Month: December 2019

Adventures in Commuting

By Gary Bennett

As seen in The Washington Post, Sunday, December 29, 2019.

“Well, I guess we’re all in this together,“ I said to the woman I was eyeball to eyeball with on Metro. I’ve lived in Frederick for 30 years and worked in the District, Northern Virginia, or Baltimore the entire time. 

As a dedicated transit rider, I’m well versed in the sardine effect that takes place on so many Metro trips and the etiquette required to get through them. I’m sure you’ve experienced this, too. Many times I’ve been so uncomfortably close to someone else on Metro all I could do was smile and try to relieve the tension. You can’t just remain silent; that seems wrong.  “I feel like I should at least buy you dinner or get your phone number,” I said to one woman older than I.  She sighed and agreed. You’d be surprised at the kinship of the downtrodden. 

I’ve seen numerous perplexing events during my 30 years of commuting and been party to more than I’d like to admit. There was the time I was asked by a male stranger if I would like to have my portrait done. Now, you don’t get that kind of offer every day but somehow it didn’t seem too unusual on Metro.  I didn’t see any paints or photography equipment, but the man did seem to be relatively sane and earnest enough. After some quick calculations though, I politely declined.  He moved on to someone else.  After I relayed this story to my wife, she assured me that I had been propositioned. The more I think about it, I guess she was right.  But then I’ve always been pretty oblivious to matters of the heart. 

Occasionally, to get a little exercise, I will walk an extra 10 or 12 blocks to pick up Metro a couple of stops from my usual one. One day it was a little warmer than I thought, and I walked a little faster than I should have, so I got onto Metro a little sweaty and out of breath.  Immediately a young woman jumped up and offered me her seat. I’m sure she felt I was a heart attack waiting to happen and wanted no part of that. This was the first time I had ever been offered a seat on Metro, and I took it as a sign that my working days were quickly coming to an end.  Flustered, I refused the seat and stood up the rest of the way home — even after she departed and the train was almost empty.

I’ve seen more panhandling, fights, medical emergencies, and proud, loud, singing than I can remember. My most memorable subway person, as I like to call them, would have to be the wayward soul who was proudly relieving himself – complete with oohs and ahhs – on the Twinbrook Metro platform in broad daylight in front of God and everyone. The high arc of his stream was undeniably impressive, and I have to admit that I envied his carefree abandon.

Of course adventurous commuting is not limited to public transportation. You still have to get to the station. I estimate I’ve driven well more than a million miles to and from work in my lifetime and seen and had plenty of fun behind the wheel.  I’ve been stuck in countless traffic jams, seen numerous fender benders and worse, and witnessed, but never participated in, terrifying bouts of road rage. I’ve seen other drivers (never me) do everything from reading the paper and shaving to applying a full day’s worth of makeup, and yes, making out with their front seat companion. I’ve even been booed by passing motorists after emerging dazed from an accident that flipped my car over and caused a severe back up. 

But my favorite driving foible has to be the one on the back roads of Montgomery County. I’ve always done everything possible to avoid as much of Interstate 270 as I can. That makes me a devotee of southbound Routes 85, 355, and 28. One day, Barnesville Road was closed due to an accident. Drivers were detoured onto West Old Baltimore Road, a pleasant enough country road.  After a few miles and much to my dismay I came upon a stream crossing without a bridge. Who knew such things still existed in Montgomery County?  It is one of the richest counties in the country; you’d think every stream crossing would have a bridge. I carefully crossed the stream, got to work on time, and thought my grandpa who lived and worked in the mountains of West Virginia would be proud.

Historical Open Letter from President Donald J. Trump

My fellow patriotic Americans (and all you losers without MAGA hats),

I, President Donald John Trump, am sacrificing a bit of my executive time with Fox News today to announce that I hereby resign as your favorite president.  It’s been a fun and perfect three years demonizing the lefties, allies, Gold Star Families, and the so-called free press but all good things must come to an end. Just ask my three Secretaries of Defense, three Secretaries of Labor, three Chiefs of Staff, and of course my personal fixer, Michael Cohen, who can be reached in federal prison in upstate New York.  I swear I was going to clean up the swamp and appoint the best people but every person I appointed turned out to be a crooked loser.

It has come to pass that I find myself about to be impeached, and as much as I like to be the center of attention, I don’t want to be lumped in with those phonies Bill Clinton and Andrew Jackson, Johnson or whatever his name was. I’d rather dramatically ride off into the sunset on my personal chopper, Marine One. No one’s ever done that before and can you imagine the ratings! Plus, those enemies of the people—the lamestream media, won’t have me to kick around anymore!  This I can tell you.

Can you believe it?  Me, impeached?  The Chosen One! AND, I’M DOING SUCH A GREAT JOB! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Bill’s economy in 1998 was even better and we were at peace. You saw what they did to him. At least many of the same senators who screwed him have come to see that impeachment is not the way. I’m looking at you Mitch and Lindsey! It is serious business lying about an extramarital affair and getting caught so I guess Slick Willy got what he deserved.  Better just to be upfront about it. Hell, if the evangelicals don’t care about extramarital affairs and grabbing female body parts, why would anyone? 

A lot of people are saying you just can’t trust those Dems to see things the right way. They’ve made up some malarkey about their congressional oversight duty and impeachment being in the constitution.  SAD!!!  When I smartly and bravely bring up words like “coup” and “treason”, WHICH IS MY RIGHT, they have the audacity to lie and point out that treason only applies to aiding and abetting a wartime enemy, not criticizing the president, and that coups are things that happen in sh*thole countries at the end of a gun, not in countries like ours that depend on that pesky rule of law. But I feel better now that my thirteen-year old son explained to me that Republicans will still be in charge.  I could have sworn those Dem traitors Nervous Nancy and Crooked Hillary would take over. Why else would they do this?  What’s in it for them? We all like a good civil war, of course, but if I can’t be Supreme Commander, why bother?

Okay, maybe I should have reported that Russian meddling thing in the 2016 election that I obviously knew about but did nothing to stop. But the Russians were for me and anyone would have taken that meeting.  And by the way, I’m not a puppet. Hillary’s the puppet!  I fired that giant Lurch Jim Comey to make it all go away and what did that get me?  Just more grief and low-energy, sad sack Robert Mueller and his so-called investigation that dragged on for over a year.  He had the audacity to not exonerate me and even charge obstruction.  But no matter, I just claimed I was cleared and my loyal subjects ate it up. Plus, my fat personal lawyer, I mean Attorney General, Bill Barr, backed me up, too.

And sure, I obviously asked Russia, Ukraine, and China to get some dirt on that scumbag, Joe Biden, and in the case of Ukraine, withheld some military funds until they did but that was my money anyway!  And I had to match the Dems before they meddled in the 2020 election by trying to make sure every citizen, especially the Blacks and Hispanics, suburban moms, and manufacturing workers whose jobs never came back, exercised their right to vote. We can’t let low-IQ Joe Biden take over anyway.  He’s not smart enough to keep America interesting and on edge by constantly belittling half the population and pitting them against each other. Can you imagine how boring things will be under Sleepy Joe?  And his family – what a bunch of losers and hangers-on!  

I’d like to take this opportunity to recap our accomplishments over the last three years. We didn’t get much accomplished, okay?  Well, other than some tax cuts for the rich, executive orders that will get reversed when the Dems get their chance and of course all those federal judges and Supreme Court justices. Mitch sure pulled a fast one when he prevented the Obama/Clinton gang from having their choice back in 2016. That was my idea, by the way. I don’t know Merrick Garland but I hear he is a nice fellow – just not Supreme Court material like my guy Brett Kavanaugh. With me and Brett, I hope women have at least learned that their hysterical, lying, sexual misconduct charges will get them nowhere.  We did have a fun government shutdown and took some money from the Defense Department to start on my beautiful Southern border wall. There are some bad hombres trying to get into this country and I’m proud to say we have slowed them down even without shooting them in the legs, WHICH IS MY RIGHT!  If people want into this country so badly, they should just pay their way in at Ellis Island like my grandfather did!

I hope we can count on all those judges Mitch and I are appointing, but you never know. Some of those losers claim independence from their Dear Leader and rely on that pesky rule of law. Just ask that deep state flunky John Roberts who voted to keep the ACA intact even though we were sure to eventually come up with something much better.  I did my best, though. I kept ACA underfunded so rates would soar and declined to defend it in court. 

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t going to leave in 2020 anyway, no matter what the crooked election said. Probably not in 2024 either as long as my perfect health held up. It is just not possible for me to be voted out after all that I have done for this country! You may have heard that I took a pay cut to be your leader. No, as a stable genius and with more military knowledge that all those generals of mine combined, there is no way I could be removed from the White House.  But just think of all the fun we will be missing in January 2021 when that stiff Mike Pence has to turn over the keys to Sleepy Joe. Wouldn’t you have rather had me up there saying “I don’t think so, Joe.”  My people were already working on that speech.

But, in my great and unmatched wisdom, I’ve come to the conclusion that you just don’t deserve me. That’s why I’m walking way. What’s next for me, you ask?  I have three words for you – Trump News Network. That’s right, we’ll finally have media we can trust.  I’ll be the only correspondent of course because why would I share air time with anyone else if I don’t have to? Once I became my own press secretary things went much better, don’t you think? Even those ingrates at Fox News were starting to turn on me. They were starting to ask some pushy questions and not doing the job they were paid to do. The last thing I’ll do before I go is remove the Fox News line item from the Republican National Committee budget.  That’ll teach them.

So, it is with a full heart, terrific hair and tan, and smokin’ hot daughter and wife that I bid you farewell. Try to get along without me for a while. I said this before that foreign loser Arnold What’s-his-name did – I’ll BE BACK, which is my right.

Don’t worry about me, MAGA friends. I’ve already pardoned myself. Just waiting on that superb ass kisser Mike Pence to read it later.

Gary Bennett writes from an alternate universe where everyone, including President Trump, has come to their senses.