Scientologists are Evil

I saw the Family Guy episode last night of Stewie's first birthday. The subplot was Meg being invited to join a cult, complete with cyanide punch. I think this is what spurred my dreams last night, but I had a rather detailed Sci-Fi channel style movie to watch while I slept.
I am not a Trekkie, but I saw one of the Patrick Stewart Star Trek movies with some roommates back in college. The enemy was this race called the Borg. Little nanotech machine stuff would turn people into cyborgs. Once you were 'infected' it also took over your brain, so you blindly followed the collective mind, and could infect more with your now-infected machine-generating body.
I had a dream last night about the Borg invading Earth. Only in this version, they didn't have little metal thingies growing on their faces. So, you couldn't tell who was and who wasn't. Except that Borg couldn't laugh. Anyone who did laugh was immediately known to be still human, and any Borg in the area would try to infect them. A little wrinkle here, though, is that when you become Borg, one of the machines you develop is a pair of little blue darts. These darts are how you infect others. One dart can be thrown at will. Removing both darts from yourself will kill you. So, the infection rate is a little slower than it was in the Trek movie. But it led to a world of Borg and Human living side by side, but nobody laughed anymore out of fear of conversion. The Really cool part my mind added was that the official religion of the Borg race was Scientology. (I learned about Scientology from South Park, but I've read a few things elsewhere, and it seems South Park was right about the weird alien invasion beliefs of the Scientology crowd.) In a somewhat creepy way, it almost seems plausible in the real world...
Another odd dream-aspect that is somewhat realistic is that the religion is so homophobic that men are not allowed to tough each other for any reason, including handshakes. (Again, with the South Park - "Tom come out of the closet!!")
The part I remember starts with me (still Human) and a woman (still Human) being chased around a medical clinic by a Borg nurse. She was luckily a bad aim, and after missing either of us with both of her darts, she died. (The darts looking like bright blue insulin needles.) So, we were able to escape. And for some reason, we were going by city bus. Get on the bus. This was the scene mainly illustrating how dreary the world had become simply because half the population couldn't laugh, and the other half was afraid to. I get off the bus, and walk home. As I'm coming up the driveway, my neighbors come over. They are very distraught, and show me a letter. As I'm reading the letter, a Scientology missionary stops by to visit.
The letter is from the neighbors' son. He had just killed himself out of fear of being turned into one of the Borg. It's very hard on the parents, and as I am trying to console them, I give each of them a hug. The missionary, of course, gets rather upset when I hug the neighbor husband. He, of course, looks like a stereotypical Mormon missionary: young, cute in an average way, white shirt and tie...
There was so much more detail in the dream, it seems kinda short in the retelling. But it just creeped me out a little bit because of the strange way it seems like if a race of Borg really did exist, I think Scientology would actually be their religion!

Coincidence

When Ronny comes over, he's usually fairly tired, so we don't do anything grand. Often just watch TV for a little while. Friday nights, the choices on TV are quite pathetic, and on a few occasions we ended up watching the Dog Whisperer. It's this kind of hispanic guy (Cesar Millan) who helps people bring their dogs under control. The shows all have the same feel, in that it takes like 3 minutes for the dog to calm down, and the next two days to train the owners how to handle the dog properly. Ronny and I have commented in the past that his sister should use some of those techniques to keep better control of her 4 year old son. (The son is getting out of control because she is too inconsistent and can't bring herself to actually enforce any discipline.)
So, last week, South Park apparently took our idea and made a show out of it. After burning through a couple nanny reality shows, Mrs. Cartman brings in the dog whisperer to help Eric. It is a funny episode, made even funnier if you've ever seen the original show. And when it parallels thoughts you've already discussed about crossing the show with problem children, it is hysterical!!
But the best coincidence of all happened this Saturday. Ronny just LOVES the chinese buffet down on Park. So, we've been going there WAY too often lately. Ronny also wears clothes from the boy's department. (As did Sergio...) Men's department smalls are still too large for him, so he gets some shirts from the boy's department. Some of them are passable, but some just really look like boys' clothes. This Saturday, we were heading once again to the Super China Buffet (in my mind it always sounds like "Sooooooooopah China Buffet" in a kung-fu flick accent). As we got out of the car, it just really struck me how boyish the shirt looked, so I commented on it to him. He's like, "No, you can't tell." I told him you could. The little cutesy rhino emblem embroidered on the chest was part of the give-away. We walk into the restaurant, and the lady seats us at a table. In the table right next to ours is a family with an 8 or 9 year old son wearing the Exact Same Shirt. I laughed. And then laughed a little more. Ronny thought it was funny, too, though not as much as I did. I told him it was even funnier because we had Just talked about it like 20 seconds earlier.
The interesting part comes in when you analyze the reaction shot. Ronny seemed to shrug it off, didn't care. I would have been beyond embarrassed; I probably would have wanted to turn right around and leave. In retrospect, I can agree that it is embarrassing, but my response would have been over-reacting. And when did I get that image-conscious, anyway?? The only reason to leave would be worrying about what the other diners were thinking. Under normal conditions these are people I would mock as sartorial errors to begin with, and disdainfully comment on the Wal-Mart-ishness of the clientelle. But that sure makes me sound like a snob, now doesn't it! As Stan and Kyle would say: "I think we learned something today. Having more Calvin Klein, Polo, and DKNY in your closet doesn't make you a better person." But I think Versace does...