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 first year of his regime, a young boy saving up for college brings the old man his soup.
Free College and Norwegian Fish Soup
Dateline: September 28. Begin Transcript:
“Hello? Sir? Are you there, sir?”
“Huh? Who’s there?”
“I’m here with your soup, sir.”
“Well, come in, come in, bring it in.”
“Yes sir.”
“Hey, have I seen you before?”
“Yes sir, I was here last night, sir. I’m Grit Fuller.”
“Oh. Aren’t you pretty young to work for a temp agency?”
“Probably… but I’m just a door to door book salesman after school, sir. I’m in high school, sir.”
“Oh. So what are you doing here?”
“Bringing you your soup, sir.”
“Oh, right. Well, what is it?”
“Norwegian Fish Soup, sir.”
“What’s in it, kid?”
“Norwegian fish, I would expect, sir.”
“What else?”
“I didn’t make it, sir. Your cook said it’s made with haddock and carrot and, uh, cream, I think. She might have said something else, but those were the main ingredients, sir. Norwegian fish soup, sir… from Norway, the latest country to see reason and put an end to the extreme virus-based restrictions, sir. Norwegian fish soup, with haddock, sir.”
“Are there crackers?”
“Yes sir. Soup, crackers, napkins and spoons, sir. All right here, sir.”
“Mmm… Good.”
“I was on my rounds yesterday, going door to door… this is a GREAT neighborhood, by the way, sir. Practically every house buys something… and this was my last stop last night. So your cook said if I timed it so I ended my rounds back at this house again tonight, then I could bring down your soup while she checks out my samples, and she might buy one of my cookbooks, sir. Good deal, huh?”
“You write cookbooks?”
“Me sir? No, sir, I’m only 15, sir. I’m in high school, sir. But I sell cookbook sets, sir. I’m saving for college, sir.”
“Ah, you won’t need to save. Don’t bother.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“We’re gonna make college free. That’s the plan.”
“That’s impossible, sir.”
“Don’t tell me what’s impossible! I won! If i can win nationwide, then ANYTHING’s possible, believe you me!”
“Well, sorry, sir, but what I meant was, college can’t be free, because everything about it costs money, sir. I mean, you can move the money around so that somebody else pays for it, but it’s never going to be free. SOMEBODY has to pay, sir.”
“You a smart alec, boy?”
“Grit, sir.”
“I don’t care if you have grit, I don’t like a smart alec.”
“No, sir, Grit is my name. I’m Grit, sir.”
“Oh. What’s your name?”
“Grit Fuller, sir.”
“I’ll never remember that.”
“I’m proud of myself, working for spending money for college. The way we figure it, I’ll save enough through high school so that I can take a double major in college and not need a part time job except during the summers, sir. It’s worth the work now, to be able to really focus on my schoolwork when I’m in college, sir.”
“When I’ve made college free, it’ll be a whole new world for you, kid.”
“My parents told me about that idea, sir. We were watching one of those debates on TV when I was in 8th grade…. I remember everybody fighting over who had the most generous college plan.”
“That’s because Democrats have hearts!”
“It’d be better for the country if they had brains, sir.”
“Hey, wait a minute…”
“None of you are offering to pay for our college, sir. None of you are offering to pay the tuition bills for us. All you’re fighting over is the chance to send the college’s tuition bill to somebody else. Right, sir?”
“What kind of school do you go to, kid?”
“I’m homeschooled, sir.”
“Oh, great. Just great. Well, we’ll put a stop to that one of these days, too. Probably won’t get to that until next year….”
“Back to the colleges, sir. The thing is, sir, the more of it we pay when we’re in school, sir, the closer we are to being done with it when we get out, sir.”
“What do you mean, kid?”
“Grit, sir. My name is Grit. Anyway, sir, if our parents pay for it while we’re in school (or our employers, if we work at a company that offers tuition reimbursement, sir), well, then when we get out of college, we’re done with it; we don’t have to keep paying forever.”
“That’s our plan too! You never have to write a check to your school!”
“But if government pays for it, sir, then we have pay more to government. Infinitely more, sir. The math just doesn’t work, sir!”
“Don’t talk to me about math, kid!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, touchy subject, sir? I would’ve thought you’d gotten over failing it in third grade by now, sir.”
“Come on, man!”
“I guess if I ever failed enough classes to have to repeat third grade, I’d probably be embarrassed for life too, sir.”
“Come on, man! Show some respect!”
“I am, sir. I’m showing respect for colleges, for their students, for
their employers, for their students’ parents, and for the American taxpayer, sir. If you really respect them, sir, you’d give them a break on this college funding scheme, sir.”
“Well, I care about everybody else. You obviously don’t care about anybody else, do you, kid?”
“Pardon, sir? I don’t understand. I said that saying no to government funding of colleges is better for the students, their parents, their employers, and the American taxpayer in general, sir. Who else is there, sir?”
“Well, I care about the immigrants who deserve a chance at the same education… and the government administrators who deserve a chance to have worthwhile jobs administering these funds… and the social workers who can determine who goes to which school, and which schools should be propped up and which ones should be allowed to close because there’s no place for them, and… OUCH!”
“Sir? Are you okay, sir?”
“Yeah… oh boy…. yeah. Just got a message, that’s all….”
“A message? I don’t understand, sir. You jumped like you’d been electrocuted, sir!”
“Oh, well, just a new tool they’re trying out. First time they used it. I uh, I ummm, I haven’t felt that before. Wow.”
“So you were saying, sir?”
“Never mind. Let’s talk about something else, kid.”
“You aren’t supposed to mention what you people have in mind for the colleges after the budget thing passes, huh?”
“Do you, umm, do you play any sports in high school, kid? Football or baseball or anything?”
“Once you take over all the funding so that college is free, then everyone will try to go to the fanciest or best schools, and there will be no price advantage to the lesser ones, so probably a third of the colleges in the country will collapse, go out of business, in a few years. Your team doesn’t want anybody to think hard enough about it to reach that conclusion, do they, sir?”
“You don’t sound like a high school kid.”
“I’m homeschooled, sir; even though my year is technically high school freshmen, we do tend to be a little ahead of the kids in regular schools for that reason, sir.”
“Typical homeschoolers. You always think you’re born smarter than everyone else.”
“No, sir, actually, we don’t. It’s like it says in the Declaration, sir. All men are created equal. It’s what we do with it that counts, sir. And we homeschoolers just get more productive education than kids in regular assembly line schools do, sir.”
“I went to a regular school, kid!”
“I can tell, sir.”
“Come on, man! Didn’t anyone ever tell you to be respectful to your elders?”
“Yes sir, I was. But when I told my parents I was coming here again tonight, they told me to forget all that, and deal with you one on one, sir, like I was at a debate match. Just not to spot you any points or give you a mulligan, sir.”
“Come on, man!”
“Well, I think it’s time for me to head back upstairs, sir. Hopefully, I’ll be able to collect an order from your cook. She seemed interested in the Cuisines Around the World encyclopedia set, sir.”
“We’re going to pass our plan whether you kids like it or not!”
“Fine with me, sir. You just go ahead and keep destroying your base, sir. You’ve already driven actors and musicians away from the left by shutting down their performances for a year and a half… go ahead and cause a third of the colleges in the country to go bankrupt, robbing a couple hundred thousand of your most lefty academics of their livelihoods… you go ahead and do that, sir. By the time six of your best friends carry you out of this office by the handles, there’ll be nothing left of your party but a few old jailbirds and a bunch of pierced-up, tatted freaks who don’t even know if they’re boys or girls, sir. Keep this up and you’ll be responsible for more conversions to the Republican party than Reagan and Trump put together, sir.”
“Just wait ’til tomorrow, kid! I’ll be sure to have some coffee before we talk, and then I’ll be ready for ya…”
“I won’t be back, sir. I’ve finished this neighborhood, sir. I’ll be selling books a few blocks away, peacefully free of this place. Good night, sir!”
“Come on, man!”
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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