At Your Service

I ran into this old acquaintance on Halloween. We use to hang out a lot. It was always a great time, but I never failed to get a hangover, run out of money, loose a job, or girlfriend, or find myself in some unfortunate situation. The last time I saw him was over a year ago. We’re driving to work, and some nut starts tailgating us down a side street. Suddenly the car roars past us, like the speed limit isn’t good enough for him. My friend says, “You gonna let him get away with that?” So I punch the gas and we race to a traffic light. It was red, so I made the stop, but the nut ran the light, leaving me behind all pissed off at 7:00am on a misty Monday morning. I flashed on a few consequences - accident, fistfight, injury, insurance, police and lawyers. So I say to my friend, “Dude, this isn’t how I want my day to go, alright? I’m dropping you off and you can ride with someone else after this.” My friend didn’t get upset or anything. He just shrugged it off and said no problem. So anyway, we chatted on Halloween. He’d had a good year apparently, with all his work paying off in the coming election. “Hearts and minds and Fox News,” he said proudly. Then he went on and on about the Tea party, his clients in the Senate and bla bla. By then I was losing interest, so he leaned close and whispered, “Evil is out, ignorance is in. It’s an easy sell.”