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…
Indiana Harvest and Lentil Soup
Dateline, April 16. Begin Transcript:
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“What do you think it is? It’s soup.”
“You’re not the usual guy.”
“Well, for starters, sir, I’m not a guy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“You should be. I’m your cook. I slave over a hot stove for you every day to make you soup, and you drive off everybody I try to get to bring it down for you.”
“I didn’t drive anybody off.”
“For two weeks, Guy’s been delivering our pizza, and I’ve been able to get him to take your tray down to you, and now tonight, he just said no, he can’t stand it anymore… he dropped off our order, turned around and left.”
“Oh.”
“What do you do to these guys, sir? First George flew off to Australia to do musical comedy, and now Guy says he’s only delivering pizza from now on, never soup!”
“Who’s that?”
“George, you remember, the law student who followed his sister to Australia after two months of working for us… and then, when HR wasn’t able to get anybody in replace him quickly, I started talking Guy into it…”
“Who’s that?”
“Guy, you know, Guy! The fella who delivers pizza upstairs and then he’s been kindly carrying your tray down for me for the past two weeks. But he said he has to get back to his route, and he’s just not going to take time – how did he put it, sorry – ‘he’s not going to take time away from earning a living by wasting it and talking to a wall.’ Sir.”
“You mean the pizza guy?”
“Yes, of course!”
“What’s his name?”
“You don’t know? You’ve been talking to him every night for two weeks and you don’t know his name?”
“Well, umm…”
“No wonder he felt like he’s not getting through.”
“What’s his name?”
“Guy. His name is Guy. How could you forget? Guy the Pizza Guy. Easiest name on earth to remember. Who’s the pizza guy? Guy, of course… a little bit funny, but mostly, just very easy to remember!”
“He kept yelling at me.”
“Oh, Guy is the nicest guy in the world, sir. He doesn’t yell.”
“Well, he kept complaining.”
“Probably about you not listening to him, sir.”
“Well, why should I? I don’t work for him…”
“And he doesn’t work for you, either, sir! Remember, he’s a pizza delivery guy. Salt of the earth. A real American with a normal family and a normal lower middle class life, working two jobs in the hope of bettering himself. Exactly the kind of person you need to listen to, sir.”
“I don’t need anybody else to listen to. I have lots of advisors.”
“Advisors, sir? Oh, they’re all yes-men. I see them walk in and out of here all day… There’s not an original thought in any of their heads. They just do what they’re told. When you ask them questions, they’re just spouting the words of their master… and you know it, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Look, it wouldn’t be such a big deal for me if it weren’t for these bum knees. I can stand in front of a kitchen stove all day, sir, I can handle that. But staircases are brutal on me, sir.”
“I know the feeling…”
“So I need somebody else to bring your soup down. Now I need you to promise that when we find somebody, you won’t drive off the next one, okay, sir?”
“Umm, I guess, umm, I’ll try…”
“Well, that’s probably all I can hope for, so I’ll take it. Anyway, here’s your soup tonight, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Indiana Harvest Sausage and Lentil Soup, sir.”
“Come on, Man!”
“What? I think I should know the name of the soup I made! I looked all over the internet for something new and interesting to make, sir. I guarantee you’ll like it.”
“Well, uh, what’s in it?”
“It’s Indiana Harvest Sausage and Lentil Soup, sir.”
“So, what’s in it?”
“What do you think’s in it! Sausage and Lentil, of course!”
“Oh.”
“Look, it’s a good, rich, hearty soup. Good for a cool spring evening. Can’t beat it, sir. Trust me.”
“Okay.”
“Funny… I stumbled upon this recipe this morning, and started working on it, with the radio on, as usual, sir…”
“Okay?”
“And I’m listening to some news story, you know, out of the corner of my ear, and then I realize the news story is all about Indiana! Fancy that, huh, sir?”
“What?”
“Well, it’s an expression. Fancy that, sir.”
“Fancy What?”
“Well, the fact that this news story was about Indiana, when I’m making a soup named after Indiana. Isn’t that neat, sir?”
“Oh. I guess.”
“Apparently, sir, there was this horrible shooting yesterday in Indianapolis.”
“Oh.”
“Some suicidal young punk shot up a big small package warehouse, sir.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand, sir?”
“Big package or small package?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“You said big package then small package.”
“Oh, I see… it’s a small parcel service center. A very big one, sir. So it’s a big small parcel warehouse, sir. Big warehouse for small parcels. Got it now?”
“No.”
“Well, then I can’t help you sir.”
“So what happened there?”
“It was a shooting, sir. A shooting at the warehouse. Since he used to work there, the jerk knew when they had their shift changes. He just drove up and shot up the place. Killed a bunch of people, sir. Injured a bunch more. Just terrible.”
“Oh.”
“Turned out he’d been identified as a potentially violent character before; his own parents had called in reports to law enforcement about him, they were so scared of him…. but nobody did anything about it, sir. He was still free to drive up during a shift change and shoot a whole bunch of people. Just terrible, sir.”
“Well, yeah, that’s why we’re gonna take their guns away.”
“What???”
“I said, that’s why we’re gonna take away their guns.”
“How the heck can you think gun control is the answer, sir?”
“Well, it’s always the answer!”
“No, it’s always what you guys demand, but it’s not the answer. It’s never worked. Every city with gun control sees crime get worse and more widespread. Everybody knows that.”
“Well, but that’s because, um, we haven’t done enough of it!”
“What do you mean, sir? A little failure isn’t enough, so you want to try a lot of failure instead, sir?”
“I don’t know what you mean…”
“Sure. That makes a lot of sense. Every time we impose more gun control, states get more and more dangerous, but you see a crime, and you STILL prescribe gun control as if nobody ever noticed what a failure it is. It’s insane.”
“What?”
“It’s the definition of insanity, sir. You know, Albert Einstein’s famous line?”
“Who?”
“Albert Einstein! The great physicist!”
“Who?”
“Oh, never mind… he’s the guy who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing every day and expecting a different result. He’s that guy.”
“Oh. I thought you said that Guy was the fella who’s been delivering my soups…”
“Well, yes, sir, but … I just meant to quote Einstein, sir, and …. oh, never mind….”
“I’m lost.”
“Of course you are, sir. Look, the simple point is, you people always turn to gun control when it makes no sense, and you refuse to even consider other things, sir.”
“Like what?”
“Well, sir, let’s say this punk didn’t have a rifle. What would’ve happened yesterday?”
“He would’ve stayed home and sought help.”
“What on earth gives you that idea, sir?”
“Well, it just makes sense…”
“To you, maybe, sir, but not to anybody else!”
“Huh?”
“Well, sir, if he didn’t have a gun, and he wanted to kill people some other way… have you thought about what else he could have done?”
“No.”
“Well, sir, I have, and most people have. And when this news broke, and the politicians and pundits all said they should’ve taken his gun away, all the rest of us could think of was, he drove there in a car.”
“So?”
“So he had a CAR, sir. A car. A three thousand pound deathtrap, sir. If he wanted to kill people, especially since he knew when their shift change was, all he had to do was hit the gas pedal. If he floored it as all those people were pouring out of the building, he could’ve easily killed more people than he killed with his gun, sir.”
“Oh.”
“And there are other ways to kill people too, of course.”
“Oh?”
“Blow up a bridge, throw a bomb in a room, burn down a building… arsonists have been killing large numbers of people for thousands of years, sir…”
“Oh.”
“So it’s obviously not all about the gun, sir.”
“Oh.”
“If this kid had wanted to kill people, sir, and he obviously wanted to commit suicide by cop…”
“Come on, now… We don’t know that.”
“Of course we do, sir.”
“Now how do you think can know that a fella wanted to commit suicide by cop?”
“Well, sir, his own mother reported him to law enforcement, last year, sir, saying that she was terrified of him and she thought he was going to commit suicide by cop.”
“Oh.”
“So yes, sir, of course they knew he was violent, and denying him a gun certainly wasn’t going to stop him. He had the tools he needed to kill people, even without a gun.”
“Oh. But then, what do you think we should do, ma’am? You haven’t come up with anything else!”
“Well, sir, he’d been reported to law enforcement as a threat… sounds like maybe he should’ve been committed to a mental institution, don’t you think?”
“Well, now, we don’t know that for sure, ma’am…”
“And how about the workers? How come they couldn’t defend themselves, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, this place has a couple thousand employees. If just ten percent of them, sir, just ten percent, had been armed, that would’ve been… let’s see, shift change at a 24 hour place… probably around a hundred people in theory… people just naturally armed, going about their business, doing their jobs… if just ten percent had been concealed carriers, sir, that punk would’ve certainly been killed before he killed and injured as many people as he did, sir.”
“You think?”
“Well, of course, sir! But that distribution center was a ‘gun free zone,’ sir. And you know what that means.”
“No… what?”
“It means, sir, that the only guns there are in the hands of the bad guys. It means that there’s never a good guy with a gun to defend you against the bad guy with a gun.”
“Oh.”
“But you people have spent the last 50 years either banning good guys from having guns, or convincing businesses to ban it on their premises. And that’s what happened here, sir.”
“Umm, what is?”
“Well, the facility is a gun free zone, sir. They all are. Because your side of the aisle has convinced all of America’s stupid corporate boards that the right thing to do is to ban their employees from ever defending themselves, virtually guaranteeing that they’ll always be sitting ducks whenever some homicidal maniac turns up, sir!”
“Umm, but, umm, maybe if regular folks had guns, ma’am, then, umm…”
“Oh, don’t bother, sir. You can’t think of a response because there isn’t one.”
“Oh.”
“You know what’s really depressing?”
“What?”
“Some of the folks there yesterday… I mean, some of the killed and injured… were Sikh, sir.”
“Well, that’s a health care issue. If those Republicans hadn’t made it so hard for us to raise taxes for the Affordable…”
“I didn’t say SICK, sir. I said SIKH. You know, the Sikh religion? From south Asia, sir?”
“Oh. Sikh?”
“Yes, sir, Sikh. And it’s particularly infuriating that they weren’t able to defend themselves, sir.”
“Umm, why especially them?”
“Do you know anything about the Sikh religion, sir?”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, sir, adult males are expected to wear…”
“Damn sexist rules.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Sexist. You said only adult males do something….”
“Look, don’t worry about that, sir. That’s not the point.”
“Oh.”
“All adult males are expected to wear a kirpan, a ceremonial dagger, in a symbolic reminder that it’s a Sikh man’s duty to protect the innocent from attack.”
“Oh.”
“But these gun control laws you push, and these stupid gun free zone rules that stupid companies implement, are actually banning their employees from this important religious obligation.”
“Oh.”
“The employees couldn’t even defend themselves and their friends and coworkers, because of idiotic, shortsighted policies.”
“Oh.”
“It’s just unforgivable.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I’ve got to get upstairs. I’ve got a beautiful pizza I paid for and I want to eat… I can’t believe I got into such a long talk down here…”
“Oh wait, before you go…”
“Yes, sir?”
“What’s this soup called again?”
“Indiana Harvest Sausage and Lentil Soup, sir. Your crackers and spoon and napkins are all there, sir.”
“Oh goody.”
“Look, now that we’ve had this conversation, do you understand why people are so angry?”
“About what?”
“About the mass shooting, sir!”
“What mass shooting?”
“Why, the one in Indiana, sir. The one we’ve been talking about all this time!”
“Oh.”
“Well, don’t you have anything to say about it, now that you’ve heard my points, sir?”
“You know what I’d like to know?”
“What, sir?”
“How do you get this soup to be so thick? It’s really good.”
“No, I mean, have you had any thoughts about how to prevent mass killings, sir? I mean, things like we talked about… encouraging law abiding citizens to carry weapons, sir, for everyone’s safety, sir.”
“This is really good soup.”
“Oh, man, I hope HR can find somebody to do this. I don’t know if I can stand another day of this. My poor knees. I don’t want to climb that staircase…”
“Oh, don’t talk to me about staircases, ma’am…”
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, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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