We have some very rich people here on Plum Island, as you might gather from the McMansions that line the oceanfront for much of the two miles from the Mouth of the Merrimack to the start of the wildlife reserve.
One, a talk-show radio host in the mold of Rush Limbaugh, recently bought a brand new, bumblebee-yellow Maserati sports car which a few of my neighbors have jokingly tried to hail, as if it were a cab. The Rush-wannabe took it well, laughing as he went by, and actually stopping to offer a lift to one elderly gent who could fit into the one remaining seat.
Just two weeks after he bought it, he hired a crew to put some curbing between his spacious driveway and the street, only to forget that the new curb was there when he returned from his late-night show.
BANG!!!
Or was it Bang-Bang? Both front tires blew. The impact was so bad that the rims themselves were bent out of shape, but he managed to hit the brakes soon and hard enough that the back tires were spared.
Before long, a large truck arrived to repair the damage. Why they always keep their engines running is beyond me, but whatever, I awoke to the commotion and went to my window to watch the truck raise the front of the car.
Clearly, Rush Jr. told the repairman to bring rims, as the new tires were already on them. Didn’t take long at all to change the two sides, and I poured myself a tall glass of water to take back to bed. But then I heard more commotion.
Instead of the truck driving off, it lifted the back of the Maserati. Back at the window, I watched the repairman remove the car’s rear tires and rims, and replace them with two more out of the truck.
I pinched myself. I sniffed my glass. I breathed on the window to see if it fogged. It did. I went back to bed wondering if I was going back to sleep or had been asleep all along.
Next night, out of pure curiosity, I tuned in to All the Same, my neighbor’s call-in show to see if he might chat about his mishap and, if so, how he would spin it as a crime committed by liberals–and how his tires were victims of “cancel culture.”
Occurred to me that he might prefer to keep the whole thing a secret. After all, if he applied his constant calls for “personal responsibility” to himself as he does to the world at large, then he would likely be embarrassed by his own mistake.
What if I called in and started filling his airwaves with it? My guess is that, since I had to tell him I was awake, I’d be condemned as “woke.” Never thought that awareness could possibly be a bad thing in a country founded on the principle of self-governance, but then I never thought I’d see the American flag used to sell beer and automobiles–or see those who profess to revere that flag sleep through an on-going coup d’etat against the democracy it represents.
Anyway, what I really wanted to know was why the back tires and rims were also changed. Why did he discard two tires with just two-weeks wear on them?
On the slim chance that he would explain it, I tuned in. But it was nothing more than his standard fare. It began with condemnations of “congress,” which the first few callers reinforced, several of them spitting out the phrase “all the same,” not as the title of the show but as what they think of any and all people in Washington DC.
While doing this, he and each caller complimented each other on how wise they were to have this understanding of how things “really work”–or “don’t work” as they seemed to mean.
I kept waiting for him or any of them to make distinctions between the branches of government, between the House and Senate, between federal agencies, between federal and state governments, between the two sides in court decisions that uphold or strike down laws. Never happened. It was all a blur for as long as I kept myself awake.
Nor was any distinction ever made between the two parties, much less between those within the parties. This one kept me awake a bit longer, as if against my will, as the callers kept complaining about what wasn’t getting done regarding the economy, infrastructure, health care, education, and more.
Every problem mentioned was one that most Democrats are trying to solve, but which all Republicans keep blocking. Regarding the few measures that Democrats have passed–such as unemployment stimulus to offset the pandemic shutdown–Republicans voted unanimously against, but then took credit for benefits received in their districts.
No matter. Neither host nor any caller ever made a distinction.
If I wasn’t asleep having a dream, I was awake with the nightmare of All the Same–a term applied as mindlessly to our government as it might be to the tires on a luxury car.
Call it a sleeping pill. And, yes, it may yet prove suicidal.
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Mouth of the River 