So I went for a drive and ended up in the City of Ill Repute just a few miles from the ocean. Conditions being what ever you want to think they are, I found myself needing to pee.
Reason guiding me, I found a little shop offering fortune telling. Bathrooms are for paying customers only though, so I discovered that an ATM was in my future.
Waiting in line for customer cash at the ATM, I witnessed an interviewer moving along the shady tree line asking for opinions that they can use for attention. Semi interested, I must have been staring because soon a lovely yellow-haired gal stuck a microphone in my face and asked if I was keeping up with current events.
“Kinda” I responded. “What is this about?”
“Can you define what a woman is?” She asked, pushing the audio phallus towards my face. I had seen on youtube an advertisement where an ‘Orange Man Bad’ supporter was asking unsuspecting people these kind of questions and made a show about it. Now, I haven’t seen the actual show but it was instantly clear that I didn’t want to be any part of this so I decided to placate her, get my ATM money, and go pee at the Fortune Teller’s shop. “
“I reckon I can recognize a woman as well as anyone else.” Smiling, I backed away and prepared to act interested in waiting in line when she pressed forward. Sir, she smiled sweetly, can you elaborate on how you can define what a woman is?”
“Well, I winked, If you need me to ‘splain it to you, you are probably a woman.” HAaaaa! I raised my right hand for a high five being sure I had come up with the answer this right wing, hate filled girl was wanting.
She took 2 steps back, balled her fists at her sides, and fire shot out of her eyes. I was still cackling cockily at the joke at the right-winger’s expense. I glanced around quickly, scoping for someone to revel in my genius. Bizarrely, an encompassing quiet moved away from me in a neat circle like a pebble dropped in the lake.
Within seconds word spread psychically and a slow-moving zombie crowd began turning their misguided malice towards me. My interviewer, jaw distended, bellowed out an ear piercing scream and it was at this moment I knew that I had fucked up. She wasn’t MAGA!
“No, no, no, no. It was a joke! It was a Joke.” Dammit, I know better than this. The last time I thought something was funny enough to be witty I was 16 and in doing so I accidentally triggered a race riot. None of my compatriots are capable of recognizing satire so I seldom joke about anything unless I happen to be around someone so uninformed that they are safe to be funny around.
As the cast of Planet of the Apes advanced, waving the Staple signs about ‘hate-having-no-home-here’, ‘love not war’ and ‘coexist’, (signs that I and my friends had made for the event) I desperately scoured the stone-cold faces of the Hive Mind for the group I traveled in with. Even those I have been close friends for years moved blindly towards me in trance-like vacancy.
Seeing two park police, I began to run towards them. The good, loving, ethical group of which I am a dedicated follower of, were slow to follow because at that moment a small band of Proud Boys (3) presented themselves on my behalf so I made it to safety. The cops realized my plight and pretended to arrest me to satisfy the good guys, releasing me a few minutes later. Good thing too since I needed to be present for the firebombing of an Asian convenience store whose owner was suspected of agreeing with those misinformed constitutionalists.
Finally! The shop keeper graciously showed me to the water closet. The Fortune Teller was an old Hindi woman with a no-nonsense manner. She held my hands across the table and went into a Hindu prayer and gave me the most accurate reading of any Voodoo type experience of my life….. Except for one thing. She must have called me an asshole 6 times, shaking her head and scolding me. That part couldn’t have been accurate.
Calling my mom a few months later, I recalled with her how I had been confused as a child, asking to why, when ever I met a truly loving person, they were NEVER a member of our church and how is that possible if the people in our church were the only ones of whom the God of the Love of All Eternity recognizes worthy. She couldn’t answer me then or now. “Mom? Is it possible that I am the asshole?” The phone went silent for about 10 seconds. “Yes.” and then “I’ve gotta go.”