aren't fun, but she loves him, and he always says he's sorry. If she gives him a chance he's bound to change. Hopefully it will happen before he completely looses control, and as so many women have done before her, poor, battered, unworthy Primitive Pieper dies at her lover's hand. Perhaps the most pitiful of all is Primitive Porfirieo, who recognizes his spiritual component and spends his life pursuing spiritual fulfillment. Porfirieo intimately knows all of history's philosophers, enlightened ones and holy men, having studied each exhaustively. He's frustrated, though, because none of them have it quite right. To remedy their individual philosophies' shortcomings, Porfirieo creates his own enlightenment based on the best of all the others. He may even manage to attract a few disciples ... and their money, but he always remains "teachable," open to the best of what's new in spiritual enlightenment. Porfirieo loves Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and even Yogi Bear. But following just one of them because He said He was the only way to the Father is out of the question. Porfirieo knows it can't be that easy. You have to figure it all out and come to an enlightened state of existence by your own works. Poor prideful, Primitive Porfirieo. God hasn't a chance against his personal wisdom.