“Joshua Boyle! Look at you! Welcome back to Canada, Mr. Boyle. You look…well, honestly, you look like you’ve been held captive by the Taliban for five years.”
“Thank you?”
“My name’s Agent Jenkins. The government has sent me to help you reacclimate to society.”
“Great. That’s great. Did the Leafs win the Cup?”
“You’ve only been gone five years, Mr. Boyle.”
CANADIAN LAUGHING NOISE
“I missed jokes.”
“Taliban isn’t a lot of fun?”
“No fun. No fun whatsoever. The least fun people you’ll ever meet.”
“I bet.”
“What else is going on?”
“Nothing much. Getting ready for winter. Gonna flood the backyard and make a rink for the boys.”
“Not going on with you personally, Agent Jenkins.”
“Ah.”
“The world.”
“The world? Oh, the world. Huh. The woooooorld. It’s, uh, it’s…well, it’s still here. The world’s still here today. And that’s a good thing.”
“Are things not going well?”
“They’re going interestingly. The newspaper is more fascinating than it’s ever been. Oh, and there are no more newspapers anymore.”
“None?”
“There’s a few in big cities. Like how there’s still opera. Let’s move past it.”
“Sure. Who’s the Prime Minister?’
“Trudeau.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes. His son is the PM now.”
“The prettyboy?”
“Yes.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Eh.”
“Do people still eat hot dogs?”
“Of course.”
“Good, good. Boats? Are there still boats?”
“You mean, like, vessels upon the sea? Boats?”
“Yeah, boats. We still doing boats?”
“We are. Humanity still employs boats to traverse the waterways.”
“Wonderful. What about shaking hands? That still a thing?”
“It’s only been five years, Mr. Boyle.”
“Life moves pretty fast sometimes, Agent Jenkins. Plato said that.”
“Ferris Bueller said that.”
“Ferris Bueller quoted that.”
“Mr Boyle, do you have any more questions that aren’t ridiculous?”
“No, I’m cool.”
“Great.”
“Oh, wait. Who’s the American president?”
“Goddammit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. What? I didn’t hear you. Is that my cell phone? I think the room’s on fire. Why don’t we just leave and end this conversation right now?”
“Agent Jenkins, who’s the president?”
“Of?”
“America.”
“America? America. Huh. Not ringing a bell. America? Am I pronouncing that right?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Agent Jenkins, who is the President of the United States?”
“Donald Trump.”
“President Donald Trump. That’s funny. A guy with the same name as that idiot on teevee is the president. I bet people think that’s funny.”
“It’s funny in a certain way.”
“Weird for two powerful people to have the same name. It’s not like it’s a common one.”
“No.”
“Amazing coincidence.”
“Uh-huh.”
…
“Oh, God.”
“Yup.”
“The real Trump?”
“Yup.”
“With the hair and the skin?”
“Yup.”
“The ‘You’re Fired’ guy.”
“Yup.”
“And he was elected? The US hasn’t gone to a lottery system and he was picked at random?”
“Lost the poplar vote, won in the Electoral College?”
“What the fuck is an Electoral College?”
“I have no idea. He’s president. Leave it at that. It’s official.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yup.”
“I knew they were all fucking nuts, but this is beyond the pale.”
“It’s a bit of situation.”
“How’s he doing?”
“How do you think he’s doing?”
“Well, wow. He’s, um, a rich guy. Was successful at real estate before being a reality teevee star. He’s run big businesses. I guess he could be doing okay.”
“Mr. Boyle, imagine a warehouse full of clusterfucks. Furthermore, place this imagined warehouse within a warehouse district; every surrounding warehouse is full of clusterfucks, as well. Then: dose Godzilla. Melt that giant lizard-gorilla’s eyeballs right out of his sockets, and shove him towards that warehouse district with all the warehouses full of clusterfucks.”
“That bad?”
“I wasn’t finished. Now, set everything on fire: the warehouses, the clusterfucks, and Godzilla.”
“Wow.”
“Still not done. Finally, get a mad scientist to turn Lou Gehrig’s Disease communicable by air and have crop-dusters spray down the entire area with weaponized shakiness.”
“I get the picture.”
“I could go on.”
“You don’t have to. When’s the next election?”
“Three years.”
“Wow. Well, we’ll just have to get through it like I did my time hostage. You know what I did, Agent Jenkins?”
“Tell me.”
“I concentrated on a happy thought. A reward that was waiting for me after I returned to the world.
“That’s nice. What was your reward?”
“Seeing Bowie in concert.”
…
“Oh, COME ON!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Boyle.”
“Take me back to the Taliban.”
“Completely understandable.”
yeah.
Last time the Leafs won the Cup this gut was playing for them. ……and Tom Constanten had yet to join the Grateful Dead.
*guy not gut
🙂 Hey, don’t make fun of Tim Horton! Just because they bought Bess Eaton’s and then closed it right away don’t mean nothing! 🙂
..
“Lost the poplar vote…”
If only trees could’ve voted, the election would certainly have had a better result.
Fuck trees. If only a few more of the BernieBros and Green Party dead-enders had decided to behave like fucking grownups.