Man! Dude! Session #214

(D)ude: Man! Did you hear about the late Zachary Fisher’s foundation has stepped up to assist the families of the fallen United States soldiers whose families were previously unable to attain death benefits because of the government shutdown?

(M)an: Dude! That’s just it! The Republican GOP Tea Partiers do not understand basic mathematical fundamentals. The federal government’s capacity to take on costs is far more gigantic than any nonprofit organization.

D: Man! The Fisher House Foundation will be taking on the costs that the United States government will reimburse once the government reopens for business.

M: Dude! All one has to do is volunteer in a shelter or help line to feel the need for governmental intervention. Did you know I installed the software and the hardware for one of the crisis centers locally?

D: Man! I totally remember! You took me to see the final results of all your collaborations with the team of volunteers who worked several weekends freely for that particular service to kick into motion.

M: Dude! One of the very first calls we monitored, and adjusted the installed system with, was from a young woman who had run away from Georgia on a Greyhound bus with a newborn infant and a toddler, both needing diaper changes once they arrived with their mum at a bus station somewhere nearby, probably Dallas, if I am not mistaken.

D: Man! What became of the mother?

M: Dude! The operator could not assist in any way, except to list the plausible police stations and their numbers in the vicinity of the Greyhound bus station. It broke our hearts. Actually, a lot of us were visibly upset when the brave young mother broke down. Apparently, she had only a few dollar bills and no quarters left and it was a Saturday and very inauspicious indeed for a single parent mother with two babies.

D: Man! That’s a devastating loophole in social services in the United States. It is a loophole that left that brave woman alone at a bus station! But the Republican GOP doesn’t care. The Tea Partiers like John Boehner’s caucus could implement a lot of harm and despair, probably even go back yet again on their stance and declare that social services be entirely privatized.

M: Dude! I was wondering why I have never seen an Asian woman on the staff of such establishments as that call center facility? In fact, the only Asian foster parents I have come across have either converted to Christianity and do not shy away from the prospect of sharing or declaring their devotion to Christ, or have married a non-Asian White spouse with whom they have totally acculturated and chosen to deny their offspring the chance to mix up the tossed salad heritage they have obviously acquired. 

D: Man! I have a theory of my own in terms of social services in the United States. I think White board of directors and predominantly White staffers are the ones running these services. The only minority groups social services in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex recruit actively are Hispanic who can converse in Spanish.   

M: Dude! You are absolutely onto something here! The Hispanic employees are the only ones who sound sane enough to engage in conversation with when these nonprofits have their volunteer appreciation cookouts. A White female employer and director at the call center must have gotten some questionably liberal whiff from me and approached me about some upcoming church activities, as if talk of theology would provide me some conservative balance.

D: Man! You should have rebounded and talked to her about politics in the United States! Specifically, how unacceptably selfish and shallow the Republican GOP Tea Partiers are to have brought on the Government Shutdown and so much havoc on the lives of veterans and military members. And, yet, still schedule an atrocious photo-op where Michelle Bachman improperly approaches our heroic World War II veterans with discourteous forced kisses.

M: Dude! At least they could have been provided with hand sanitizers to wipe off her kisses and corresponding handprints!

D: Man! John Boehner reminds me of a crisscross between Michelle Bachman and the Joe Camel caricature still eminently displayed in Conde Nast magazines.

M: Dude! Eric Cantor reminds me of the women in Steel Magnolias. Seriously, I think you could easily place him on Dolly Parton’s porch with some new millennium Hollywood illusion and have him drink an entire pitcher of lemonade, spiked or otherwise.  

D: Man! Eric Cantor gives my grandmother nightmares! She’s always waking up in her West Virginia 

upper middle class home adamant that he will be at her front door wanting to extract some personal story from her and that she would haplessly comply. Don’t make him come after me! Honey, if Eric Cantor rings the doorbell, I’m not getting the door. So could you please call before you come up for Thanksgiving dinner? She tells me that all the time. That’s why I had one of my sisters move over there in the first place.

M: Dude! Your grandmother’s house in West Virginia is big enough to accommodate at least three families. But I understand her fears concerning Eric Cantor, he does tend to exploit practically every constituent he meets with the lamest sob stories afterwards claiming that child cancer victims were afraid of the coming of the Affordable Care Act.

D: Man! My grandmother also has been having V.C. Andrews-like visions about the cursing effects of palatial spaces upon the human soul’s tendency towards vacuity, like the contemplations of North Carolina’s fifth district Representative Virginia Foxx. My grandmother is convinced that Representative Virginia Foxx will come dressed as herself on Halloween and demand her social security checks and pension. I just told my grandmother to leave the basketful of candy on the front porch with a sign promising candies from the 2012 RNC for those children who cannot honor the honor system. She agreed! But then asked, “Hasn’t the devil been awakened and spoofing US since the 2010 midterms for electing processed teabags with snakes in place of leaves, and not the natural spruce of kava?”