November 1904, in Fulton, Illinois, and have issue.



Going all Silkwood on Milo.  I miss HEROES. 

The recent recall of tons of contaminated meat from mad cows who couldn't stand up, much of which was sold and fed to school children, reminded me of a game Skip and I used to play.  This was back in the days following the Chernobyl disaster -- after the Russians admitted that more than a scientist or two had gotten burned but before they had to evacuate the area for all eternity.  Although not properly speaking a Dialogue of the Dead in the classical sense, Skip would pretend to be Ronald Reagan and I would be Margaret Thatcher.  We would sit in our favorite comfy chairs in the living room of the apartment on Sheridan Square and have a "Hot Line" phone conversation.  Cocktails, a joint and/or cigarettes were occasionally involved. 

"Damn nuisance, s'what I said to Nancy-kins," Ronnie/Skip would say.  "How you gonna spin it, Madge?"

"We will advise," I would reply in that shrill nasal and faux upper class shriek the daughter of a Methodist grocer came to be famous for, "We will advise agaynst the consumption of fresh produce from Europe for one week."

"Good for you, honey.  My boys tried to push all the wind drift data on me, but I said hell with that.  Get folks all riled up?  What good'll that do?"

"We are agreed."

"Right.  I always say, keep the body count off the news and the bad news on the QT."

"We may advise the Scandinavian people to dispose of their reindeer herds.  As to be perceived as being a gesture of caution."

"Before they glow in the dark, huh?  Santa won't need headlights -- that's a joke, Maggie honey."

I feign a laugh whch is my version of Lily Tomlin doing an A T and T employee.

"Well what they don't know can't hurt 'em, right?" Skip as Ronnie says.  "Least not til you and I have rode off into the sunset.  And by the way, you look a little rode hard and put up wet, old girl."

I remind Skip the White House Hot Line does not possess video capabilities at this time.  He tells me not to break character.

"We have been assured," I resume as Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, "that all research will be suppressed, including abnormal birth statistics and spikes in male infertility rates correlating to radiation poisoning -- that all data will be withheld from the public until 2025 or our state funeral, whichever comes first."

"Good work," says Ron.  "Course, I say we blame it on the gays and the darkies, least as a backup plan.  But the real way to win this thing, as I been tellin' you all along, is just outspend the bastards.  Outspend the bastards til they screw up and contaminate their pants off and by golly what'd they do?  Just that!  And you know what?  There'll be statues of me in towns all over that godforsaken land back of the rusty ol' Iron Curtain, you mark my words!  Goddamn statues -- leastwise 'til they realize their grandkids are all being born without arms and legs, but hey, you can't have everything."

"Egg-shell skulls is another predictable outcome.  And epidemic autism.  And the statistical certainty of increased breast and prostrate cancer.  MI5 predicts, however, that alcohol poisoning will be the primary cause of death --"

"Gol-darn it, Madge, talk about a buzz kill.  You make it sound like a friggin freak show."

"We regret the effect of our remarks, Ronald.  Most assuredly."

"Ah hell, just havin' some fun witcha.  Listen, you should hop along over here sometime.  We could have a few laughs, cut a rug, get down with your bad self, as the colored girls sing -- I hear you're quite the dancer."

"You are most kind, Ronald.  We are flattered."

"Aw heck.  Like I said to the Empress Nancy, 'Baby, don't you say no to me, cuz after us, it's all downhill."

"Apres Moi, le Deluge," I reply as the Wicked Witch.

"That too, Maggie-kins.  That too."