The Hat Goes in the Ring

I was sitting at my desk yesterday using a cocktail of Naphthalene, bleach, and baking soda to try to get the seagull guano off of a weather vane the painters took off the top of the Oakum shed. While I was working, one of the Gretchen sisters walked into my office.

If you remember the Gretchen sisters from last season you are doing better than I am, so please forgive any continuity errors. This sister, I think it was the younger one, has a gray pixie-cut and wears Ray-Ban Wayfarer’s most of the time, even inside. She sat down in the chair across from my desk and then asked Fat Joe, who was playing Pokemon Go, if it was OK if she smoked.

“You’re not supposed to ask my flunky if it is OK to smoke in my office.” I said, “You’re supposed to ask me.” Joe said he didn’t mind the smoke.

Then Gretchen asked, “Do you mind if I eat my sandwich while I talk to you?” She held out one half of her sandwich to me. When I shook my head she offered it to Joe, who lifted a hand from his table to indicate “no, thank you.”

“You’re going to smoke and eat at the same time?” I asked.

“It’s my lunch break. There is nothing better than egg salad and cigarettes, don’t you think?”

I shook my head “yes”, but I don’t agree. Not at all.

“How can I help you?” I asked.

“I think you should run for Mayor of Medium,” she said. “Many people mistake you for the Mayor…”

“I’m the Tribune of Medium,” I said.

“I’m aware of that,” she continued, “but people often mistake you for the Mayor because you were the Mayor of LiveJournal. Some of us in editorial were talking and we think Medium needs a mayor right now and that you should run.”

“We still have people in editorial?” I asked. “I thought the bots were writing all of the copy?”

“The bots are useless,” she said.

I instinctively put my hand over the microphone port of the ASS42000 on my desk. The little red light kept pulsing in sleep mode. “Good thing it didn’t hear you,” I said.

She waved her cigarette hand dismissively.

“Running for Mayor isn’t easy, you know,” I said, “First, we would have to find the person who owns all of the important wards on Medium. Then we would have to ask them how much they wanted for them. Then we would have to raise the money to buy the voters by having all of those boring quid pro quo meetings. Then we’d have to get a horse head to put in the bed of the opposition’s campaign manager, and find Sugar Plum Fairy and set him to work… I don’t even know where he is… and… and… and, there’s a lot of work to be done.”

“We can work all of that out. Joe said he would help. He has some experience.”

I looked over at Joe. He wasn’t playing Pokemon Go anymore.

“Don’t tell me, you’re some kind of experienced political operative. A master of ward politics… Peter A Slaughter was right, you’re nothing but some kind of crude Irish-American stereotype. Let me guess, you’re a racist.”

“Hey,” he said, “I worked on the Dinkin’s campaign.”

“That doesn’t answer the question at all.”

“What do you want me to say, ‘I don’t like black people?’”

“I think you just said it,” I said, but then Gretchen put down her sandwich, placed her cigarette in her mouth, held up both hands and whistled… with the cigarette in her mouth!

“OK, knock it off,” she said, “We need to work together. The convention starts tomorrow.”

“Who needs a convention?” I asked, “In the old days at LiveJournal we just stuffed a bunch of guys in a chat room to smoke cigars and and tell dick jokes before announcing the candidate.”

“It doesn’t work that way anymore,” said Gretchen, “First of all, we use Slack. Second, there are women in the room. Third, you have to vape cigar flavored goo through your vaporizer. Other than that everything works about the same.”

“Joe,” I said, “Since you are such a political wizard, how many phony candidates are we going to run in this election?”

Joe didn’t even look up from his tablet. “One to the right and two to the left,” he said, “I already lined up Radical Free Ellie and one of the Danks to run to the left and take a dive. We can split the vote on the right with just one Men’s-Rights troll.”

It was clear that both Joe and Gretchen had been doing their homework. My only concern was whether this campaign would pay out. There are a lot of expenses in a campaign. As long as me and my cronies can profit through old fashioned graft, I’m all for throwing my hat in the ring, but I don’t want to have to go on Fox news as a commentator after my term to make this pay.

“OK,” I said, “I’ll run, but I want to change the party name to “The Niantic Party.” I want our symbol to be a clam. We can keep the old motto. If I win, I want the license plate M1 for my car. I’ll need eight positions in the water department for my brothers and cousins, three in city hall for my friends, and one in the fire department for my father. If I don’t get impeached in the first term I want them to name a swimming pool after me. Last, someone has to get the Currier and Ive’s prints I had in my Mayor’s office at LiveJournal and bring them over here. They don’t need them anyway.”

“Good, I’m glad you are willing to do this,” said Gretchen. She snubbed out her cigarette. “You should start getting ready. The convention begins tomorrow. I will tell buildings and grounds to set up the stage on the front lawn.”

“It might be confused for the first couple of days, but I think we are ahead of the Republicans,” I said.

I looked at Joe. He was still playing on his tablet.

“Don’t you have to move around to play Pokemon Go?” I asked.

“I’ve got a Chinese kid walking around for me. I watch him using Periscope.”

“Why is it always a Chinese kid? Why not an Indian kid, or a Canadian?”

“When was the last time you saw a Chinese person on Medium? He asked.