Where does this all end? Truly? It’s totally untenable. Nuclear Armageddon?
Two solid months now, and Musk’s woodchipper just keeps on a grinding away, 24/7. Elon, who now permanently dons the same expression as the dinner host at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original) will — at least one day, as all Trump’s acolytes do — enjoy his rotation through the federal pen turnstile (only to be pardoned, of course).
For the love of God!
As for L’Orange — well, same as Putin, he comprehends full well how obligated he now is to stay president — by whatever means necessary — for the remainder of his natural life. Otherwise, convicted felon that he is, come the final day of his second term, he’ll be escorted straight from the presidency to the pokey. It’s the singular driving force behind every bureaucratic brick he daily bulldozes away in the ruse of making America great again.
Yet, all his dumbness be damned, he’s always got something wicked this way skulking. The springtime air this year is absolutely choked with a congesting sense of dread. L’Orange, having unanchored every governmental foundation within D.C., gives proof nothing is so moored in constitutional bedrock that Musk and his merry minions can’t lay waste to it.
MAGA dogma says we’re preserving our country for our grandkids. So I especially love how very many children are always writing L’Orange, inquiring as to why he doesn’t have either a pet dog or a cat, like all the other presidents. Or just a hamster, even? Such innocent tots! Too guileless to comprehend that sociopaths don’t own pets other than as a photo-op crutch to appear human.
Sociopath’s pets rarely manage to live long enough to die of old age. If they’re lucky might they get pawned off on some unsuspecting acquaintance as, say, a “birthday gift.”
But, wait: My mistake! Trump does own a pet — of sorts: a canine named Spot, who can occasionally be seen trotting about the compound’s perimeter, his titanium limbs refracting the golden, Floridian light while running his “security detail” — whatever the hell that may entail from a Secret Service robot dog.
Let’s just get all “See Spot Run” right to it, shall we?
Dear Howard: I recently moved back to Dallas after my job took me into jungle territories for a few years, and I’m so happy to rediscover your column. Nobody gay in tropical climes seems to have any sense of humor at all. Or own pets, either. Especially cats. How are your two orange mischief makers, Boo & Roo doing, by the way? — A man, a plan, a canal, Panama
Dear Palin Drome: Finally! At last a question having nothing at all to do with Trump and/or the end of days! Unfortunately, Palin, it saddens me to inform you that Boo, my orange Abyssinian, passed away five years ago now at the grizzled old age of 19. When Boo passed away in the autumn of 2020, his little brother, Roo, was beyond distraught. Morose and despondent, I don’t think Roo knew other cats even existed, such a privileged and sheltered life had he lived up here on the 16th floor of the Sky Ark.
Something had to be done fast. Roo, never a loner type, needed a new companion, preferably, another adult orange male. Since Roo was already 15, a new kitten would have been too much. Plus, COVID was at its height, and kittens were scarce. Time to pay a call on the SPCA.
There, in a roomful of scampering furballs, one approached me and began nuzzling my ankles. “Her name’s Peppermint,” smiled the SPCA lady. “She’s 5, a British blue-tortoiseshell mix. Dropped off by an elderly couple who were unfortunately having to move to assisted living.” After handing over the grand sum of $36, I placed Peppermint in the carrier I’d brought, and home we went.
Pineapple — as her name had magically morphed into — made not so much as a whimper the entire ride. The sunlight seemed to mesmerize her. It dawned on me that this was her first time seeing the outdoors; apparently, she’d never before lived in a room with even a window.
So Miss Pineapple was in for a treat at her new high-rise home.
The second I opened her carrier upon entering our door, Roo came bouncing up, in a delirium of happiness, and planted a kiss straight on her whiskers. They were instant friends.
Well, Miss Pineapple is now 10, Roo is 20, and although still as spry as a kitten, it’s an unavoidable fact that Miss Pineapple will one day, probably sooner than later, be left all alone like Roo before her. Who could have guessed that karma might intervene so fortuitously!
One afternoon early last summer, as I stood melting in queue at the pet food store for the cashier to finish ringing up Roo’s mountainous pile of victuals, the pet store doors blew open, and a young man tossed something fuzzy toward the cashier, shouting, “I can’t afford to keep it; don’t want to have to drown it; find it a good home,” and then out the doors he vanished again just as quickly as he’d appeared. The cashier, ringing up my last item, barely even glanced up: “And one free kitten on the house,” he stated.
I’d like to report, that the rapport between 1-year-old Wednesday and Roo and Miss Pineapple was instant. But that’d be lying. Not that they hated Wednesday at first sight, but he’s just so bewilderingly weird. He hops about like a rabbit on legs too stunted to even jump atop a chair. My son, a doctor, seeing Wednesday silently ambush Roo, casually commented, “You do know, Dad, that Wednesday’s deaf as a doorknob, right? Oh, and he has feline Down’s Syndrome, too.”
I sighed: “Well, that explains a lot.” And, so there you have it, Palin — the latest updates on Howard’s menagerie of feline misfits, happily, sequestered away from the brutalities of the outside world now gone utterly and insanely unrecognizable.
—Howard Lewis Russell
Keep your questions coming, bois & gurlz, for cruel, cruel April’s now just around the corner: AskHoward@dallasvoice.com.