Trance
Topic: Human Behaviour
My son-in-law Chris (not the Chris from last week's entry) works at Best Buy on The Geek Squad. He's a "Double Agent." What that means is he drives around in a 2-tone Volkswagen beetle with the Geek Squad logo on the side. When your computer needs help, he (or someone very much like him) drives to your house in that beetle, and fixes it for a lot more than it would cost you to have your nephew Bernie* do it, but with more reliable results. Necessity breeds invention, so stop laughing.

Last weekend, we went to Six Flags New England, where it rained a lot. Not hard, just a lot. All day. It was very damp. So we spent time indoors when we could, where it was dry. One of the indoor events was an illusionist's show, which was good, but after that was a show by hypnotist Michael Blaine**, which was outstanding, and not least because Chris (still the Geek Squad Chris) was one of the subjects on the stage.

Do not get ahead of me.

At first, I thought Chris would be a poor subject, because when he was on stage, supposed to be focusing on the voice of the hypnotist, he rubbed his nose a couple of times. See, reality's like that. On TV, they're always great subjects with no itches or twitches or congestion to mess with the experience. In real life, there's a booger. It distracts.

But it didn't distract Chris... in fact, after he'd made sure he had them all under his power... er... under a trance, the hypnotist took hold of Chris' nose and walked about ten feet away with it, suggesting to Chris that he was pulling the nose like taffy. The expression on Chris' face could not have been more shocked if it had been directly connected to a car battery via jumper cables. Truth be told, the hypnotist had extra-special fun with Chris, because he wore his Geek Squad t-shirt to the event, ensuring he'd be noticed. After the show, people were walking up to him in the park and telling him how funny he'd been. Chris didn't remember a thing about it until this morning, at which point he felt pretty odd.

The hypnotist had a lot of fun with all of his subjects, though. He suggested that they'd suddenly found themselves in the middle of the North Pole, and were freezing. Watching them huddle together for warmth was amusing, but not hilarious. Watching them fan themselves when they thought they were in the desert was equally amusing, even when he told them they smelled horribly of B.O. But it wasn't hilarious. Watching them try to clean themselves off by using the person on the chair next to theirs when the hypnotist suggested they had just had a very large amount of bird droppings on them was very, very funny as well, but still not hilarious. Even the roller-coaster ride he told them they were on, where they fought their neighbor for the ride seat-belt, was not hilarious. Chris had put his hands out in front of him, grasping an imaginary bar, waiting for the ride to begin. But it wasn't hilarious, although it was amazingly funny.

The post-hypnotic suggestions. Those were hilarious.

Upon hearing trigger-phrases from the hypnotist, the subjects, having returned to the audience, would stand up at their seat and announce something. One person quacked and waddled a bit, and said "Aflac!" Another person stood up and began barking, then got a very blank expression, and sat back down. A fellow announced that he owned the park, and food and drink were on him.***

Chris, too, had a post-hypnotic announcement he made. The hypnotist's suggestion held quite firm in Chris' subconscious, and when the word was said, he stood up and made his announcement. But it was only short-term, and he's fine now. I've tried a couple of times, and used the hypnotist's key word ("trance") to get Chris to make the announcement again, but it didn't work, so he's okay. No worries, if he comes to fix your computer, you can be confident that he's got his mind completely on the job, and will provide quality service.

He has to. As he announced, he's with The Geek Squad, and he's wearing women's underwear.

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*You probably don't have a nephew Bernie that is really good with computers. Don't sweat it. It's a literary device used to convey the concept of having someone close or related to you do your techie work for nothing. Get it? Good.
If you do have a nephew Bernie that is good with computers, have him join The Geek Squad and quit taking advantage of him.
**Pronounced "Mesmerist."
***He utterly failed to pony up, the welcher.

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