Yesterday, Wayne Putin The First Marshfield - one of the Senior Meals Heros reported here, the quickly retiring butterfly-fearing hero reported here - was booted by the elegant hoof of Tina Mole off Delaware County's Health Committee.
He is - SURE.
Once upon a time, in the poorest county in New York, there lived Tina.
Tina had two brain cells.
One was named Bonacic.
The other was named You Know Who.
For many years the two brain cells lived together peacefully and ruled the county without incident.
Then both began having difficulties at approximately the same time.
This troubled Tina.
Not because the brain cells were important.
But because they happened to be carrying her crown.
The crown immediately developed cracks.
Jewels began falling out.
Tina pretended not to notice.
For many years Tina's principal source of happiness had been a magical Golden Vacuum.
The Vacuum stood in the center of the county. Nobody remembered where it came from. Nobody remembered who had switched it on. Everybody remembered paying for it and to it. Sometimes this way:
The Golden Vacuum possessed a remarkable appetite.
It fed upon taxes, penalties, fees, forfeitures (drug forfeitures most especially - such a yummy forfeiture - right, Dick Northrup?). It also fed, with great satisfaction upon grants. The Bonacic brain cell helped Tina in feeding the Golden Vacuum on this particular fuel tremendously.
Most of all, it fed upon prosperity of local common folks, and upon their future.
And, as all golden vacuums have it, it had a very interesting specification: the poorer the county became, the hungrier the Vacuum grew. And, of course, the hungrier the Vacuum grew, the poorer the county became.
This was considered by Tina's two brain cells an example of proper economic development.
Tina rode the Golden Vacuum everywhere and let it grab everything.
At first the villagers found this unusual.
Eventually they became accustomed to it.
People become accustomed to many things.
Eventually, the Vacuum's appetite became so great that it eventually created a vast canyon, like an abyss, beneath itself.
The abyss quickly became known among villagers as the Delaware Opportunities Chasm. It was not really of chasm of any kind. It was... a crack where Tina's cracked crown pieces started to drop-drop-drop, as soon as Tina's two brain cells suffered what was described as status-shrinking phenomenon.
The chasm soon received a name. It was the Senior Meals Program. And, the possibly contagious butterfly population problem that was becoming increasingly dangerous towards certain dates like November 4 (a date nobody ever remembered).
That was a dangerous name. Hurting old people while doing interesting stuff with taxpayer money is what Golden Vacuums happily do, but what villagers frown upon.
So, something - or someone - had to go.
And then - Tina connected her emergency thinking resource: her spinal cord. It did not really think - no spinal cords do - but it FELT really well. The danger to Golden Vacuum!
And, as it usually happens to spinal cords in emergencies, Tina's spinal cord instantly produced just two words - BUT WHAT KIND OF WORDS!!!
IRREVOCABLY INTERTWINED.
The spinal cord stretched with satisfaction.
Not because for that particular spinal cord THAT was a familiar state - no wonder it jumped to mind so readily.
Because Tina herself was happily, and for many years, IRREVOCABLY INTERTWINED in a lot of different things. Like CWC. Like other little pet non-profits. Like little and large PILOTs given to ... well, you know.
But Tina's MOST HONORABLE irrevocable intertwinement (like liaise and supervise, supervise and liaise)
was not Wayne Putin The First Marshfield's MOST DISHONORABLE - IRREVOCABLE INTERTWINEMENT!!!
You must, after all, understand the difference: that was - IRREVOCABLE INTERTWINEMENT, and this is, on the other hand, IRREVOCABLE INTERTWINEMENT!!!
Even though the Most Pink Irrevocable Intertwinement was - what they call it - Tina's lived experience, the strain of connecting these two words, 33 years after receiving her associate's degree from SUNY Delhi, and never once after that doing anything brainier than operating the Golden Vacuum - caused such strain to her entire being, that she inadvertently nodded, something she never usually does, and a BIG crown jewel dropped into the Delaware Opportunities Chasm.
CLUNK!
But with the CLUNK! sound another brilliant idea visited Tina - Wayne Putin The First Marshfield may be THE ONE! THE BRIDGE! THE SOLUTION to the little just-starting chasm problem.
And then - a brilliant idea - imagine the strain! - crossed Tina's two shrinking brain cells: let Wayne Putin the First Marshfield be useful for a change.
After all, he was the one who caused all kinds of attentions from all kinds of unwelcome insects to all kind of Golden Vacuum affairs that otherwise were peacefully intertw... well, existing.
So, the work turning Wayne Putin The First Marshfield into usable infrastructure to bridge the chasm began.
First, Wayne Putin The First Marshfield was forced into retirement from his Town of Hamden Supervisor position - no, no, that could not possibly happen, he simple "did not rerun" after 30 years of sticking to all kinds of government offices, with attendant benefits, like a ... very big leather-clad whiskey-sipping velcro.Second, he was thrown under the bus of The County Health Committee - but as yet is holding up as Delaware Opportunities Treasurer. Probably, not for long, too.
And - TADA! - THE BRIDGE was born!
It was not bad to be a bridge. It was mostly comfortable actually.
Wayne accepted his new fate with dignity. And whiskey. Mostly whiskey.
But, even with Golden Vacuum now secured on the back of Wayne Putin the First Marshfield, Tina's spinal cord did not peacefully relax.
There was that inkling feeling... that little shiver on the back... this little discomfort...
No, not with Tina's sidekick Amy who laid more and more ostrich-size lawsuit eggs. After all, she did it all the time.
For some reason, Tina had worrying dreams.
In those dreams, she saw a regular school ruler emerging from something dark and amorphous - and attempting to do the unthinkable! That obnoxious piece of wood was measuring her crown!
Sometimes, Tina even saw in her sleep more than a ruler - something that held that ruler - A SHADOW...
A big, dark SHADOW.
Looming behind her.
Calculating.
Measuring.
Clearly making inroads to the Golden Vacuum. To the Crown. To all that was - for so long - SO VERY dear and near to Tina.
And then, intermittently, in some of her other dreams, Tina saw helicopters at a distance, and that no-good guy in US Marshall jacket twirling - no, not pink, not fluffy - regular-issue police handcuffs. That is with his index finger on one hand. Tina does not even want to recall what he did with his other finger behind his back.
While ALSO looking at her Golden Vacuum and her Crown.
But, as unsettling as the handcuff guy was, Tina's spinal cord trampled her receding brain cells, it kept screaming to Tina: DO NOT be afraid of handcuffs! Do not be afraid of turtle auditors! Do not be afraid of butterfly statisticians!
Be afraid - ONLY - ONLY - ONLY - OF THE SHADOW.
The SHADOW is the one who looms close by.
The SHADOW is who is unknown.
The SHADOW is who is getting ready to TAKE.
To TAKE IT ALL.
To take the Golden Vacuum - and its magical money-sucking power.
To take the Golden Cracked Crown.
The great big SHADOW continued to loom, with its Crown-measuring ruler, like it had all the time in the world.
And the tiny-tinier-tinest two voices kept telling her - where there are handcuffs, Tina, there will be no Golden Vacuum anyway...
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