THE WORST was the headline. The worst for now, he thought. The day after the Orlando Massacre, the worst mass shooting on American soil since Wounded Knee, media of course were busy interrogating anybody who might know anything about something.
Skinny black guy leaning up against a wire fence says something like, “Oh, yeah, it’s horrible. They say I can’t get my car out of the club parking lot. Maybe not til tomorrow. Horrible.”
The old man liked to think maybe he was in shock.
Nothing else on television, understandable, so he picked up the paper. Actual Florida headline – Breaking Wind Causes A Fight In Keys Bar. The old man knew the place, no surprise. Used to take all his honeymoons in Key West. Anyway, seems a lady – I use the term advisedly – walked by another lady age fifty-five, cut loose with malodorous cloud of stench, words were exchanged, spilled drinks, blows, police. No charges were filed. It’s The Sunshine State after all.
And the day after that, the young redhead woke him up with the news a hungrily curious alligator had snatched a two-year-old toddler at an amusement park. Suddenly an oxymoron of epic proportions.
New day, new headline. Man Bitten When He Tries To Rope Gator. That’s a third degree felony hereabouts.
And a real stupid thing to do.
Stupid seemed to have become contagious and epidemic. You can’t get on a plane but no problem, here’s an assault rifle, a weapon of war. Just stay off our planes.
Zika is in Brazil. The deadly disease is headed here but we refuse to fight it. Can’t agree Zika might be a problem, a public health hazard. Instead we are sending our greatest athletes, the fastest and strongest of our species, to Rio. Why wait for the mosquitoes to arrive, we’ll go there.
Inquiring minds wonder if The Establishment has a secret repellent unavailable to the rest of us.
Stupid.