Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

John McCain is driving me to drink. Not that it takes much. Much of a muchness. Who said that? The Doormouse, I think, to Alice. Compared to the McPain rhetoric, the Mad Tea Party comes off more like a Mary Kay party.

I used to know a girl who sold Mary Kay. This was back in the Old Days down in The City, before I shacked up with my husband, when I lived in an old subdivided mansion with a dozen or so young subdivided tenants, all of us females, more or less, of various persuasions. Musician, artist, stewardess, teacher, psychologist, actress. Then there was the girl I mentioned. I'll call her Shirley.

Shirley's was the garden apartment, a.k.a. the basement, a.k.a. the root cellar. Her pad was dark and low-ceilinged and sprawled out into the far recesses over half the footprint of the house. It had only two windows -- a feature which probably kept her out of jail -- and beyond them one saw tree trunks, grass blades and kneecaps. In other words, Shirley lived in a badger's sett. That's sett with two Ts.

Tea for two, and two for tea...

Shirley was of the entrepreneurial persuasion. She sold Mary Kay, stained glass, vintage clothing, the odd end table, and various controlled substances. I got to know Shirley because of that last item. Things being what they were, I found myself hanging out at her place pretty much every spare nanosecond, where I often ran into one or seven of the other girls from "Upstairs."

Upstairs girl, you've been living in an upstairs world...

During one memorable storm in the winter of '83, when those of us who were painfully employed were unable to get to our places of painful employment, and the buses had stopped running and the mail couldn't get through and the streets were drifted six feet high and counting, a half dozen Upstairs Girls found ourselves riding it out down at Shirley's, and a legend was born. The All-Day-All-Night-and-Half-the-Next-Day-Mary-Kay-Snow-Emergency. Not a tale one tells at family gatherings around a campfire.

All day, all night, Mary Kay...

During that legendary marathon, gin was played (and drunk) endlessly. Dresses circa the Great Depression were donned. Makeup was applied, removed, reapplied, re-removed. At one point roller skates figured prominently. Vital sustenance was eschewed in favor of Chiclets and Winstons. All to an endless soundtrack of local-boy-makes-good Prince, who entreated us to party like it was 1999 -- Yo! No problemo! -- while a record-breaking thirty-six-hour blizzard endlessly raged, inside and out.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

That was back in 1983. In 1983 John McCain was the age Mr. Obama is now. More or less. Less is more. Tis more blessed to give than to receive. Give or take. Take it or leave it. Leave it to Beaver. Bucky Beaver.

You say Ipana, and I say Obama...

While we're on the subject, tell the truth. Does John McCain remind you of someone? Someone from the past perhaps? Someone from the Old Days? Is it just me, or does he bear a striking resemblance to Elmer Fudd? That's Fudd with two Ds. I mean, he looks like Mr. Fudd, he sounds like Mr. Fudd. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... Although I'd give Elmer a good decade, maybe two, on the Republican nominee. That's nominal with two Es.

Last I heard, Shirley moved to California (don't they all?) and had a baby. One of the former Upstairs Girls ran into her in the Old Bar down in the Old Neighborhood down in The City, about a decade after the All-Day-All-Night-and-Half-the-Next-Day-Mary-Kay-Snow-Emergency. The baby was strapped to a barstool to keep it from falling off and the former Upstairs Girl said it was a pretty weird-looking baby.

My husband thinks all babies are weird-looking, but nobody asked him. What's he doing butting into this story anyway?

Anyway, the former Upstairs Girl said the baby looked like Elmer Fudd. No she didn't. But if you ask me, all babies look like Elmer Fudd. But nobody asked me. Speaking of John McCain, has anybody seen my drink?





http://ingeb.org/songs/mary_ann.html