Mommy wears a black, Invader Zim t-shirt and pale-blue, snowflake pajama pants. She has a big cup of coffee in a green Yoda cup beside her as she sits barefoot on a tall, oak chair at the kitchen counter. Beside her, Shasta twirls her tail. An invisible slug about the size of a medium dog, Shasta is wearing a shiny silver, mylar cloak, its extra “fabric” floating around her blobby brown body. Her steampunk goggles with their many copper gears match the tiny black bowler hat resting between her antennae, the hatband decorated with copper keys and gears. Shasta is resting on a soft, fuzzy, chartreuse flying carpet about three feet square. For the moment, the carpet rests on the green, brown and black granite countertop a few feet away from the Yoda cup.
Mommy: Those Democratic debates were scary. The democrats are eating each other up, Shasta. They are acting more like starving zombies than presidential hopefuls.
Shasta: You always said politics leads to the dark side, mommy.
Mommy: Yes, but I want a democratic hopeful who has not been torn to shreds by his alleged teammates. I want a candidate without chunks torn out of him.
Shasta: (Chewing a blade of grass thoughtfully.) Do zombies eat each other? Slugs don’t. Even people mostly don’t. And all zombies are starving, mommy. I mean, that’s just zombies. Dogs chase balls, cats do whatever they want, and zombies ravage the countryside. That’s how it works.
Mommy: Shasta…
(Shasta interrupts. She is on a roll.) We all have to eat, and we do not all have taste. I mean, dogs even eat cat poop, garnished with kitty litter. The evidence is in the water bowl, not to mention that big blast of dog breath. Ginger the Puppy Dog Turner knows not to eat the poop while people are watching, but that litter in the water bowl is a dead giveaway. And dogs are more discriminating than zombies. So I guess we have to expect zombies to eat each other. And maybe democrats, too. Democrats eat each other, I mean, not get eaten by zombies. I am not sure how to count democrat zombies who are eaten by zombies.
Mommy: (Big sigh.) Oddly enough, I think maybe I followed that. Anyway I am definitely concerned. What will happen if Biden wins the nomination after too many also-rans make him eat his too-many 40-year-old words? By the time the hopefuls are done dredging up Joe’s less stellar moments, will African-Americans go to the polls in bad weather? I’m sure Donald is loving this stuff.
Shasta: That poor people/white people gaffe was pretty silly mommy. Joe even screwed up his own contact information for his campaign’s text message service.
“If you agree with me, go to Joe 3-0-3-3-0, thank you very much,” he said.
Well – duh, mommy, you and me, we missed our chance. Somebody bought “joe30330.com” right away and the site is sending everybody to https://joshforamerica.com/, which is pretty funny.* If slugs could vote, I’d vote for Josh. I love his “No Homework in College” platform.
Mommy: Yeah, we should have grabbed that URL. And I like Josh too, but I am pretty sure he is too young. You have to be at least 35 years old.
Shasta: (Sounding oddly enthusiastic) Joe also messed up by arguing that the United States cannot handle another “eight years” of a Trump presidency. Unless he transported himself through time like my favorite action star of all time, Jean Claude Van Damme – then Donald only has five years max. Unless maybe Trump is just starting his presidency where Joe-Two came from. That would explain it if eight Trump-years are left in his universe.
Mommy: (Smiling) You can use time travel to explain damn near anything.
Shasta: How old is Jean Claude, Mommy?
Mommy: Unlike Josh, he’s plenty old enough but he was born in Brussels, Belgium. It’s a no-go, dear. You have to be born here.
Shasta: Too bad. All you have to do is watch Jean Claude do the splits on the kitchen counter to know he could run the country.
Mommy: (Pats Shasta’s head.) It would be fun to see if any of the hopefuls could handle a kitchen counter scenario. But Jean-Claude and the Terminator are out of the race, sweetie.
In fairness to Joe, I will say that if I was running around like he was, answering nonstop questions all the time, I might blow it too. I could easily forget my new twitter address or some other techy detail. I might stumble over my new, text message number. I only know how those numbers work because that’s the way to find out the price of houses for sale in my neighborhood. Too bad for Joe, though, he seems to be oblivious to housing prices.
He’s an old guy, Shasta. I bet his remote flummoxes him, like it does grandpa. Inputs? Streaming? Closed captioning? Tough stuff for the old guys, these remotes with thirty-some buttons. I only understand the remotes because I watch way too much TV.
Shasta: You wouldn’t seem that confused mommy.
Mommy: (Thoughtfully) Maybe not. Still, how many questions do you think that guy gets asked in one day? He cannot keep being such a gaffe machine, though. I loved that line where he said, “But my God, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth!” Well, yes, but between confused and duplicitous, there’s a lot of territory for exploration.
Here’s what I think: I think we should scrap the debates. Give each of these candidates an hour and a half to explain themselves instead. The debates are for CNN’s benefit, not ours. They resemble some cooking show where the chefs get 10 minutes to bake and ice a crème-stuffed cupcake. I’d say lets pass the debates to a less self-aggrandizing network, and just let these potential candidates talk and tell us what they plan to do. We would be so much better off.
* Readers, I recommend a quick visit to joe30330.com 🙂
Quick haiku that came from another nonsense email–
