WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

by Gene Royer

March 18, 2003

WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

My neighbor Mejia Rakiea Jefferson is a war protestor. Of course, Mejia Rakiea is not her real name; it is the name she assumed a few years ago when she became interested in finding her African roots and was unable to do so. She and her husband are both from a small town not far from where I was born in Louisiana, and he swears he can't do a thing with her.

I actually didn't know she was a war protestor until I showed her a picture of my four-week-old kitten, which I had fondly named George W Bush Royer; and she told me she hated Bush. I asked her what that had to do with my kitten, and she said that Bush wanted to steal all of Iraq's oil.

I had heard that before, so I suggested that perhaps if Bush wanted more oil he should simply declare war on Kuwait and then declare victory because we were already there and had the entire Kuwaiti citizenry cowed. I thought that would stir some sensibility in her, but she apparently didn't recognize the satire and told me that Bush wanted to kill millions of Iraqi women and children.

I had heard that before also, so I asked her what that had to do with my kitten; and she said George W Bush had seven convicted felons on his Cabinet. I honestly had not heard that one before, and I told her that seven was a lot and asked her if either of them was Bill Clinton. She frowned and informed me that Clinton only lied because he was trying to defend the honor of Monica Lewinsky. "A gentleman never tells", she said.

That was one I had not heard before either, and I asked her what that had to do with my kitten. She then informed me that the United States Government was making its tanks out of depleted plutonium, that it was killing our service men, and that was what the Gulf War Syndrome was all about.

She had me stumped. For the first time in dealing with a liberal democrat, I had no comeback. It reminded me of one particular Easter Sunday in my younger days when I visited a patient at the state mental hospital in NE Texas, and I took him a colorful basket filled with chocolate and marshmallow eggs. He said he liked the basket, and he withdrew his penis and peed on it. I remember patting him on the back and telling him that he did good.

So, in this case, I wisely complimented her for being more informed than was I; and I put the kitten's picture away and jotted down a URL that I had run across recently. It had to do with The Shroud of Turin, Comet Hale-Bopp, The New Age and Astrology - Nostradamus's prophecies of the future, world events and the current economy. I told her she would probably find it interesting.

She will probably be busy for a while.