Not only did I spend too much time on the beach without sunscreen chapstick yesterday, resulting in burned lips, but for lunch today, my houseguest and I shared a bowl of blackened edamame at one of my favorite restaurants. It was spicier than usual, and the resulting fire on our lips made for an uncomfortable drive to the airport for Korey's flight home. But hot lips could not compete with the discomfort of being stuck on I-95 while it was shut down for a murder investigation and a couple of accidents. (Welcome to South Florida.) We made it to the airport in time, only to find Korey's flight delayed by four hours.
But back to Hot Lips. Those of us of a certain age cannot hear those two words without thinking about Loretta Swit's character in the war sit-com M*A*S*H. And one cannot think of M*A*S*H without thinking of the Korean War. And then we have to think of Kim Jong Un. And then all kinds of unpleasant things come to mind. Like those Dear Leader military marches in which North Korea's nuclear weapons are trotted out in a grand display of My Dick's Bigger Than Your Dick.
And speaking of dicks, guess who wants to have an equally grand display of military might right here in our nation's capital? Early criticism of this idea indicated that Pennsylvania Avenue would have to be repaired and repaved after a parade of M1A1 Abrams military tanks, which weigh over 69 tons, and even if the tanks were not part of the parade, the cost of such a grand display would be millions and millions of dollars. So why not, huh? We need a parade more than we need health care or SNAP to feed our children, right? The disconnect of our own Dear Leader is stunning.
Imagining this parade makes me think of The Music Man, which was the musical my school put on when I was a junior. (I played the part of the Mayor's daughter, Zaneeta Shinn. I had eleven lines, all of which consisted of "Ye gods!") You probably know the story of Harold Hill, the charlatan who comes to River City, Iowa, to convince the town that they need a marching band. Hill succeeds in selling musical instruments and uniforms to the townsfolk, but his plan is to skip town before teaching the children how to play, which he had promised. Despite this, the story has a happy ending; of course it does.
I do not foresee a happy ending for our country, as the charlatan that sold us a tax cut with promises of a big, beautiful wall continues to wreck our economy, our environment, and our freedoms. Somehow the soundtrack for The Music Man takes on a whole new meaning with song titles like "Ya Got Trouble" and "Till There Was You."
So do you see what I just did there? I took you from hot lips to Korea to dicks to parades to charlatans and back to the man who thinks he has hot lips.
Ye gods, indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment