Panic at the Pumps

Ike blew through Texas and then wet us here in Missouri with 5.5 inches of rain in just a couple of hours. Right before Ike arrived, neighbor Shelley stops by on her way in and tells me, There isn't any gas left in town. I said, say what? She said, all the gas stations have sold out their gasoline; I just come from there.

Thinking of the 24 pumps at the QuikTrip and 12 at the Shell, I expressed disbelief.

You know what it is, Shelley said, people out here have all these trucks with double tanks and SUVs and whatnot, and everybody heard gas was going to $5 a gallon cuz of Ike hittin' the refineries. I said, People acting crazy. No need to panic like that. Everybody is listening to too much TV.

So then it rained buckets. My phone and electricity went out. Finally I get to turn on the TV and the whole world had gone irrational. The worst local flash-flooding wasn't here but in the big city, where it never floods. Two people drowned trying to save their cars and others are scraping mud out of their restaurants & that. Then national news says a huge Wall-Street financial concern employing all sorts of financiers & accountants has gone bankrupt. And then a certain President comes on TV and says to stay calm and sit tight because everything will be fine. Then I saw commercials for and against Obama and McCain, with both of them acting crazy, and showing their faces in profile and talkin' down to us like we were irrational or at least morons, and I wondered if this U.S.A. is turning into a Third World country or what.

My Mom for President

Elect my mom president of the United States and the budget will be balanced in five days. The occupation of Iraq will end when she says so: no ifs, ands or buts about it. Osama Bin Laden will quake in his boots, and if he bombs anything she will clean his clock and show him who is boss. There will be no shenanigans in the Oval Office. You'd better believe the White House will be tidy and there will be no eating at the desks. Rich folks will be taxed until they're in the same boat as the rest of us.

President Mom's cabinet will be working women who know how to juggle everything in the world and get things done. She will award medals to stay-at-home mothers, nurses, cancer patients, and graduate students. Dick Cheney will soon be laughing out of the other side of his mouth. When the Democrats and Republicans have stupid arguments she will say "Cut it out or I'll knock your heads together."