End of an error

“We really should watch the inauguration,” my wife said Monday night (January 19, 2009). “It’s history.”
“Well, I want to work out at the YMCA tomorrow,” I said.
“Well you will,” she said. “They’ll have it on every plasma-baby.”
Sure enough. When I walked into the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym, the inauguration was on every plasma-baby.
Even the Weather-Channel. “27° here in Washington, and the sun trying to peak out.”
One-by-one former presidents waddled in — not a single one wearing a hat.
George Herbert Walker’s gotta be in his 80s, and here he is hatless in 20° weather. So’s his wife Barbara.
People on The Mall were wearing hats.
Yet here comes Jimmeh Kah-duh not wearing a hat.
To appear like a national leader, ya gotta go hatless.
Even Charles Gibson of ABC News wasn’t wearing a hat.
The only hat was Aretha Franklin, but thankfully the wind wasn’t blowing.
If it had been, she woulda lost her hat.
From my arm-bicycle I watched Chief Justice Roberts of the almighty Supremes administer the oath-of-office to Obama-lama-ding-dong on the plasma-baby tuned to CNN, but it was silent. The plasma-babies are closed-captioned.
“Is anyone else watching?” I thought to myself. Everyone was madly pumping away on the cardio-machines, seemingly oblivious to the history being made.
Obama began his inauguration speech.
Finished with the arm-bicycle, I moved to the stretching-area to do my leg-lifts.
“Is he sworn in yet?” some guy asked.
“Yes he is,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Good riddance! Send that bum back to Texas.”
“Are ya ready?” I said.
“January 20, 2009. End of an error.”
Deadpan silence for a minute.
“Oh, I get it,” he said. “You said ‘error,’ didn’t you...... That’s pretty good.”
“Yep,” I said. “Take that home and run it by your wife.”
“What they should do,” he added; “is try them clowns for war crimes.
Although I suppose we should just forget it,” he said. “Doing that would tear this country apart.”
“Yepp-errrrr.....” I said. “Just like pardoning Nixon.”
“‘Nixon?’ Who’s Nixon?” he asked.
“Well, I’m almost 65, and was around during the Watergate scandal,” I said.
“Pardoning Nixon seemed disgusting at the time, but it was probably the smartest thing Ford ever did.”
“Who’s Ford?” the guy asked. “Ain’t that some car manufacturer?”
“The guy that succeeded Nixon,” I said; “when Nixon resigned the presidency.”
“I think we have an Orator-in-Chief,” my wife observed when I arrived home. “A word-man.
I haven’t heard a speech like that in years.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Complete sentences and predicates agreeing with subjects.
The only ones that ‘don’t care’ about such things are the blowhards who can’t do it.”
“What I liked best was his saying our enemies have won if we sacrifice all our ideals in the name of safety,” my wife said.
My friend Gary Coleman, a man-of-color, keeps telling me “I thought I’d never see it. A man-of-color elected president.”
“Now all we have to do is hope the poor guy doesn’t get assassinated,” I say.
“There are enough hot-head honkies around who will loudly claim it’s the Lord’s will.
Kennedy was an idealist too.”
Depart Cheney stage-right in a wheelchair.

“Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.” —The Canandaigua YMCA has high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs on the walls of their exercise-gym, but they’re closed-captioned.

“George Herbert Walker” is George H.W. Bush, our 41st president.

“Jimmeh Kah-duh” is Jimmy Carter, our 39th president. (He was from The South, and preferred that pronunciation.)

An “arm-bicycle” is a cardio exercise machine that only cranks your arms.

The “almighty Supremes” are the Supreme Court.

“Obama-lama-ding-dong” is of course Barrack Obama.

The “Watergate scandal” is where president Nixon authorized agents to break into Democratic headquarters in Watergate Plaza. It happened during the first Nixon administration; 1972.

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

“The blowhards” refers to my all-knowing brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He loudly asserts that kerreck grammar “doesn’t matter.”

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. A fellow employee was “Gary Coleman.”

All my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christians, so Obama is therefore “the anti-Christ.”