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 has just returned from a trip when he’s asked some embarrassing questions about a certain runningmate and her staff…
Staffers, Vice Presidents, and Sunburst Soup
Dateline: June 30. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! How’s your day been?”
“Why do you always start right out, asking me questions? Why don’t you leave me alone? Just say ‘here’s your soup’ and be done with it. That’d be a nice change, for once.”
“Well, that’s just not me, sir. I’m a cheerful guy, and I can’t just dump something on someone’s desk and leave, sir. I say hello, I chat, it’s what I do, sir. It’s probably why I’m not offended and angry at the way you just unjustifiably lashed out just now, at a guy who’s just serving you your nightly soup, after all. I can just roll with it. Because I’m calm and cheerful, you see, sir. That’s just me, sir.”
“Well, I’m tired of it.”
“Sorry to hear it, sir. Do you still want the soup?”
“Of COURSE I want the soup. What is it?”
“It’s called Sunburst Soup, sir. Supposedly, a cheerful soup to cheer people up, sir. Might be especially useful just now, for that very reason, huh, sir?”
“What’s in it?”
“Vegetables… like onion and tomato and carrot and black beans… oh, and one other thing… what did she say… tofu, sir. She said tofu.”
“What the heck is tofu?”
“Soybean, sir. Big crop in the midwest. You were just in the midwest yesterday, sir.”
“I was?”
“Yes sir. Remember the bus station?”
“No.”
“The long flight to Wisconsin?”
“No.”
“The ice cream cone?”
“Huh? OH, yeah! Right. I had ice cream. A double!”
“Good for you, sir.”
“Yummy.”
“Yes sir. Glad to hear it, sir.”
“Mmm… everything’s better with soup.”
“Maybe you should send some over to your second-in-command’s office, sir.”
“Who?”
“You know, sir, the one you refer to as ‘the troublemaker,’ sir.”
“Who’s that?”
“The one you keep sending on trips to get her out of your hair, sir?”
“Oh, don’t talk about hair.”
“Why not, sir?”
“If you knew what I had to go through just to get my hair back…”
“I’m sorry, you lost me, sir.”
“No, I lost my hair. I couldn’t lose you if I tried.”
“You have a full head of hair now, sir. I mean, you know, for your age, sir.”
“Operations. Had to have operations. People made fun of me for it, for years.”
“Can’t imagine why, sir, when there are so many other things to make fun of you for, sir.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“What did they make fun of you for, sir?”
“Never mind. What was I talking about?”
“We were talking about how you always try to get your runningmate out of your hair, sir. Figuratively, sir.”
“Who?”
“The Californian, sir.”
“Oh, her. Yeah. Right. Wish she’d get out of here and leave me alone. She’s even worse than you.”
“Well, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, sir. And I don’t think you’re alone in the wish, sir. There are stories all over Washington about how much her staff hates her.”
“Her staff?”
“Yes sir. Some major internet publication just broke a huge story. They interviewed dozens of people from her staff for the article. Hmm… come to think of it, I should have noticed that. Why does she have ‘dozens’ of staffers anyway, sir?”
“Huh?”
“Well, she doesn’t really have any formal duties. What does she need more than a couple of aides for, anyway?”
“Well, because… umm… wait… what do you mean, she doesn’t have duties?”
“Constitution just says she breaks a tie in the Senate… that doesn’t happen often. She can supervise the Senate, but without power, so nobody in the office has ever actually bothered to do it since Adams.”
“Who?”
“Adams, sir. John Adams.”
“He was a president!”
“Yes sir, but he was a vice president first, sir.”
“Really?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“You sure?”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh. Funny, the things you learn. And at my age, too.”
“I’m sure you learned it in school, sir; maybe you just forgot it.”
“I went to school in Scranton. Did you know that? Yup, Scranton…”
“Yes, sir, I know. We don’t really have to go through that, sir.”
“We don’t?”
“No sir. And anyway, Adams was the last vice president to really try to do the one job that was set out for him in the Constitution. And since it felt like a waste of time, nobody has ever done it again, since then.”
“Oh.”
“So that’s why we’re all wondering, why does she have such a big staff, sir?”
“Who?”
“The Californian, sir. You know, sir… the troublemaker…”
“No idea what you’re talking about, kid.”
“Rhett, sir.”
“Huh?”
“My name is Rhett, sir. Not Kid. Rhett.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Rhett. Yeah. So who are you talking about again?”
“The gal you refer to as the laughing hyena, sir.”
“OH, right, right, that’s umm… yeah… she does have a big staff.”
“And they’re all angry, sir, apparently.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Oh, so it’s true, sir?”
“What?”
“The article.”
“What article?”
“The one about the hyena, sir. About her office, sir.”
“What about them?”
“That all her staffers are miserable. That they hate their jobs, they hate her, they hate working for her, they hate everything about their lives right now, all that, sir.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. Probably.”
“Does it impact their jobs, sir?”
“What jobs?”
“Well, I mean, their jobs as her aides, sir.”
“So?”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“They don’t matter. Who cares if they’re happy or not?”
“Well, that’s an interesting take, sir.”
“This is good soup. Do you know what this is?”
“What, sir?”
“These square things.”
“The white cubes, sir?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s tofu, sir. Soybean.”
“I never saw a square bean before. They grow like that?”
“Ahhh… no, sir… they grow like normal beans, sir. Look a lot like peapods, sir. Then the beans are processed into these cubes, and people cook them this way, sir.”
“Really? Weird.”
“Very common ingredient in Asian cooking, sir.”
“Is this an Asian soup?”
“No, sir, I think the cook said it was from Boston.”
“Oh.”
“So here’s what I was wondering, sir. How much damage does that do, sir? When a political team is grumpy, when they dislike working with each other, and so forth?”
“Well, if it’s a campaign, it can sink the campaign. Campaigns are about teamwork. Have to stay on point. Have to be positive the whole time.”
“But once you win, sir?”
“Well, then it’s another goal, but still the same thing. Congress, Senate, Governor, President, whatever the office, you need your team to cooperate, to work like a team to pass legislation, to win points in the polls, you know?”
“So this is really destructive then, isn’t it, sir?”
“What?”
“The low morale in her office, sir.”
“Whose office?”
“What we’ve been talking about, sir. The Californian, sir. The Laughing Hyena’s staffers, sir. All the reports that they’re all miserable, sir.”
“Heh heh. No surprise there.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Well, that’s the exception. They don’t matter. Nobody cares about them.”
“Well, they’re still people, sir. In your regime, sir. Don’t you care whether they’re working together well, sir? Whether they have job satisfaction, sir?”
“In her office? Heh heh. Mmm, this is good soup. Surprisingly good soup.”
“Sir, I don’t under… umm… wait a minute… you’re saying her office is a different environment, sir?”
“Mmm. I’m tired of this conversation. Gonna eat my soup. Wish there were more crackers though. There are never enough crackers, you know? Not just with soup. With everything. There are never really enough crackers.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand, sir.”
“Mmm… That’s nice. Mmmm.”
“What kind of people look for jobs in a Democrat administration in Washington… people who like power… and these people are in the office of the Vice President, the one office that’s completely honorary in practice. The one office that really has no power at all… No wonder they’re miserable…”
“Mmm… Hey, I finished the crackers before I finished the soup. Could you go up and get me some more crackers, kid?”
“It’s Rhett, sir. Rhett. Got that, sir? Rhett Snapper, sir.”
“Whatever. I just need more crackers.”
“Yes sir. I’ll head up right now, sir.”
“Oh, and when you’re up there…”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t forget the, umm… uhh, the…”
“What, sir? What else do you want me to get, sir?”
“Crackers. Don’t forget my crackers.”
“Yes sir. Your crackers, sir. I’m on my way, sir.”
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.
His newest nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” was just released on July 1, and is also available exclusively on Amazon.
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