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May 5, 2006
fringe benefits
Eight years of living in the Seattle area had me wondering if at heart I wasn't an AM-radio listening, bible-thumping, card-carrying member of the GOP. Not that my dial ever switches to AM or that I even own a bible. I just so perpetually wanted to pimp-slap the smug left, I found myself waiting in line with Republicans. Chattering airheads lectured me about my diet, recycling habits, gas-powered car, aversion to protests, etc. from the moment I arrived until the moment I left. In reaction, I even started using that most Republican of epithets: "the elite." I despise their public masturbation, their sneering presumption, their group-think. I especially despise their self-inflating answers to questions no one asked.
Just when I was about to buy a red, white and blue SUV made of old growth timber by non-union labor and fueled by baby-seal head-pulp, I moved to Metamuville. Now I'm a left-wing nut. I'm one of the "librawls" I hear derided pretty much every day. Good lord, I hear he even votes both ways. Clearly, he don't support the troops. It's time for an intervention. John needs some learnin.' Conservative learnin.'
If I vote for a school levy, refuse to fertilize my lawn, or ask that racial slurs not be used around me? I'm a bleeding heart librawl. High gas prices? Librawls' fault. Requirements that you have a permit to construct a building? Damned librawls. Can't smoke in restaurants? You better believe it's the librawls. Ill-read, ill-educated cretins made these self-inflating pronouncements, parroting, I suppose, what they heard on the radio or O'Reilly.
A typical such moment: last week I was at a buffet with some Metamuvillians. The waitress took our drink order and forgot about it, and a fellow got up and got his own. "See, I ain't no librawl," he said pointedly. "A librawl would have just sat there and whined for someone else to bring them their drink, where me, I just took care of it myself."
I stared at him. So this is what passes as a friend in the post-baby-boomlet era. Shudder.
Maybe if I make fun of him.
"Yes, we're all very proud of you. But you did that server's job for her. She's going to get paid for not working. How do you reconcile that?"
"Good point. I hadn't thought of that. Damn."
Maybe Guam. I hear good things about Guam.
posted by john at 7:37 AM • permalink