Hail victory, hail victory victory, hail victory victory

In honor of Memorial Day, I propose the following improvement on Martin Niemöller’s text, to make it more historically accurate. This poem should be read, slowly and heavily, at memorials, funerals, military gatherings, wakes, brises and significant ceremonies of all sorts.


First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist. Then, they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then, they came for the sick, the so-called incurables, and I did not speak out, because I was not sick or incurable. Then, they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Catholic. Then, they came for the disabled, and I did not speak out, because I was not disabled. Then, they came for the homosexuals, and I did not speak out, because I was not a homosexual. Then, they came for the Bohemians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Bohemian. Then, they came for the Slovaks, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Slovak. Then, they came for the Czechs, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Czech. Then, they came for the Austrians, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Austrian. Then, they came for the West Prussians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a West Prussian. Then, they came for the Bolsheviks, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Bolshevik. Then, they came for the Serbs, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Serb. Then, they came for the Protestants, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Protestant. Then, they came for the Albanians, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Albanian. Then, they came for the Austrians, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Austrian. Then, they came for the Latvians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Latvian. Then, they came for the Lithuanians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Lithuanian. Then, they came for the Estonians, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Estonian. Then, they came for the Poles, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Pole. Then, they came for the Freemasons, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Freemason. Then, they came for the Ukrainians, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Ukrainian. Then, they came for the Byelorussians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Byelorussian. Then, they came for the Moldavians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Moldavian. Then, they came for the Sammarinese, and I did not speak out, because I was not Sammarinese. Then, they came for the Monacans, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Monacan. Then, they came for the Yugoslavians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Yugoslav. Then, they came for the Romanians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Romanian. Then, they came for the Dutch, and I did not speak out, because I was not Dutch. Then, they came for the Esperantists, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Esperantist. Then, they came for the Italians, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Italian. Then, they came for the Hungarians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Hungarian. Then, they came for the Danish, and I did not speak out, because I was not Danish. Then, they came for the Belgians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Belgian. Then, they came for the Aegeans, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Aegean. Then, they came for the Finns, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Finn. Then, they came for the Croatians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Croatian. Then, they came for the Macedonians, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Macedonian. Then, they came for the Luxembourgers, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Luxembourger. Then, they came for the Montenegrans, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Montenegran. Then, they came for the Romanis, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Romani. Then, they came for the citizens of Danzig, and I did not speak out, because I was not a citizen of Danzig. Then, they came for the Soviets, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Soviet. Then, they came for the political prisoners, and I did not speak out, because I was not a political prisoner. Then, they came for the leftists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a leftist. Then, they came for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jehovah’s Witness. Then, they came for the German Mennonites, and I did not speak out, because I was not a German Mennonite. Then, they came for the Lutherans, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Lutheran. Then, they came for the Christian clergy, and I did not speak out, because I was not clergy. Then, they came for the Amish, and I did not speak out, because I was not Amish. Then, they came for the Hutterites, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Hutterite. Then, they came for the lesbians, and I did not speak out, because I was not lesbian. Then, they came for the transgender people, and I did not speak out, because I was not transgender. Then, they came for the deaf, and I did not speak out, because I was not deaf. Then, they came for me, and I told them, what took you so fucking long?

Cars and trucks fly by me on the corner

It really pisses me off when you ask me to fix your computer.

It pisses me off, because I love you.

When you give me the “can you fix my computer” call, the call means something different to me than it means to you.

To me, it means I will have to stay up all night, buy and try and swap replacement parts, image and restore your hard drive, remove all the malware, and make your computer work the way you imagine it once did, all while ignoring my other family members, my paying work and life commitments.

At my standard rates I would typically charge around $4,000 to fix your seven year old virus-ridden Dell. Your seven year old virus-ridden Dell isn’t worth $100 on Ebay. Should I tell you that? Will you think I am lying or making the $4,000 number up? I am not. You will think I am insulting you if I tell you I make $4,000 for similar work. You are too poor to pay me anywhere near that much though.

Of course I could always send you to Geek Squad. They would of course stupidly and automatically reformat your hard drive and reinstall the OS. If I do that, you will lose all your bank records and baby pictures permanently, to vastly less competent technicians than myself. They would take your money and destroy your data, and they would not even fix the true source of the problem. And you would be very, very, very sad.

And I would know in my heart I could have helped you, but didn’t.

No. I won’t do that to you.

I will take pity on you because you are clearly panicking and unable to eat, sleep or breathe until I save you and your data.

For you, and you alone, I will do a first-rate professional forensic data recovery and reinstallation. I’ll image the drive, work around all the bad sectors, copy it onto a virtual machine, extract your baby pictures and Quicken data, install a new non-shitty hard drive, reinstall all the apps and operating system and your recovered data (sans viruses and spyware), replace the dying fan, update the BIOS, and I will furthermore provide you with an external drive and teach you how to back up your system regularly with it.

Disappointingly, you will fuck up your computer again in a few years, when you refuse to take my advice and do regular backups on the backup drive that I bought for you, specifically for that purpose.

And when your piece of shit computer fails again, you will call me. Panicking. Again.

And the agonizing cycle will repeat.

Being the computer expert in the family is like being the doctor in the family, except you’re the surgeon and everyone expects you to operate on them constantly, suddenly, perfectly, AND pay for the operating room and sedatives and hospital recovery, AND you still consistently refuse to follow my medical advice.

I do all this, for free, because you are so thankful afterwards.

I do all this, for free, because I love you.

I just wish you weren’t so fucking stupid about computers sometimes.