How Bad Do Things Need to Get?

Before we go ham on their asses.

Lately, I’ve been recalling the sixties. What I remember of them anyway as I was waaaaay too young to recollect all that went on. And there was a shit-ton.

Did you get that? Too damn young. Are you buying it? Good.

But still, too young or not, I recall the riots, the sit-ins, the protests of every stripe. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), The Weathermen. The fucking Black Panthers, man. Cool-as-shit with balls of brass.

Where did all that fire go? That righteous anger?

Now, we sit on our expanding asses in front of our televisions watching as CNN documents the latest atrocities perpetrated by the maniac in the White House. The felon who stole the election. The piece of orange shit who was elected by bots to the highest office in the land. And Richard Nixon was a “cancer on the presidency?” If that’s the case then Trump is a plague. The plague.

Why can’t he just have an “episode?” Like a stroke. Something that will sideline him, like…forever. Does that sound terrible? Tough. The guy is dangerous. If you don’t know that, read someone else. Please.

No. An “episode” is too much to ask for I suppose, while people are getting gunned down in churches and synagogues and mosques. They bleed out while Trump kisses enemy ass at Mar-a-Lago.

“Dude, even your trophy wife hates you. Can’t you tell by that pasted-on, pinched ‘smile’ on her tightened-up face?”

So we sit and we watch and we bemoan our current lousy state of affairs, as they just get lousier by the day. As we wait for the guy who was impeached to actually be impeached. As we watch Australia burn. As we listen to the latest climate change horror story, by the same scientists who have been issuing warnings for years. That, in and of itself would incite some sort of revolution, wouldn’t you think?

I’m not suggesting that violence is a means to an end. But standing up and speaking out for what we believe in is never wrong. “Right” is never wrong. We know the difference but we’re just so beaten down we can’t see the burning forest for the trees.

We can see our phones, though. Those, have our complete and undivided attention. And we’re not keeping up with current events. More like “who hooked up with who” at the local Stop ‘N Sock.

Believe me. I get it. We all have lives and problems of our own. Why should we care about the country…the world? Because we live here. That’s why. And our time is running out.

Like so many others, I feel beaten down. I do. I’m unemployable in my field of expertise because of my birth date, my husband is experiencing significant health issues, I suffer from OCD and anxiety, and I’m fearful of the future. Hell of a way to live, huh?

At least, pot is legal.

But still. I’m pissed off and more than a little frightened. And I need an outlet aside from my nightly wine. Something that will make me feel that I at least tried to make things better.

Am I alone here? Do you feel the same way? Tell me. Please. Maybe we could start a pub called The Militant and vomit up all our pissed-off-ness there. This is becoming a powerful platform. Who knows what could result?

That probably sounds naive. I can feel the smirk on your face. But again, who knows?

Here’s another way we’re bending over and taking it up our collective ass: Big Pharma. Even with “health insurance,” the cost of so many of the drugs we routinely take, and that doctors toss at us like Skittles, is prohibitive.

Aside from my disgust at our continued association with the Orange Troll, I wrote this story because of something that happened today while I was waiting in line at my grocery store’s pharmacy to pick up a script for my husband.

There was an elderly woman in front of me. She looked tired. Worn down. I’d venture to guess that she was in her seventies or so. I heard her tell the pharmacist that she’d already done her shopping and was home when her son told her that she had to come back to pick up his prescriptions. She was very sweet about it. Uncomplaining, but as I said, obviously tired.

For a fleeting moment, I wondered why her son, assumedly an adult considering the woman’s age, couldn’t pick up his own prescriptions but that brought up a visual I wasn’t willing to entertain.

I wasn’t eavesdropping but they were talking loud enough so that I could hear that the son had at least four scripts waiting for him. Two were insulin. I have no idea what the others were but I heard that the total for his meds came to over $218.

The poor woman was aghast. She said there was no way she could afford them, so she took the much-cheaper insulin and left the other two meds behind for her son to pick up.

My heart broke for her.

Over $218. A drop in the bucket compared to the $400+ bucks that a common blood thinner costs.

Doesn’t that make you mad? That people can’t afford the medications they need to uh…live? Because we all know that healthcare in this country has nothing to do with preventative care. God forbid. We have to be just sick enough to make the cut.

Doesn’t global warming — the undeniable truth that glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising — and that this has by and large gone unaddressed, make you mad?

Doesn’t a racist, sexist, felonious, treasonist, pussy-grabbing son of a bitch of a president make you mad?

Yeah, Me, too. So what do we do?

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

I appreciate your reading. It means a great deal. If you enjoyed this, you might also like the following.

And, hey — maybe you’d like to check out the other great writers in my pub, Rogues’ Gallery.