The Bush years are almost over. I saw a countdown widget the other day that at that point had 202 days left, and it was keeping track to the last second.All we have to do is hang on another six months or so and we've made it. Not everyone is surviving, though. All the guys who went to war who've fallen, for one. The people in other countries who've fallen, the ones we don't even keep track of. And then there are just those people dying of average everyday things, not yet traceable to Bush himself. You've got to figure there are the Unknowns, those who've had depression, who've been discouraged, and yet have suffered in silence, and then one day -- pffft, dead.
I'm like everyone else, I'm hoping to make it. I wanted to live to see 2000. One goal met. Now I want to see the Bush years ended. And I'm doing what I can to make it happen, including regular doctor visits, daily exercise, and plenty of sedatives during the news.
But they haven't been all bad years, have they? OK, they have. But they're almost over. Then we'll look back and maybe get wistful, thinking, "My God, how did things go so wrong?" People actually voted for this cretinous dullard. He happened to be named George Bush, famous father, the whole thing. I like to tell people -- I go around and give talks in nursing homes and schools on this very subject -- that if his name had been Joe Smith he'd have been a ditch digger and would've been a failure at that! For the most part, the people nod, always a nod of recognition and appreciation that someone's finally putting into words what they've always thought. Ah well, we're just about through with the chimp.
You know, speaking of being wistful, I think a lot of us like to idealize our lives and memories. Like this, that someone someday's going to ask us about it. We've heard the question of the child to his grandfather, "Grandpa, what did you do in the war?" Well, it's a fantasy. Children never ask. They're outside playing, the house is noisy, and they don't care anything about the war. So, in relation to Bush, I can picture myself someday, the grandchildren coming up and saying, "Grandpa, how'd you ever survive the Bush years?" Then I get misty-eyed and I'm real hesitant to say anything -- no teeth at this point, just chewing my gums in a deliberate, thoughtful way as I'm very reluctant to talk about anything so unpleasant -- then I launch into it. "Billy, it was hard." Then I rattle off the canned talk I give at homes and schools mentioned above.
The way it will actually be, of course, is nothing like that at all. The grandchildren won't care. That's not the way life works. Again, they're out playing, the house is noisy, the TV's on, they're playing handheld game systems, they've never heard of Bush. Plus, I'm in my chair, old and dozing, waking up with a bunch of weird twitches, swatting the air and scratching my head. My wife rubs on some Scalpicin and we go home.
But I will definitely remember the Bush years. His idiotic phrase, "The homeland." His moronic words, "The Axis of Evil." Everything the blithering idiot said or did that I was conscious enough to witness in those pre-sedative days will come to my mind. And I'll look at the grandchildren playing, and I'll think to myself, "This is the way it should always be -- the innocent little rascals living free and not thinking about Bush."
Face it, friends, the man's a rat.
