Seven squared days (49) until voters select the president to succeed President Obama. Like Jeopardy, a show I had a very lamentable appearance many years, the word in quotation marks will be featured today.
Two weeks ago, Niecy playfully teased her daughter, SquareNiece, with a hilarious response to the SquareNiece’s generously asking if she could bring back something from the mall for Niecy. Guys, before you get your boxers twisted, it was all in good fun.
“Yes, go to store A, put your hands in your pocket and tell the cashier that Niecy says to give you all the money in the drawer.” Remember guys, unbunch those boxers. The responses caused my jaws to ache as they visualized SquareNiece standing there with a quizzical look before Niecy. Not understanding the expressive (and impressive) use of emoticons and cyberspeak, I had to get my two bits in and make it about me. I noted that I was a charter member of the square club.
Now you have to realize my female relatives are virtuosos in cyberspeak. Words, interspersed among hearts, memes, dancing devils and whatever else, compete to lose the uninitiated into Alice’s Wonderland. Well, my lighthearted jest dropped into that sea of cyberspeak like an 800 pound anvil. Vowels separated from consonants, happy faces started crying and all the memes turned into Michael Jordan consoling the crying happy faces. I slunk out of the conversation, like a square.
Thinking payback, I decided to write about squares, but decided squares bore me. Yeah, yeah yeah, I know how that sounds but when I get too bored with myself, I seek a riveting episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.
English really is an interesting language with complexities competing with nuances which threaten to let hanging participles fall over the verbal cliff.
Like most Americans, I am conversant in only one recognizable language. I’m assuming Ebonics doesn’t count. I spoke Spanish with a Chinese accent after four years of high school study according to Señor Alvarez. The first words out of my mouth when confronted with a Spanish speaking person is to say “lo siento, pero si habla muy lentamente, comprendo un poco.” This usually sends them running away as I attempt to dial down the speed of their speech, much like a volume control works. I want them at 2 or 1. The translation, depending on whether the Mandarin influence is too strong is “I am sorry (muy), but if you speak very slowly, I understand a little.” If the Mandarin accent is in overdrive, then pero becomes perro which translates to dog or maybe “dawg.” Ahhhh, that’s why they asked me how Simon is doing.
With apologies to SpongeBob and SquareNiece, I found 12 recognized usages for “square.” Go back to the picture at the top and my jowls will make it easy for you to understand I get my three (or four) square meals each day.
Did you know that an unopened cotton flower with its enclosing bracts is called a square? I’m looking up bracts and so can you. Actually, don’t bother unless you want to just get away from this posting …. are you still awake?
Our presidential campaign is fictitious. On the one hand, a policy wonk is having a difficult time connecting with enough voters to vanquish the least qualified major party candidate ever. A quarter of century of being The New York Times’s pin cushion along with her shortcomings may just be too much baggage. Too bad 140Characters’s baggage continues to stay in storage beyond media scrutiny.
140Characters’s Jurassic Age outlooks and orange square head should have been enough to eliminate him during the primaries. We know he is not as fearsome as a T-Rex. Just look at the video of when he thought he was being shot at. He looked like Gale Sayers as he quickly changed directions. Despite his outreach to the black community (from white neighborhoods and a virtually empty black church where only the like-minded were allowed to enter), since he might be offended, I’ll change the athlete he reminded me of to Crazylegs Hirsch.
T-Rex meet T-rump. His campaign is as ossified as you. No mad scientist can transform T-rump into anything resembling a man with presidential demeanor and capabilities. Just like man continually foils you in all those Jurassic Park movies, T-rump continues to foil the American public in his fictional campaign. But, his handlers have created an alternate world where the old T-rump has ceased to exist.
Tax return disclosure — not happening. Making whole all the small businesses 140Characters cheated — not happening. Admitting our president is an American did happen — after five years of birther fictionalization. His promise not to lie (again) to the American people — broken how many times since? Colin Powell calling him a disgrace — did happen. Credible policy with supporting cost and data — won’t happen. And, can you believe a fellow billionaire calling him out to the tune of ten million dollars? And, in this alternate world, none of this matters.
Despite a fictional campaign based on a proliferation of petty name calling, getting elected — might happen. And the new societal program for the American people will be “No Square Deal.” 140Characters is too square to be allowed into the inner sanctuaries of other billionaires. Look how far he had to lower himself to find a club where he was acceptable. The Alt-Right Society Emporium took him in.
Sunday, I worked my first volunteer shift for the Clinton campaign.