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Friday, Jul 16, 2004
Carpool Buds
This morning I woke from an odd dream. I was in a carpool with George Jr. I sat shotgun and Jr. drove. I was doing my best to hold my tongue; after all he was doing the courtesy of giving me a ride to work. But at some point I made a smartass remark ... or perhaps an extended series of smart ass remarks. Not really my style, but sometimes something may slip out.
After we entered the building (Jr. works with me too?!), I could tell he was mad as a hornet ... too mad to spit ... meaner than a dry drunk. Jr. wouldn't even give me eye contact while I mumbled a half-hearted appology for breaking the decorum of the carpool. "Didn't mean to incite a Hollywood Hate Fest in the back of your car." (Was Woopie sittin back there?)
So what was the smartass remark? I'm not sure exactly how it started or what I said, but I think it mighta been the baseball thing. See, I've been working on how to break it down to your average Joe Sixpack about the whole "Isn't eyeROCK better off without SADum?" question. People's eyes kinda glaze over when you get into the Kurds and the Turks and the Shia convergence, and the things that piss people off so much that they form alliances with hated enemies.
So the Joe Sixpack explanation might go something like this: Listen, when you see a batter knock a line drive, you might be thinking "that's a mighty fine drive", but you just don't know if the shortstop is gonna jump up and snag that drive. And you don't know if he'll be able to step on the bag in time to get the second out. And you don't know if maybe, just maybe, he'll run down that runner coming from first to complete the triple. See, you just don't know 'cause the ball's still in play. And that's why you don't know if Iraq is gonna be better or worse without that bad old SADum, 'cause the ball's still in play. And you know the ball's still in play 'cause you're not dumb. You know you're just speculatin if you act like that thing is a done deal.
Now, being an old baseball sort of guy, I figured Jr. would understand what I was gettin at. And that woulda stuck in his craw, got under his skin, been a burr in his hide, or some such thing. Which is why he wouldn't give me the eye contact. He was just doing that head shaking thing he does to indicate disapproval of something he thinks is just plain wrong.