Slim Randles

Home Coun­try

“One of these days,” said Pete, out behind the sale barn where he works, “I’m going to be elected emperor, and then, by smash, I’ll change every­thing around.”

Now sev­eral of us from the Mule Barn cof­fee shop’s phi­los­o­phy counter were out back there with Pete to look at an Angus bull that he thought each of us should have and none of us needed.

“I thought you hated pol­i­tics, Pete,” Doc said.

“I do, Doc. I do. But I’ve fig­ured out a way to solve the energy cri­sis, lower taxes, elim­i­nate the deficit – what­ever that is – and … well, fix things forever.”

We waited. Pete just stuck a straw in his mouth and chewed on it. He was look­ing pen­sive. That’s hard for Pete. But we waited, because we’re not big on politi­cians, but all of us want to fix things.

“Do I have to hurt you, Pete?” Dud asked.

“Huh? Oh, you want to know … okay, well here it is. It’s them signs. It’s an elec­tion year and every darn vacant lot in the val­ley has a whole for­est of card­board signs nailed to one-by’s and pounded into the ground. And you drive around the neigh­bor­hood and every fourth house has one or two stuck in the lawn.”

We nod­ded, as though we were smart.

“That’s it in a nut­shell, boys. Them signs. Yep … them signs… (sigh). Signs don’t make any sense at all. They say someone’s name, and some­times they name his polit­i­cal party. Do they say why we should vote for him? No. That’s why I came up with it.”

“With what, Pete?”

“Oh yeah. Well­sir, ever notice that them signs just stay right there like a full-color ugly ol’ for­est for weeks after the elec­tion? Well, here’s my plan … first off, we give them politi­cians one entire day after the elec­tion to take the signs down. That’s a kind of grace­ful period. Then we charge them one dol­lar a day for each sign that hasn’t been removed.

“Now this ought to keep the local politi­cians all tuned up and clean­ing vacant lots or cough­ing up money to make up for the lower taxes we’re gonna pay, right? But the real trea­sure is with the elec­tion for Pres­i­dent. Now my plan is to have who­ever loses that elec­tion pay a buck a day into the kitty for every day both his and the President-elect’s signs stay up. Think of the money!”

We thought of the money.

Then Doc said, “You said this plan of yours would solve the energy cri­sis, though, Pete.”

“Yep,” he said, grin­ning. “We just burn them signs to stay warm all winter.”

—————-

Brought to you by the new book “Home Country,”at www.slimrandles.com.

Posted by Guest 2 Columnist on Aug 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.