COVID-19: “WE”RE TRAPPED LIKE RATS!!! SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, RODENT.”
THE THREE STOOGES.
COVID.
AND COMMON SENSE…IN A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS FORM.
“You see that button-hole? Rats used to come outta there…”
“How’s yours Colonel? …Tastes like a mattress.”
“Oh Elaine, come out, o’ please come out…your Cedrick’s here…”
“Cousin Basil!!!”
“We baked you a birthday cake, [an’] if you get a tummy ache, and you moan and groan and woe, don’t forget we told you so!!!”
“Dinner’s called on accounta rain.”
“Moe…I thought you was the Goon!!”
Moe Howard. Larry Fine. Jerry Howard, the original Curly. Shemp Howard. Curly Joe. Joe Besser.
Legendary vaudevillian comedians from the ’40s, ’50s, and beyond…and to some of us, eternal.
THE THREE STOOGES.
Plus…
Christine McIntyre, Vernon Dent and Emil(e) Sitka, among so many others.
All well ahead of their time.
Successful.
Smart.
Unlike that former celebrated “Apprentice” host, Donald John Trump.
Successful?
I think not.
Intelligent?
No need to dignify with a response.
Incidentally, none of the aforementioned Stooges and their compadres were perfect in their personal lives.
Nor are we.
TRUMP?
Other end of the spectrum.
Fuhgettaboutit. Please. I beg of you.
COVID? “A hoax.” “Will be gone by Spring.” Blah, blah, blah…All blather.
Stock market? Great, to the tune of up around 35%.
401Ks? Commensurately up.
Economy???
Life?
Spirit?
Hope?
Highly questionable, if not trending precipitously downward.
By lying, cheating and unprecedented selfishness — OUTRIGHT BLATANT PIGGISHNESS practiced to an epic proportion and to a singularly personal end — along with egomaniacal, narcissistic and repugnant behavior, he’s ruined a lot of things.
Like this country of ours.
Proclaims his love for Her; fills the heads of those who will listen with drivel about how much he cares about Her.
Enough to fight for her in the armed forces as a younger man? Nope. Something about bone spurs.
Enough to hop on the coronavirus quickly and not lie about it? Nope. Hardly.
200,000-plus American lives lost…and counting.
Pandering to foreign dictators, the 1% and the far right.
Whipping up hate and spewing vitriol, giving White Supremacists a platform and looking the other way, unapologetically.
The man is poison. Toxic.
Arsenic courses through his veins.
No redeeming value whatsoever.
Negative number line material in every conceivable way.
But unlike the coronavirus which has us trapped for now, he does not, if we vote him out.
CONVINCINGLY, leaving no margin for doubt.
Joe may not be ideal, but he is not Trump.
In my version of a perfect world — which this is certainly not — I’d opt for Curly.
[Editor’s Note: These random thoughts were recorded by Mr. Kaplan on September 30, 2020, the morning after the worst Presidential Debate in our nation’s history.]
