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 from the early autumn of his first year in office, we meet Rocky, the new soup aide.
Temporary Help, Afghanistan, and Easy Vegan Alphabet Soup
Dateline: September 9. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! May I come in?”
“Sure. Uhh… Who are you? Do I know you?”
“No, sir, but you know my brother, sir.”
“Your brother? Who’s your brother?”
“My brother is Russell Rhoades.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Excuse me, sir? He’s been bringing you your soup every night for the past several weeks, sir!”
“He has? What’s his name again?”
“Russell, sir. Russell Rhoades.”
“Oh. He must never have introduced himself. Well, where is he tonight? I want my soup!”
“Yes sir. Well, sir, he’s not coming back. He got a full-time job, sir. Funny story, sir, he was leaving his shift here the other night, and he ran into the guy delivering pizza to your cook upstairs, and they got to talking… turns out the pizzeria needed a new night manager, so he applied and they hired him today. Cool, huh?”
“And he just left? Just like that? Why didn’t he give me … umm… he’s supposed to give me something… what is it now… I haven’t had a job in so long, I don’t remember what they call it. What do you give your boss when you quit…”
“A punch in the nose, sir?”
“Huh?”
“Two weeks’ notice, I think, is what you’re thinking of, sir.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Why didn’t he give me two weeks’ notice?”
“Well, sir, he was a temp. You don’t usually give two weeks’ notice when you’re a day-to-day temp, sir.”
“You don’t?”
“No, sir. Two weeks’ notice just doesn’t make any sense for a job where you’re hired one day at a time, sir.”
“Huh. I’ve never only been hired for one day at a time.”
“More’s the pity, sir. I’ll bet a lot of people who’ve hired you over the years wish they’d had that option, sir.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“So, since I work for the same temp agency that Russell did, when he got the new job, he told me there’d be an opening here, so I talked to the dispatcher and set it up so I could start tonight, sir!”
“Oh. So, what’s your name then?”
“Rocky, sir.”
“Oh. Well. I’ll never remember that.”
“I know, sir. Russell tipped me off on a few things, sir.”
“Well? Do you have soup for me?”
“Yes sir. It’s right here. It’s called Easy Vegan Alphabet Soup, sir.”
“Are there crackers?”
“Yes sir. Big bowl of crackers. And a stack of napkins. And… this is weird… three soft plastic children’s soup spoons. Hmm. I wonder why they sent these down.”
“Oh, well… I don’t do so well with steel or silver utensils, that’s all.”
“So, what do we do now, sir? Just chat about the day’s news, sir?”
“What’s your name again?”
“Rocky, sir. Rocky Rhoades.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather just concentrate on my soup. Haven’t had alphabet soup in years. I like seeing if I can make words in my spoon. Hmm… T.H.E. Cool! I made THE in the soup!”
“Your parents would be so proud, sir.”
“Huh?”
“There are a couple things I’d like to ask you about, if I can, sir…”
“Do whatever you want. I’m eating.”
“Well, sir, I heard that your state department complimented the terrorists in Afghanistan for being businesslike and professional, sir.”
“I guess.”
“That was just this morning, sir.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been at night. What’s your point?”
“Well, sir, the terrorists that your state department complimented have been shooting into crowds, beheading and raping women, and slaughtering Christians in underground churches, for the past several weeks, sir.”
“Oh? Well then… I guess we should do something about it, huh?”
“I should say so, sir!”
“I’ll have somebody send them a strongly worded letter.”
“Sir… umm… it’s funny, but even though I was warned, I wasn’t prepared for this, but… sir… do you really think that’s enough, sir? A strongly worded letter?”
“Sure… gotta let them know you mean business!”
“With a letter, sir?”
“A strongly worded letter, young man.”
“I see, sir. You know, I also recall your staffers complaining that the Taliban just appointed their government and it’s all men, sir. Apparently your staffers had assumed that the Taliban – who burn down girls’ schools for fun because they maintain that it’s morally wrong to educate girls at all – well, your staffers assumed they were going to put women in half the government offices just like we do in Western Civilization, sir.”
“We always try to expect the best of people.”
“Do you, sir?”
“Right. So we’re sending them a strongly worded letter about this. We expect that after their future elections, they will produce a more diverse and inclusive government.”
“You really expect that, sir?”
“Well, sure!”
“I see, sir. Well, you know, I also read that they destroyed all the musical instruments at the Afghan National Institute, sir. Everything from drum sets to pianos, sir. Destroyed, sir. And that’s not all; they’ve been going around finding singers and musicians, and killing them, sir.”
“Come on, man! You don’t know that for sure!”
“I’ve seen the footage, sir. On TV, and on the internet, sir. This can’t be hushed up, sir. These 7th century savages are carrying on a murder spree, sir. There’s no other way to put it, sir.”
“Well, if that’s really the case…”
“It is, sir. Your staff MUST know, sir.”
“Well, then, if it’s true, we’ll have to respond.”
“Now you’re talking, sir!”
“We’ll have to send them a strongly worded letter about that, too!”
“Gee. You know, sir, you have me thinking of a time, sir, a long, long time ago, sir, back in our own early American history, a couple hundred years ago, sir… when another foreign enemy was closing our ports, robbing our businesses, destroying printing presses so they could clamp down on freedom of speech… threatening to arrest and hang our legislatures….”
“Really? Wow. Sounds terrible! What did they do?”
“Well, sir, to tell the truth, It was June and July of 1776, and it started out with a strongly worded letter, sir…”
“Well, so we have precedent, huh? Who knew?”
“One under certain circumstances, sir. We issued a strongly worded letter, but then followed up with a huge army and a massive eight-year commitment to all-out war, sir.”
“Oh. Well… umm…. eight years, huh?”
“Eight years, sir. Because in those days, we did whatever it took, sir, we didn’t wimp out and leave a strong enemy out there with a chip on his shoulder, sir.”
“Uhh… and umm… what did all that start out with, again?”
“A strongly worded letter, sir, written and edited during a hot June in Philadelphia, sir. But something tells me your current staff doesn’t have the powerful mind that held that powerful quill, and produced that particular letter, sir.”
“What was so special about it?”
“Sir, if you can’t appreciate it, there’s nothing I can do to help bring you on board, sir. Not now, and not ever, in the course of human events, sir…”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted 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. President of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s and Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, 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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