Of the Elderly and Gunpowder.

Dear Socrates,

Sorry to hear that Nietzsche is still being difficult. He has always gone his own way which is why he is so popular with on-line men’s groups and my former employer. Should it come to a physical confrontation as you suspect, I recommend kicking him in the beans in an unexpected moment, It will not kill him but it definitely won’t make him any stronger either.

As for the concerns you raised in your reply to my first letter, don’t worry. I have everything in hand. The residents at St Grumpy’s Catholic Aged Care and Respite Centre have never been happier. A liberal dose of morphine with an LSD chaser every four hours helps maintain a positive mental outlook for the wonderful people in my care. The HR department were so impressed with the decline in argumentativeness and general happiness of the residents that they have instituted a similar program among the staff as well. There were some nurses who were not pleased with the new program, but after I enforced the company mandate, most soon fell into line. Of course there were a few malcontents. They were dealt with by encouraging the staff already on the program to deal with them. Of course drugs had to be withheld for a couple of days but staff loyalty won out in the end. The head of Payroll, Mrs Hilter is very pleased because the addictive nature of the drugs allowed her to introduce an incentive scheme for staff whereby they can exchange their wages for extra quantities of Morphine. She has recently bought a new car and says she has me to thank for it. Isn’t that nice?

There is more good news. I have been promoted to a ward manager and now work in the respite hall. This is where the sick and infirm come to socialise, convalesce and give their families and carers a rest from looking after them. It is kind of like daycare for adults without the ability to look after themselves or bladder control. Needles to say, I cleaned up a lot of urine until I remembered that it was once an essential ingredient in the production of gunpowder. I struck a deal with Ortax Vildladder, the German arms manufacturer, and they have supplied infrastructure that has turned a sluggishly profitable respite centre into a veritable urine-harvesting gold mine. The old men and women arrive in the morning. Then, we hook them up to the water supply and the ureic milkers. The average human will output anywhere from 800 to 2000 millilitres of urine a day with normal water intake. By increasing salt consumption I was able to add another 700ml per person on average to urine output. This improved production by a staggering 3200ml on average as sodium makes people thirsty. Of course it did raise blood pressure. This was remedied with medication and exercise bikes all round. The patients now power the ureic milkers thanks to creative wiring of the bikes. Ortax Vildladder had sent us more hose and were thrilled by the increased production. I designed a mask that attached to the water hose they had provided. The Germans had a prototype within two days and we had furnished our guests with the final versions of the masks within a week, The masks are very clever, if I do say so myself. By a cunning system of valves, seals, liquid and oxygen censors, the wearer is able to drink almost constantly and breathe only as necessary.

Perhaps when you are finished with him, you might send Nietzsche over here. He is about the right age and I am sure would jump at the chance to prove his most famous aphorism.

I understand that you may have some reservations about using an old peoples home to provide supplies to a German arms dealer. Rest easy, as I stipulated in our contract that urine provided by St Grumpy’s could only be used to make gunpowder to be used in “just” wars. I too had reservations about the ethics of using an experimental, and artificially produced morphine without proper clinical trials. Fortunately, I was able to leverage contacts in the pharmaceutical industry from my old job to move things along. Those Phiser boys were a big help slicing through government red tape. They were also a big help in adjusting the data when there was a problem with  a few of the old people having strokes. Having to fix the mix would have taken a couple of weeks longer and stunted production.

Anyway, I have to get back to work now.

I hope you are well.

Sincerely

Mercy the former Hellbot.