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…
Note: We continue from Volume Two, as Joe Buckstop’s soup aide, young Rhett Snapper, catches the old man playing Smash with some very distant, and very new, gamer friends…
Computers, Video Games, and Beef, Tomato and Orzo Soup
Dateline May 27. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! How’s your Thursday going, sir?”
“Huh? You already? Give me a minute… Okay… that’s it for the day… Bye bye… see you…”
“Oh, don’t be silly, sir. You don’t have to hide your game controller from me, sir. Let me guess, you were practicing Super Smash because you’re seeing your granddaughter this weekend, sir?”
“Huh? Oh no, no… that’s not it at all..”
“Oh so you weren’t practicing video games sir?”
“No, I was just finishing up a game with some adults.”
“Adults, sir?”
“Yeah, these guys from overseas sent me a note on a discord server and invited me to play, so I’ve been playing Smash with them.”
“For how long, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t know, twenty, thirty minutes. I’m a busy man, it’s not like I have hours to play games you know.”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“So what’s the soup tonight?”
“Oh, umm… Beef, tomato and orzo, sir.”
“Mmm. Now that sounds good. What’s that last one?”
“Orzo, sir. We talked about it a few days ago. Little noodles that look a little like rice, sir.”
“Oh, right.”
“So here’s your soup, sir… and napkins and spoon…”
“Where are my crackers! I need crackers!”
“Yes sir. Your crackers, sir.”
“Huh?”
“They’re right here, sir. You pushed your game controller in front of the bowl of crackers, sir.”
“Oh.”
“So tell me, sir, how did you meet these guys on line, sir?”
“On a discord server. They saw that I was practicing and just invited me to join them. Wasn’t that nice of them?”
“Do they… umm… do they know who you are, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
‘Well, I’m just wondering how they found you. What were you doing on a discord server, sir?”
“Well, you know, that’s how gamers talk. We talk on discord and play online games together. You’ve gotta get with the times, kid.”
“Uhh… yes sir, I suppose so, sir.”
“And this was fun, they showed me a couple of cheats I didn’t know about to get further in the levels. I’ll be able to impress my granddaughter now!”
“Yes sir. I suppose so, sir.”
“I don’t know why everybody doesn’t play Smash. It’s the best.”
“Yes sir, so I’ve heard, sir.”
“Good soup, too. Really tasty. And this fake rice is good too.”
“You mean the orzo, sir?”
“Yeah. That.”
“So when did you first meet these guys online, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t know… a few days ago.”
“And do you just play Smash or do you talk while you play, sir?’
“Well I’m not gonna be rude! Come on, man! Of course we talk!”
“Yes, sir…. ummm, could I ask, what about, sir?”
“I don’t know… about the game, about grand children, about computers, you know. Things people talk about.”
“How do you know these guys are from overseas, sir?”
“Oh, by their accents. You can tell, these aren’t American accents. Heck, if they were in America, they’d have to run a 7-11 or something!”
“Would they now, sir….”
“Oh, now don’t get in a snit… It’s not a big deal… if they were ashamed of owning all those gas stations, they wouldn’t OWN all those gas stations, now, would they?”
“I never thought of it that way, sir.”
“Well, see there, you oughta listen to me more often. You might learn something.”
“Yes sir. Perhaps I might, at that, sir.”
“Mmmm… This IS good soup. Tell the cook she should make more of this. This is good.”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself, sir? She works for you, I’m sure she’d like to hear directly from you that her work isn’t all for nothing, that you really appreciate her work, sir.”
“Oh, I don’t need to do that. She gets her paycheck; that’s what counts, you know.”
“You know something, sir? I don’t know if you were cut out for the ‘inspirational manager’ type, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Just a feeling, sir.”
“Oh. Mmm… could use some more bread. Kind of a thin soup. Good though. Could use more crackers.”
“I was wondering, sir… these guys you were talking to… did they say where they were from?”
“What guys?”
“The guys on the computer, sir.”
“Oh, there aren’t any guys in my computer. It’s just a computer. It does it all with circuits and wires and chips.”
“Yes sir. Of course.”
“It’s a core, you know.”
“A core, sir?”
“Yeah… core something. Umm… Core 6? No… Core 7. That’s it. Core 7.”
“Sir, not to be too curious or anything, but why on earth would that be on your mind, sir?”
“What?”
“The fact that your computer is a core i7, sir.”
“Oh, it’s not on my mind at all. I’m not thinking about it. I don’t even know what it means.”
“Oh. but then, why did you know it, sir? It’s not the sort of thing that comes up in conversation, sir.”
“Well, we were on the discord server, and one of the guys…”
“These foreigners you’ve been talking with, sir?”
“Come on, man! Keep up! Yes, of course!”
“Sorry, sir, please continue…”
“Well, umm… what were we talking about?”
“You were telling me how core i7 came up in casual conversation, sir.”
“Oh, right. Well see, I kept getting whupped by this one enemy, and the guys told me what I could do, and it didn’t work when i tried it, so they told me maybe it was that my computer isn’t powerful enough.”
“I see. Well, sir, yes, that can cause a problem, sir, for people who don’t have a gaming computer with the best video cards and so forth, sir….”
“That’s what they said too!”
“Yes sir…. of course they did. And what happened next, sir?”
“Oh, nothing much, they told me how we could find out if we could do that tactic on my computer. They just explained how I could click… no wait, what did they say… right click on this corner and type, um, something or other… and then it would explain all about my computer! Codes and numbers and things, you know?”
“Ahhh… You read everything in the properties field out loud sir?”
“Well, yeah, but then that didn’t tell them everything so then they had me click on one of the fields and go down this path… it was really cool… watching the cursor fly around my screen all on its own without me even having to do anything!”
“What was the result, sir, after you read them all the numbers you saw, and gave them that access, sir?”
“Oh, yeah, well, they explained that the trick they have only works on iCore 12 and up…”
“Of course, sir.”
“So that’s why their trick wasn’t working for me.”
“Yes, of course, sir. Umm… did these guys say what country they’re from, by any chance?”
“No. We’re just gamers on the internet, you know? No country, no geography… just a couple of guys playing a video game in the world. Cool, huh?”
“Um, I just have one more question for you, sir… were you talking and playing with them on a separate handheld, sir? Like, a tablet that you only use for gaming, sir?”
“Tablet? What’s that?”
“So… were you talking to them and playing on this main computer, sir? The one that’s connected to the monitor there, sir?”
“Of course! It’s a good computer! Why use a different one?”
“Uhh… Does the I.T. team know that you go on a discord server and do online gaming, sir?”
“I don’t know. They have more important things to worry about than who I’m playing games with.”
“Yes sir.”
“I mean, our I.T. team is always working on national security… Monitoring transmissions…. making sure the defense department doesn’t get hacked. You think I want them wasting their time on whether i have access to some gimmick for beating a boss when I play Smash? No way. Gotta have priorities.”
“Yes sir. Certainly, sir.”
“You bet. Damn right!”
“Umm, sir, just to be sure, this is the computer you use for your zoom meetings and your internal classified meetings, right, sir?”
“Well, yeah! Sure! It’s a good computer!”
“Well, sir, I think I’m going to go upstairs now and see if I can have a bowl of that soup myself, sir.”
“Oh? Good idea. It’s good soup tonight.”
“Yes sir. And, uh, would you mind if I put in a call to I.T., sir, while I’m up there, sir? I have a feeling they ought to look at your computer, sir.”
“Just because that one gimmick didn’t work? Oh, don’t bother. It’s not important.”
“Well, sir, it’s a government issued computer, sir, and uhhh…. I just think it ought to be checked out, sir. See you later, sir.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Never saw that kid rush out of here so fast. Ah well, no problaymo… Long as I’m free, I’ll get back into Smash… wonder if Mahmoud and Abu are still online…”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Two, 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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