Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Vol II – Episode 88: Roads, Bridges, and Mushroom and Pine Nut Soup

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 reprinting roughly every other chapter from Volume Two. In today’s episode, Joe Buckstop is confronted by the reality that his “infrastructure bill” wasn’t really intended to contain any actual infrastructure.

Roads, Bridges, and Mushroom and Pine Nut Soup

Dateline: June 24. Begin Transcript:

“Good evening, sir! How’s your Thursday going?”

“Why do you greet me that way? Is it to remind me of what day it is? Is it to remind yourself of what day it is? What’s going on, anyway?”

“There’s really nothing to analyze, sir. Sometimes, a greeting, is just a greeting, sir!”

“I guess.”

“So here’s this evening’s soup, sir. It’ really interesting. I’ve never heard of anything like this one before, sir.”

“Can I just get a bowl of ice cream and forget about it it?”

“Heh heh, no, sir, I’m here to bring you your soup, so you can handle your vitamin shot, sir. I don’t think ice cream counts.”

“Oh, all right. What is it tonight?”

“Mushroom and Pine Nut Soup, sir!”

“Come on, Man! There’s no such thing!”

“Sure there is, sir, here it is, right here!”

“I don’t believe this.”

“The cook said it’s French, sir. Paris mushrooms, pine nuts, shallots, cream…”

“What are shallots anyway?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“What are shallots?”

“They’re sort of, related to onions, sir, I guess. It’s not my specialty, you know.”

“Oh. What is your specialty, besides getting on my nerves?”

“Well, sir, I’m still in college, so I don’t really have a specialty yet, sir.”

“Great. Well, let’s see this stuff.”

“Here you go, sir, soup, crackers, napkins, spoons.”

“Weird.”

“Well, now, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, sir. Honestly, sir, I thought you’d be in a better mood.”

“Why should I be in a mood?”

“Well, sir, you know, you were in the news today, practically dancing with glee over the deal you got from the Senate on your infrastructure bill, sir. “

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Well, why aren’t you still happy, sir? The joy was short-lived!”

“Oh, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“The deal wasn’t as complete as implied, sir? Is that it, sir?”

“Yeah, you could put it that way.”

“Upset because they want you to find a way to pay for it without raising taxes, sir?”

“Damn budget rules. Always hated budget rules.”

“Well, sir, most Americans are still trying to recover from the pandemic, sir. A lot of people were laid off for months, or lost their jobs entirely, sir. Tons of businesses went under, sir, It’s not like Americans have money for additional taxes right now, sir.”

“We gave them stimulus payments! Simply asking for some of it back, that’s all. Just a little. Just their fair share.”

“Um, sir, for the most part, the kinds of people you’re proposing heavy tax increases on aren’t the kind of people who qualified for stimulus payments, sir.”

“Huh?”

“And for those who did, the tax increases you’re talking about are more than the stimulus payments were anyway, sir. Raising taxes by thousands on people you gave six hundred to… that’s just going to make people mad, sir. As well as broke.”

“Come on, man!”

“Don’t shoot the messenger, sir. I’m not the one who came up with all these crazy numbers.”

“I just wish we could do what we need to do, without half of Washington nagging us all the time, ‘you’ve gotta pay for it… gotta pay for it… gotta pay for it… It’s so annoying.”

“I didn’t know you did your own shopping at the malls, sir.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind, sir. I just think it’s interesting that your team thinks only about what you want to do, and you never want to think about how to pay for it, sir.”

“What do you think you run for public office to do, kid?”

“Rhett, sir.”

“Huh?”

“Rhett, sir. Not Kid. My name is Rhett.”

“Oh, right. Well, we run for office to do things. To accomplish things. Build things. Start things. Run things. Not to sit with a bunch of bean counters doing finances all day.”

“Well, sir, it’s like my dad says. ‘Always think of how much you are able to spend, before you go shopping. Getting that backwards is a surefire trip to the poorhouse.'”

“Your dad really says that?”

“Yes sir. Practically every time we go to the mall, even to the grocery store or gun range, sir. Dad says it’s the only way to keep your eyes from getting too big for your stomach, sir.”

“Well, when I was a kid in Scranton…. i don’t know if you knew, but I was born in Scranton.”

“Yes sir, I think I heard that somewhere, sir.”

“Yup, Scranton kid, born and raised. Formative years. Scranton. Real America.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, when we went shopping, we thought about what we needed, and then we figured out how to pay for it. Because when you need to do things, you need to do them!”

“Gee. Sounds like a surefire path to bankruptcy, sir.”

“It’s the only way to go.”

“So, your family didn’t have financial problems, sir?”

“Umm… never mind, that’s not important. The thing is, we need to do what we need to do!”

“And perhaps, sir, you’re not really entirely happy about what the compromise deal does, sir?”

“Huh?”

“Well, I heard you didn’t want your infrastructure bill to have any actual infrastructure in it, but these Senators today pretty much insisted that it does have to be real infrastructure, sir. Is that what torpedoed your good mood today, sir?”

“Bean counters. Sticklers for stupid things like definitions.”

“Ah, so you’re upset at those senators who said that infrastructure has to be physical building projects like roads and bridges, sir?”

“We need other things too, though!”

“Do you, sir?”

“Grants and loans are infrastructure.”

“No they’re not, sir.”

“Well, job training projects are infrastructure.”

“No they’re not, sir.”

“Well, umm, then, federal agency personnel are infrastructure!”

“Sir, are you saying that bureaucrats are infrastructure?”

“Critical to it!”

“Sir, federal bureaucrats are not infrastructure.”

“Come on, man!”

“Sir, what’s the compromise proposal promising to do?”

“Roads and bridges. Darn it.”

“Well, sir, you’ve been saying that our infrastructure needed repairs, sir, you really should be happy that you got support for it!”

“But it’s not what i wanted!”

“Well, sir, we don’t always get what we want, sir. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

“Beats me. I was busy playing ball…”

“Oh? Football, sir? Baseball? Basketball?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“Which one, sir?”

“Which what?”

“Umm, okay…. well, sir. I was just saying that even if you didn’t get everything you wanted in the compromise bill, you should be happy that some good things will be accomplished, sir. Politics is the art of the possible, right?”

“No, it’s not! That’s idiotic.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Politics is only the art of the possible when you have divided government, and you have to make deals! We have it all… we got the whole thing… We shouldn’t have to compromise! For us, politics should be whatever the heck we want!”

“Oh, well, sir, that’s interesting.”

“Look, we won, you understand? We won. We shouldn’t have to put up with all these arguments. Oughta be able to just say what we want and get it over with!”

“Without worrying about costs at all, eh, sir?”

“They shouldn’t have the right to argue with us. I won, after all. I won, I won. You know? I won!”

“Did you now, sir. Are you sure about that?”

“Huh?”

“Enjoy your soup, sir. And your roads and bridges too, sir. Something tells me I should get used to enjoying them too; since my great grandchildren will still be paying for them in a hundred years…”

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 III, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.

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