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 are sharing approximately every other story from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, and are now sampling Volume Three’s ninety chapters. In today’s episode, President Buckstop meets a new soup aide.
Infrastructure, Definitions, and Chestnut Mushroom Soup
Dateline: August 2. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir?”
“Hello! Who are you?”
“I’m Dwight Kankakee, sir. I’m here to bring you your evening soup, sir.”
“Oh, goody! I like soup.”
“Yes sir, I assumed so, sir.”
“Well, what is it tonight?”
“Your cook said it’s Chestnut Mushroom Soup, sir. So here you are… a bowl of soup, a bowl of crackers, a stack of napkins, and… uhh… three soft plastic children’s soupspoons, sir?”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to that. I drop them occasionally, so they send me three now.”
“I see, sir.”
“So where did you come from?”
“Umm, your kitchen, sir. They just sent me down with this tray from the kitchen, sir…”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Where? Where are you from?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Downstate Illinois, sir.”
“What’s that?”
“Downstate, sir. Umm, it’s how we refer to everything outside the Chicago metro area, sir. Even though I’m from practically the middle of the state, they call it downstate because we’re outside Chicagaland, sir.”
“Got it. Makes sense. What’s your name again?”
“Dwight, sir. Dwight Kankakee, sir.”
“Got it. Good name. Memorable.”
“Thank you, sir. Go ahead, sir, enjoy your soup, sir.”
“Oh, I’ll enjoy it, even if I don’t like it.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I mean, I’ve had such a day, I welcome the break.”
“Well, sir, late in the evening like this, everybody gets tired, sir.”
“Not like me. Some days, I’m busy from dawn until the middle of the night. You’d think I’d have a ton of cabinet people doing the work for me, but no, I still have to do things.”
“Yes sir, I would expect that, sir.”
“Gotta make media appearances, travel to give speeches in person, sometimes even get interviewed. Takes a lot of time.”
“I should think so, sir.”
“Thank goodness I have my jewel game and my MarioKart to pass the hours.”
“Excuse me, sir, you just said you’re really busy, sir.”
“Oh yes. In between those meetings.”
“Oh, so they’re not back to back, sir?”
“Oh yeah. It’s grueling. I’ll do a TV appearance, then four or five hours later, an interview… then some days they fly me to a factory or union hall to read a speech… sometimes a couple of zoom meetings from here in between. It’s grueling.”
“Excuse me, sir, but how is it grueling to work a couple hours a day, sir?”
“You’re not counting the transportation time when I fly on a plane. Or when I have to walk across a park because my advance team can’t get me a golf cart… But I’ll have a speech, then a zoom call with only a few hours in between!”
“Hours, sir? Doesn’t that sound like a lot of free time, sir?”
“No! I have to kill all that time somehow between meetings. Sometimes I use up the whole battery on my phone in between, playing a card game or jewel game to pass the time. When it’s between zoom meetings down here, then I can play MarioKart. That’s nice. But otherwise, we’re talking hard work. You ever try to operate these little buttons?”
“I never thought of it that way, sir…”
“I’ll bet you didn’t! So here I am, working a hard day’s work – I’m 78, you know. Did you know I’m 78? Yup, I’m 78 – and I expect to get a little respect!”
“Well, yes sir… of course, sir.”
“Now, what about this soup?”
“What about it, sir?”
“What is it?”
“As I said, sir, it’s Chestnut Mushroom Soup.”
“What’s in it?”
“Well, I didn’t make it, sir; I assume, umm, chestnuts, and mushrooms, and butter and cream,…”
“Come on, man! What else?”
“Well, I don’t know… stock, I suppose… all soups have stock…”
“Doing pretty well, isn’t it?”
“What, sir?”
“Stock! The Stock Market! Doing well, huh?”
“What does that have to do… umm… I’m sorry, sir, I’m lost. What do you mean?”
“Stock market! Doing great, huh?”
“Well, I suppose, sir…. I’m not exactly qualified to say, sir. I’m a temp worker, delivering soup in a basement, sir.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion!”
“Well, yes, sir, I suppose, sir.”
“So? What’s your opinion?”
“About what, sir?”
“Come on, man! You don’t have to make me do everything!”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“What do you think of the infrastructure bill?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“The infrastructure bill? What about it?”
“Well, I don’t know what you want me to say, sir.”
“Your opinion! Say your opinion!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but … from what I heard on the radio, sir, it’s not written, sir. There’s no copy of the bill, sir, it’s just an idea that they’re talking about starting to work on, but it’s not in writing yet, sir, right?”
“So what do you think of it?”
“Well, obviously, sir, I can’t say. Nobody can, sir… if it’s not written, you can’t have an opinion on it, sir.”
“Sure you can! Be for it or against it!”
“Not if we don’t know what’s in it, sir!”
“You need to get more flexible, young man… hey, umm, what’s your name again?”
“Dwight, sir. Dwight Kankakee, sir. Just call me Dwight.”
“The thing is, sir… and remember, I’m not an expert or anything, sir, I’m just a temp… the thing is, people have to know what’s in it in order to know if they support it or not, sir.”
“Come on, man! Why do people keep saying that? You know what infrastructure is, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, sir, certainly. Roads and bridges and utilities and sewage treatment facilities and dams and highways and tunnels. Things like that, sir.”
“So are you for it or against it?”
“For it, sir, generally speaking, of course, sir.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard!”
“But that was about a concept, not about a specific bill, sir.”
“It’s an infrastructure bill!”
“But that’s the thing, sir, Until we know what’s in it, sir, for all we know, sir, we can’t really be sure that it’s actually infrastructure, sir. It could be just a bill covering the big cities’ public pension shortages, or some big cities wanting federal money to fund a stadium expansion, or some silliness like wireless connectivity or car charging stations, sir.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, sir, some of those things are probably fine, but they may not be funded in the budget so they can’t be allocated, right, sir?”
“Look, just assume it’s all in there like you want, and support it! Isn’t that easy?”
“No, sir, it’s not. We’re going in circles here, sir. Most of the country is never going to be thrilled about an infrastructure bill that doesn’t contain substantial, actual infrastructure.”
“Well, what else are we going to call it? Infrastructure is a winner term!”
“Perhaps you could come up with a word that represents all the things in the world that aren’t infrastructure, sir?”
“You know, you’re way too confusing, young man. What’s your name again?”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three: How Is This Not Over Yet?”, 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, in both paperback and Kindle eBook, exclusively on Amazon.
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