The Trump Patch

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

I THINK I NEED A BREAK. Too much Trump, too much despair. I never want the whole world to agree with me, except now. I want the world – every person – to disavow Trump. That’s not healthy.

It’s also a wee, tiny bit judgey. Besides, it’s an American thang, so wuddaIcare? (Yeah, right. Like when your neighbour gets a new stereo and plays Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band all Sunday afternoon. It has an unavoidable spill-over effect.)

So, to ward off all this bad mo-jo, I’m going on the patch. The Trump patch (“May cause nausea and/or rectal discharge”.)

If he does not get elected, things will carry on in apple-pie order. By the way, isn’t that a great saying? I know, right? (As my sister likes to say, accompanied by a funny facial expression.) The apple pie saying is an idiom used by Joseph Conrad and more recently by a really good contemporary poet named Trish Hopkinson.

Anyway, back to Trump; he does not win, all is well. He goes away except for some parting deplorable remarks and I go off the patch. End of story.

And if Trump wins? Accch. I have no idiom for that. “Deportation order? Court order? Out of order?” Hey Joe! – little help here? (Mr. Conrad knows about darkness, after all.)

I think what I would do if Trump becomes POTUS is gather my wife and my daughters and all the strong women I know — it’s a lot; I have the best women — and I’d find a person with a really obnoxious pro-Trump t-shirt and I’d let him explain to my grand-daughter how this all works. The whole rape culture thing, I mean.

And maybe my grandma Toews could come back for that one meeting and give us some tips on what she did when her generation of women rose up and set aside a lot of these crazy notions, like, fifty years ago.

Grandma is not gonna be pleased – she already weeded that row of beets.

So, bye-bye CNN, I’m on the patch. Smell ya later, Stephen Colbert, I’m outta here. Alec Baldwin: have a blast. (Heyyyy, isn’t he also the scream-at-his-daughter-on-the-phone guy?) No matter, they will figure it out without me. As John Wayne used to say, “Exercise yer conscience, if ya got one!”

POST SCRIPT: Wait. There is good from this – maybe I need to stand up and take it like a . . . well, just take it. After all, I have abused my maleness. I admit it. You have too, male reader. So maybe THAT is the silver lining here. Reminding all us would-be figuratively lily white, testiclularly-endowed humans that we have pulled a few trump cards ourselves. Maybe this spray-tanned, comb-over windbag was placed here for a reason. 

 

 

Nearly Friends

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

ON FACEBOOK THERE IS A CATEGORY called Nearby Friends. I glanced at my phone this morning without my glasses and thought it read, “Nearly Friends”.

How would Facebook know? I wondered, addressing my fried egg via mental telepathy.

Then I opened today’s rejection letter from a literary journal.

“Aha,” I said, and the egg gave me a knowing look. The sausage looked bored and read his Manchester Guardian. Poser.

I re-read my short story rejection letter as if it were the response to a request to be a friend of someone on Facebook:

Dear Mitchell, you simpering, insignificant wad of banality;
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If you weren’t already dead (I speak of your social life, as described on FB) I would have you killed. Or maimed – at least then you’d have something to post.
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Thank you for applying to be our friend, but unfortunately, with over 12 submissions this social period, we have been unable to find a place for you and must reject your application for friendship.
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We applaud your submission – it’s adorable, really. In fact, we here at the Forlorn Recycled Paper Depot want to spend about eight seconds knitting together a few cliches to smugly show our complete and utter lack of regard (that’s one, for those scoring at home). We’d take the time to actually say something meaningful about the content of your application, or anything really but, no. Like a well-worn trollop, this is fast and easy and we know where everything goes.
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In fact, let’s all just save some time, shall we? Just re-read one of your other rejections.
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Please be sure to compost this letter – it is made with the hopes and dreams (that’s two) of would-be Forlorn friends. (And fish heads — there are fish heads in this paper too. Also bull manure.)
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Keep friending!
Marzy & Pan
Friendship Editor and Assistant Friendship Editor

“Look,” my half-eaten egg said, slurring its words slightly due to the drool of yolk oozing out over the plate. “See that clear, somewhat eggish stuff you left in the frying pan?”

I looked. Sure enough, there was a cellophane skin of egg-yuck left in the pan. I had cut it away with the spatula before lifting the egg onto my plate.

“Well, you are kind of like that clear stuff,” the egg said, continuing patiently. I ate the sausage, pretentious cableknit sweater and all, as I listened.

“We know the clear stuff is egg. It came from the eggshell; it would pass an egg DNA test — in fact there was an episode like that on TV last night (on two different CSI-style shows, actually). It’s egg, buuuut, it’s not egg. Ya know? Where’s the yellow? Where’s the yummy? Where’s the cholesterol — although I am pretty sure we as a pop culture are off of hating eggs now, but I have not listened to CBC Radio for a few days, so don’t quote me, eh?”

She — by the way, I asked and she identified as a female. Her WordPress blog name is Madame Ovary. Pretty good stuff, if a little scrambled. Anyhow, she took a deep breath as I slid her onto a piece of buttery rye toast for the coup de grâce.

“Look, buddy – don’t feel bad. You are like the cellophane. You are a Nearly Friend, just like that clear eggy stuff is a Nearly Egg.”

allfornow – m

 

Copyright Mitchell Toews ©2016