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If you’re a human being who can still experience what our pre-Facebook ancestors once called empathy, you probably felt briefly sorry for the people of Haiti, whose country was struck by a terrible earthquake on Tuesday. Then you tuned into The 700 Club and saw Pat Robertson explain that the earthquake was Haiti’s fault because they made a pact with the devil. |
For those of you who do not live with your elderly grandparents, I quote: “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’”
You know that’s true, because Robertson is an ordained minister and also he said “true story” at the end. We don’t have to feel sorry for the people of Haiti, because it turns out that, like the developmentally disabled and people who have lost their jobs, the whole thing is their fault. The Haitian people have been free from slavery for almost 200 years, so they can’t really say that the devil hasn’t held up his end of the deal. On the other hand, Haiti is beset by endemic poverty, has one of the highest AIDS exposure rates of any nation in the western hemisphere, and is right next door to the Dominican Republic—which means constant merengue music no matter what time it is. Diabolic servitude or not, they’ve clearly had a hard time of it. Haiti made a classic error: they forged a blood pact with the dark lord Mephistopheles, which was great, but they forgot to be specific. When you’re dealing with the devil, it’s critically important that everything be specified. Because once he says, “Okay, it’s a deal,” that’s it.
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I know, because I recently entered into a contract with the devil to improve reception on my iPhone. My initial plan was to try to address the issue through AT&T customer service, but those people are terrible. Instead, I went out to the woods and drew a pentagram in the dirt with the femur of a newborn child. That connected me to the devil’s voice-navigation menu. At that point, a lot of people will sit there saying “yes” and “no” into the pentagram in an increasingly irritated tone of voice for the next several minutes, which wastes a lot of time and makes everyone else in the woods think you’re weird. Not many people know this, but you can just say “operator” and immediately be connected to Ayn Rand. All you have to do then is give her your Social Security number and a lock of your mother’s hair, and she’ll roll over and connect you to the devil.
