Oh… there you are. Been
kind of scarce, haven’t you? According to my own private polls, you suddenly
found there were things you wanted to do on the long weekend. In the garage,
the basement, or the laundry room – someplace where there was no TV set – so, gee,
you missed it. Or maybe you found you had to go to the Mall, or Whole Foods to
pick up something you forgot to get last time. Or you got an urge to finish that
book you’re in the middle of.
Let me guess why. You don’t
have to listen if you don’t want to know. You’re embarrassed. You voted for
him, but you almost hoped something else would happen. Something
not-Republican. Maybe something extra-terrestrial. Something to stop the giant
wave that is rolling over the country gobbling everything up. Gobbling up jobs,
gobbling up the media, gobbling up the schools, the children, the children’s
future… It’s been a while since you believed it’s George Bush’s fault. I mean
even you could do a better job, right?
There was something about the
sound of things that let you know it was going to be a royal event; you’ve got
funny feelings about that. Didn’t we fight a war to get away from the King of
England? Yeah. We don’t like kings, do we.
And you don’t know if you
want to hear Obama. He’s been sounding mean lately, like an angry parent. He’s
always yelling at someone else, but you wouldn’t like it if he started to talk
to you like that. He’s mean.
You’ve started catching him
in lies. Not little lies. Big lies. Like that Libya business – “What’s up with
that?” (to quote one of my favorite Black men) Nah…don’t think about it. You’re
probably just confused. So many different things were said. But you know… No,
never mind. Who wants to know?
Your grandmother can’t get a
new hip, and you were told it’s because of the new rules. She’s too old. The
word Obamacare was mentioned.
You’re not into numbers, but
you’ve heard that they cheat on the unemployment figures. They’ve gone down,
because they only count people looking for work, and so many people have
stopped looking. Maybe you.
A lot of you didn’t tune in. You
didn’t turn him on. You dropped out.
Your ears and eyes are
opening. The fog is beginning to lift. You don’t like what you see. Even if you
want what he wants, you’re worried. Shouldn’t he have to play by the rules? Executive
orders instead of laws smack of a different form of government than ours.
If you’re one of the people
who didn’t manage to catch the show, there may be a reason: you’re waking up. Watch
out. It’s going to hurt like hell.
