Stepping on a Fox's Tail

I fell asleep reading Kafka and so...

I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon at various hardware stores, battling with members of Beverly Hills gangs of liberals and progressives -- punching and screaming and carrying on as if we were all after the same plasma television at a Circuit City liquidation marathon. I don't remember being in so many cat fights since I stopped to ask for directions at a local trucking establishment east of Reno several nights ago. That was a great dream as well.

The Inauguration was less than 24 hours away. Therapists had been notified; prescriptions filled; my heart monitor was at the ready, but there was so much more to do. Still, I was not truly prepared for the upcoming event. I knew the dangers that lay ahead. Prepare sloppily and my entire neighborhood was at risk -- pets would never poop properly again, and apartments and homes within a three mile radius of where I lived would be uninhabitable for weeks. Hence the need to visit hardware stores. It all made so much sense to me. I could hear myself snoring.

It was a chance worth taking. I needed to witness the destruction myself. Without it, January 20th would simply be another 24 hours in our nation’s history.Anyway, I like looking at new brands of cyclone fencing.

At 3 a.m. this morning, the police arrived at my door. Some irate loser in my building reported I was making too much noise during my pre-celebration festivities: Something to do with hammering so early in the morning and off-key whistling of Disney songs.

I greeted the officers with a nail gun in one hand and a moderately sized beach umbrella in the other. I don't know where that other hand came from, but it held a very large whisk broom. I was wearing a hurricane slicker, size ten hip boot waders, and a welder’s helmet -- the exact outfit I used to wear whenever I went quail hunting with the vice president.

I looked around. I had covered my entire apartment, walls, ceiling, carpeting, and furniture with the two-ply, heavy duty, water-proof plastic, the sort Dexter uses to wrap his victims after he fillets them. Was I expecting Jackson Pollack for breakfast? one of the cops asked. Pretty amusing I thought: A police officer who has David Kelley writing his dialogue.

But the boys in blue knew exactly why my apartment was one big drop cloth. They showed me memos alerting Interpol of potential early morning rowdiness by a certain select troublemaker. They warned me if my activities became to grandiose, I would be arrested under some Homeland Security proviso and sent to a castle as a lifelong juror. They did fine me, however, for using a brad nailer rather than a framing nailer when putting up the plastics.

It was 5 a.m.. Everything was ready around me. My herbal teas, pop tarts, and two day-old pizza were all under heavy plastic bags ready for consumption. I turned on my television to That Network, the very same one I watch only when I want a quick cardiovascular work out. My head exploded so often watching That Network that I could now look up in the middle of my living room and see constellations.

Today would be different. What could anyone on That Network say? Would the news readers keep their cool? Disappearing quickly, eight years of preaching an alternative reality, officials scurrying away like cockroaches in sunlight. Would any of the punditry last the day or would they self-detonate or melt before my eyes. Unharnessed kinetic energy can be a real mess to clean up. I've read the X-Men. I hoped I had enough plastic.

Fulminations. Blasts. Diatribes. Harangues. Jeremiads screamed from the TV set. For the next ten hours I witnessed with awe and near reverence the violent effects of No Drama Obama on this wandering herd of confused and lost pundits, commentators, and experts. Funny but none could recall ever saying that Obama was too black, not black enough, a secret Muslim, a jihadist, far too cerebral, much too elitist, not really Middle American, valueless, un-American, not American, a lousy bowler. January 20, 2009 was not the start of a new mandate, but one in which celebrity crazy America, ever ready for the next sparkling info product, had, hypnotically cast their ballot for the new guy. History would one day judge the previous administration differently, much like the way the crew of the Titanic would eventually reevaluate the role of the iceberg.

I dreamt of heads exploding outward, limbs twitching and flying away, and teeth shooting forth like missiles. I was ducking and covering. My television morphed into a Gatling gun, rapid firing canines and molars towards me. The floors and ceiling melted away into rivers of brainstems and eyeballs.

Wow! This is what happens after eight years of regurgitated miscalculations, misjudgments, guesstimates, broken promises and asinine justifications! I was swimming in bits and pieces of Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Neil Cavuto, Morton Kondracke, Ben Stein, and dozens more who had taken money for sitting on their brains and getting everything wrong. Were they too asleep when we thought they were awake? All that was missing from this carnage was Charlton Heston and a burning bush.

But the dream continued. After some commercial breaks all the Beltway boys and girls returned as verbally dense as before, ready to blow apart like mini Vesuvius mannikans. So many befuddled individuals twisting into yoga pretzels, emphasizing their relevancy and denying they were still part of the James Buchanan administration. They talk lovingly of Kumbaya moments, bipartisan appeals, and Congressional checks and balances. These guys were backtracking so quickly from their previous words that GPS units later found them on Jupiter.

"The Fox Hunt" by Winslow Homer

I laughed. I cried. I fell in love. I wake up. The Network is running for its life. Barack Obama is about to give his speech. Unlike Marley and Me and Seven, this day will have a happy ending.

I’m now sweeping out the apartment and doing some dusting as well. Now I know I'm back to dreaming because I would never do either action fully awake. My television appears ruined as is my Hummel collection of weird looking gnomes. I also discover that Easy Off does not work on carpets. I see so much viscera left on the walls and floors that I think I'll make sausage tonight.

How will That Network survive? Well there are still gays, guns, God, and the assault on Christmas so I guess they'll do just fine. My quick cardio workouts will continue.

Life is good. It's morning in America again. Actually it is late evening. Most of all, I am happy that Obama mentioned the word “science” in his Inaugural Address. Once more it is safe to believe the earth rotates around the sun rather than the other way around. And that ain't no dream.

The Gates of Eden