The Bushies wrecked my party!

satire
\Sat"ire\ (?; in Eng. often ?; 277), n. [L. satira, satura, fr. satura
(sc. lanx) a dish filled with various kinds of fruits, food composed of
various ingredients, a mixture, a medley, fr. satur full of food, sated,
fr. sat, satis, enough: cf. F. satire. See Sate, Sad, a., and cf.
Saturate.]
1. A composition, generally poetical, holding up vice or folly
to reprobation;
a keen or severe exposure of what in public or private
morals deserves rebuke;
an invective poem; as, the Satires of Juvenal.
2. Keeness and severity of remark; caustic exposure to
reprobation; trenchant wit; sarcasm.
Syn: Lampoon; sarcasm; irony; ridicule; pasquinade;
burlesque; wit; humor.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

whack
The Bushies wrecked my party!
A mean guy named Dick ordered my guests around,
some halfwit named George broke everything,
and this Karl creep really befouled the air in my bathroom.


By Sarah Rogers

Oct. 25, 2004 | You're the host of a cocktail party. It's for your
friends and neighbors, and it's in your house, which has been passed
down through generations in your family. You have laid out the food on
your grandmother's china and poured the drinks into your
great-grandmother's crystal. Guests now sit on your father's leather
library chair and perch on the edge of your mother's velvet sofa. They
admire the painting by your great-great-grandfather, and coo over the
ceramic platter that your great-great-great-grandmother brought with her
from Italy. They praise the perfect little hors d'oeuvres that you've
spent all day making. You're glad that this has panned out, since your
back hurts from crouching over the cutting board for 10 hours. The
guests discuss how happy they are to live in this neighborhood: Such a
nice place! Such nice people!


The doorbell rings. It's your new neighbor, George, and his friends,
whom you warmly welcome. The other guests also stand up to greet them.
After the most minimal of niceties, your new neighbor and his colleagues
fan out. They gobble up all the hors d'oeuvres without chewing them, and
slurp up the wine you've been storing for years. One of them
single-handedly polishes off the nicely aged bottle of Bordeaux that
your father passed onto you -- rather than drinking it early himself,
he'd said, it was more important for someone else to have it when the
time was right. Another of George's friends -- Donald? -- drops his full
glass of red wine onto your great aunt's Persian carpet; the crystal
shatters.

And still another one -- you think he was introduced as Karl -- locks
himself in the bathroom for 10 minutes. When he opens the door, the foul
smell of digested matter gusts into the living room. He strolls into the
kitchen, and you follow him.

"Er, Karl," you say. "Could you turn on the fan? It's the switch on the
left."

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

Trying to be polite, you say, "Because of your ... um ... bowel movement."

"I didn't have a 'bowel movement,'" he says, chortling as though you're
insane. "Why don't you go look in there? Do you see one? Why don't you
go look? Hmm?"

"No thanks," you say. "I don't need to. It's pretty obvious. Could you
light a match at least? I mean, we're in the middle of a party. The
matches are on the back of the toilet."

"I don't have the slightest what you're talking about," he says,
opening the refrigerator and pulling out the leftover beans and rice you
were going to eat for lunch tomorrow.

"Then what were you doing in the bathroom?" you ask.

He chews loudly, but this doesn't stop him from speaking. "I was never
in the bathroom," he says. He pats you on the shoulder. "Maybe you
should stop drinking so much."

You leave him to your leftovers and return to the living room. It
smells like sewage, but people seem to be getting used to it, although
they do look a little unhealthy. It's then that you notice that one of
the other new guests is taking books off your bookshelf.

"Hey, John," you say. "What are you doing? Do you want to borrow a
book? Just let me know -- I'd be happy to lend one to you."

He slides the books into his shoulder bag. He does not speak to you,
does not even acknowledge you're there. Maybe he's deaf, you think. You
hear a crash and spin around. All of the guests are looking into the
dining room, where George has knocked your
great-great-great-grandmother's ceramic platter onto the hardwood floor,
where it has broken into a hundred pieces.

"You should have carpet in here, you know," he says. "It's kind of
amazing that someone your age doesn't know that."

"I'm sorry for the way they're all acting," says one of George's
friends. Colin, you think his name is. "But there's nothing I can do
about them. I'm just going to leave and pretend I didn't see this, OK?"
He walks out the door, whistling.

"All right, everyone, please stand up from your seats," says Dick.
"This is an important matter." He says it with such a firm voice, with
such conviction, that the guests all stand up. As if instinctually, they
put down their glasses and plates. No sooner have they done that than
George's friends whisk the plates and glasses away.

"I love this pattern," one of them says. He places it into a box. Wait,
that's one of your moving boxes! It had been packed away in the
basement! How did they find it?

"I'm very experienced and very smart," Dick continues, "and you're not."

As he speaks, you see that George and his friends are taking your
furniture! They're carting it outside like movers, bad movers, knocking
over heirloom vases and picture frames as they go. You want to cry out,
but there are so many things going wrong right now that you don't know
where to start. Only the couch remains, because Karl has passed out on
it, dribbling enchilada sauce. You end up making a vague noise of
distress, something like, "Ehhhhch."

You feel a tap on your shoulder. It's Dick. "We can't find the soup
tureen. Where is it?" he asks.

"What?" you say. "Soup tureen?"

He snorts with exasperation and begins to speak slowly, as though you
were a third grader. "If we don't find the soup tureen, we won't have a
full set of china. You should be able to grasp that despite your mental
deficiencies. Now, where is it?"

You point in the direction of the basement. "And the silver?" he asks.

You come to your senses. "My silver? Why on earth do you want my
silver? Why are you taking all my stuff?" you shriek.

Dick again affects the demeanor of an elementary-school teacher, albeit
one at her wits' end. "If you have fine china, you have to have silver
to go with it," he says. "Duh," he adds.

Something is wrong with you. You find yourself saying, "It's in the
basement in a mahogany box, next to the wine rack."

Dick and his cohorts shuffle off to the basement. You're in shock; you
know you're in shock. Do something, your brain tells you. Do something.
But you don't know where to begin. You glance up and see that the other
guests are in a similar fog of dismay. They're standing, looking dully
into the middle distance, empty-handed.

For a few moments, you're in a stupor. When you look up again, all of
your prized possessions are gone and -- what's more -- George and his
buddies are prying up your floorboards. "Need some wood?" George says.
"Heh. Don't worry. I saw that you've got some trees out there. It'll
grow back. I like to clear brush myself."

You survey the damage. Your floorboards are destroyed; your furniture
is gone; your food has been eaten; your books have been stolen. And
everything that hasn't been taken is broken.

George comes back inside the house and pats you on the shoulder. "Great
party," he says.

"What am I supposed to do?" you ask. "What about my children?"

"Are you kidding? You've got everything going for you," he says. "Just
look outside. Big yard. Organic farming. A growing market. Lots of
opportuniteries."

Karl wakes up and stretches. He snaps his fingers, and the others come
rushing back in to pick up the sofa. One of your friends manages to
speak for you. "You can't take that couch! It's not yours!" she says.

George and his friends pause; you think they're going to bring the
couch back in. Instead, they turn it upside down and shake it. A couple
of quarters and several pennies fall onto the floor. George scoops them
up and hands them to you. You stare with horror at the 58 cents in your
hand.

"There you go," he says. "Most people wouldn't give you that, you
realize. But it's your money and you should have it."

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/10/25/bush_years/print.html

About the writer
Sarah Rogers is a freelance writer in Iowa City, Iowa.