Tuesday, November 6, 2007

How the Grinch Stole the Election

"I can see by the way you're looking at me, you think you know me."
"You pulled that same routine yesterday."
"Actually, you don't know me."
"Right. As though I'd forget. You're the story I was working on and was too energized to back up, and then that ditsy Zenith, can you believe it, Zenith computer crashed and you were gone."
"Actually, I'm not a story you neglected or dumped."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Really. I'm doing a friend a favor."
"You're really not an unresolved story?"
"Well, maybe that, but not in the sense you mean. I'm doing a friend a favor, stopping by like this."
"Nope. I'm not buying it. You're a story I never got around to finishing. I knew you looked familiar. Something about the way you talk."
"As I was saying--"
"See, I told you so. You have to be a story. Hardly anyone uses that 'as' construction any more. They're all 'like.' 'Like I was saying.'"
"Actually, I've come to bring you a message from a former lady friend."
"Man, this is perfect. What kind of story are you, anyway? I know this is going to get me into trouble with stuff I should be doing right now, but you've got me curious."
"Not."
"Perfect. Just the right amount of negation. Of course you're a story."
"Messenger."
"Too articulate for a messenger. You can't fool me."
"Wasn't trying. Let's get to the point. My name isn't Story. It's Reproof."
"You're here to bring me the message of reproof?"
"Damn well told."
"Okay. So who's your friend? Who sent you?"
"My friend's name is Politics, and she wants you to know that you can't mess with her. She's vindictive if pushed. You said you'd care. You said you wouldn't take her for granted."
"Lotta back room deals going down right now."
"That's why she sent me. She wants to know if you're going to sit back and let that creep from Wyoming run the show and make everyone think it's the Sock Puppet President doing the running."
"What can I do?"
"She said you'd ask that."
"I sent letters to Feinstein and Boxer about Judge Mukasey."
"Good for starters."
"I sent money to Kennedy and Kerry."
"They don't need money."
"I spoke up for that lady running against an incumbent Democrat lap dog."
"Better. But what about Hillary?"
"Ah, she'll self-destruct."
"You sure about that? Remember that play your old faculty mate, Jerry Lawrence wrote, 'The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail'?"
"And Emerson comes to visit him and says, 'What are you doing in there?'"
"And old Thoreau, he goes, 'And you, Waldo, what are you doing out there?'"
"So you want me to get arrested?"
"Wouldn't think of it, busy as you are."
"Sarcasm is truly difficult to bring off with panache."
"You just ran pretty well with it. Okay, gotta go. I delivered the message. Just one thing she asked me to lay on you."
"And that is--"
"Hillary in a Crate 'n Barrel store. You break it, you own it. See you around, big boy."

3 comments:

R.L. Bourges said...

hilary? self-destruct? is that in the realm of possibilities in the this spatio-temporal environment? i doubt the woman would know how to begin deconstructing such an adamantine sense of self (adamantine is in exchange for yesterday's "pale and loitering"); best;

Smiler said...

"Adamantine" wow. 13th century, no less.Between the two of you, I should have myself a whole new vocabulary in no time. New to me that is. Obviously.

Anonymous said...

The Winter of our Discontent is eclipsing a lovely Indian Summer, and like many people, I suspect, I crave a candidate I can (somewhat) trust. Hilary does not fill that need for me - quite the contrary, it now seems - and I'm so disappointed that she doesn't!

I always thought Barbara Jordan would have made a great president...
- Karen