Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Dateline, February 26. Begin Transcript:
“Hello, Boss! Happy Friday!”
“There’s nothing happy about Fridays anymore.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to be depressing. It’s just that, Friday used to be the end of the work week, and you could look forward to the weekend. But not anymore. I’ve got to work every day now. Meetings on Saturdays, Speeches on Sundays. They’re always shoving some speech at me to read, sticking a camera in my face. I don’t get days off anymore.”
“Sounds like the rest of the country, sir!”
“Huh? What’s that? Who else has to give speeches on Sunday?”
“Well, umm, preachers, for one… but I meant, lots of people work six or seven days a week now. Whether it’s for a second job or just the first job taking 60 hours to get done. It’s become normal, sir. My dad is a middle manager at a regular company, and he comes home from the office at 6pm, then fires up his computer again at 10pm to talk to the overseas offices, or works on spreadsheets all weekend, sir. So I guess it’s the norm, now, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Just the way the world has changed, I guess, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Wish there were something the government could do about it, huh, sir?”
“Maybe I should issue an E.O.”
“On what, sir?
“Banning anyone from working too many hours? Mandate that you can’t work more than 40 hours a week for the same company, period?”
“Hmm… sounds good, sir… but I have a feeling that’s the sort of thing that always backfires, isn’t it, sir?”
“Come on, Man!”
“Well, sir, let’s say someone can’t possibly get his job done in 40 hours. If it’s legal for him to finish up over the weekend, he succeeds at his job and gets promotions. If we ban him from finishing up over the weekend, then he doesn’t finish his job at all, and he gets fired. How have we helped him, if we do that?”
“Oh.”
“Or what if it’s a manufacturer with a backlog of orders. If they have some employees volunteer to work extra shifts on the weekend, they can make more product, and they’re rewarded by being paid time and a half. But if we limited their employees to 40 hours, the company would either be unable to fill the orders, so they’d lose sales, or they’d have to hire new, green staff, which might mean the quality would go down, or might mean they’d lose the job as soon as volumes went back to normal. I think allowing flexibility might be the best answer, out of an array of bad options, you know, sir?”
“Oh.”
“And then there are the small businessmen, and the gig economy people. Every writer writes at a different pace. Every entrepreneur starting a new business is going to have different hours, busy some weeks and light others. So you know, sir, I have a feeling it’s just one of those things the government probably just can’t solve.”
“Oh.”
“See what I mean, sir?”
“No.”
“Well, sir, I mean, it just might be the sort of problem that an E.O. can’t solve, sir.”
“Hmm. Maybe I could write an E.O. requiring that E.O.s be able to solve it?”
“I have no response to that.”
“What were we talking about again?”
“Sir, you were saying how Fridays don’t feel like the end of the week for you anymore, sir, because you work the weekends too, now, sir.”
“I do?”
“Uh, that’s what you just said, sir.”
“Nobody tells me anything, you know that? I can go a whole week not knowing anything. Nobody ever tells me anything. They shove a camera in my face and turn on the teleprompter and expect me to just go ahead and read, and I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about!”
“Did you ever, sir?”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Umm… sorry. I said, uh, well, did you ever, sir? You know, like when you’re surprised at something, and you say Well, did you ever, sir? Like the Cole Porter song, sir?”
“Oh. Right. Hey, something’s missing. Where are we now…”
“Well, sir, it’s a Friday night, so we have soup!”
“That’s it, my soup! You were holding out on me!”
“No sir, I set it down as soon as I arrived, but then we started talking about labor law, sir… Guess I got into it because I’m studying that in law school…”
“Oh that’s nice. Let’s see, so what is this now?”
“Fifteen Bean Soup, sir. It’s a cajun soup for a Friday in Lent, sir.”
“Friday? Wait… that has meat in it! I can’t have meat on Friday! I’m a Catholic!”
“Yeah, right… and Rock Hudson played straight.”
‘What was that, boy?”
“Umm, I said, this soup rocks, it’s first rate, sir.”
“You did?”
“Yes sir. This soup rocks, it’s first rate, sir.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“This is a meatless version. It usually has ham in it, but there are meatless recipes for vegetarians or people with dietary rules or allergies, I guess. I tried some upstairs, it’s good stuff! A little heat.”
“What did you say it’s called?”
“Fifteen Bean Soup, sir. Very popular, Cajun. A Gulf coast soup, sir. Fifteen Bean Soup.”
“Hmm… Tastes good. Probably heathy too. Lots in there.”
“But no meat.”
“Right. No meat. Fifteen, huh?”
“Right, sir. Fifteen different kinds of beans. Funny, I didn’t even know there WERE fifteen kinds of beans. But sure enough, there it is.”
“Good soup. Filling.”
“So, how’s the administration handling the news about the minimum wage going down today?”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“You know, sir, how the effort to put a $15 nationwide minimum wage into to the stimulus package went down today?”
“Down where?”
“I mean, the house had bundled the national minimum wage increase, up to $15 an hour, into the stimulus package, and then the senate parliamentarian said if it was in there it couldn’t pass by the reconciliation method. It must’ve been in a subject of discussion in your meetings today, right, sir?”
“Meetings?”
“Yes sir. You had meetings today, right, sir?”
“Oh. Did I?”
“I assume so. You seemed tired of them when I arrived, sir.”
“This is good soup.”
“Glad to hear it, sir. So, the minimum wage hike, what’s the administration going to do? Leave it out so the Covid relief passes, or keep it in and try to push for more votes in the Senate, sir?”
“What are you asking me, for? I’m not in the senate anymore. I’m retired. That’s a senate question. Leave me alone. Umm… Ask … umm.. ask Mike Mansfield.”
“He’s, uh, gone, sir. Long time now, sir.”
“Oh. Ask Byrd. Bob Byrd.”
“He’s gone too, sir. Quite a while, now, sir.”
“Oh. Ask George Mitchell.”
“Gone, sir.”
“Ask Tom Daschle.”
“Gone, sir.”
“Come on, Man!”
“Well, really, sir, he’s out of there too, sir.”
“Harry Reid. Ask Harry Reid. Let me eat my soup.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was just wondering about the minimum wage, sir. It seemed like such a big issue, I figured you’d be up on the latest about it, sir. It’s the kind of meaty issue the politicians and economists always like to talk about it, you know, sir? No matter the year, the minimum wage always seems to be an issue, sir.”
“This is good soup. What is it?”
“Fifteen Bean Soup, sir. Cajun, sir.”
“Funny. It seems really hearty, but when you get into it, there’s no meat there.”
“You’ve said a mouthful, sir.”
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume One,” from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon
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