As of late, with monumental Supreme Court ruling opinions and dissenting opinions, there is an over-abundance both of reasons to opine and opinions themselves. They flit about like gnats on a windless summer night; aggravating, most are too small to successfully swat, leaving one with no sense of satisfaction like one might feel upon seeing a mashed opinion right next to a splattered cockroach. Opinions are everywhere. They are inescapable. I am overwhelmed with opinions like my dogs seem overwhelmed with fleas from time to time, stopping in mid-stride to furiously scratch at the annoyance. I will dip them (the dogs) as soon as I finish writing this. It is easier to rid them of fleas than it is for me to be free of oppressive opinions. At least the dogs appreciate my efforts, in my opinion. Perhaps I will dip a few opinions, too, and wash them of their flea-bitten myopia.

Much of the recent opining is being rendered as opinions on other’s opinions. Even the dissenting justices offer their opinion on the ruling opinion, while other justices offer their concurring opinions. After they give their opinions, we seldom take time to read the actual opinions themselves, but instead read snippets of them included in the opinions of others, which mean that we are forming our facts from third or fourth generation removed opinion, which may contain a few facts here and there, scattered occasionally like pecan dust in a cheap, store-bought pecan pie, but may contain no facts at all. By the time we render and publish our own opinions on social media, we will have people offering their opinions about our opinion, their opinions based on even more obscure opinions, or perhaps even worse, on the same opinions that influenced us yet they have a differing opinion about what was actually opined to begin with. It is all terribly confusing to the layman, and perhaps slightly less so to the professional opinionator, since the professional must form his opinion and have it written prior to a deadline, and his opinion may change between the deadline and publication. It’s too late then; he is stuck with it and now must defend the potentially indefensible. It’s a wonderful thing for the opinionators that people are easily distracted, having an attention span as lengthy as . . . well . . .  uh . . . what was I talking about?

So…having said all that with great clarity and forthright manner, let me say this: I will spare you my opinion, even though my prose is delivered in the form of essays and essays are almost always opinion else they wouldn’t be essays, though I daresay most of my opinions are rooted solidly in fact, unlike yours which are suspicious at best and spuriously specious at worst, with better-than-even odds on the latter. I hear your opinion . . . well, at least part of your opinion . . . and cock my head to the side, one eyebrow raised in skeptical scrutiny, eventually raising the other in surprise at your naivete, until they both descend southward into a frown of scorn, contempt, and a hot-flushed anger at your calumny and hubris. I have considered the matter thoroughly and have reasonably decided that your opinion is malformed, ill-conceived, and peppered through with prevarications; it is always thus.

Me? My opinion? Were I to give it to you it would be the most sublime opinion ever forwarded on behalf of a cause. Now, that cause may be the aggrandizement of myself in my own eyes, or ears rather, though that is far more likely applicable to you than to me since everyone likes to hear themselves talk all smart-sounding, but me certainly less so than you, at least in my opinion.

Having established that, let me spare you my opinion. There’s plenty of opinions to go around already. I’ve got a bucket-full I’ve collected in the last few minutes that’ll all be over-ripe before I can get around to them, making them indigestable, causing gas and bloating. Fetch a few for yourself if you need some and want to make them your own. If you so much as pretend that you want one, you will attract them like blowflies on a sun-baked-road-killed armadillo. The are liberally distributed in greater-than-usable quantities; perhaps you can make something of them while they are still relevant as the relevance of an opinion on a current event is fleeting.

I wish opinions could be converted to water for the farmers in California’s parched San Joaquin Valley. There’d be an endless, drought-relieving supply. While I doubt any opinions will water the ground, it is quite possible they can be easily converted to fertilizer since most of them already contain the required essence.

That is my opinion. I’m sticking to it.

©2015 Mississippi Chris Sharp

P.S. There are endless opinions about digging up the remains of long-dead Confederate generals, removal of flags, renamimg parks and streets, sales of Confederate merchandise, et cetera. There are few opinions that unify. They mostly divide us further, particularly when few opinions are offered from anywhere near the center. Only the extremes get our fleeting attention..