Everything’s Political.

So, John had his surgery yesterday. He approached it completely unafraid, his only previous surgical adventure being the extraction of his wisdom teeth. It couldn’t be worse than that, right?

Well, an inguinal hernia and wisdom teeth are slightly different on many levels. I mean, I’ve only had three major operations in my life, not including my wisdom teeth, but why listen to me?

We drove to the hospital in silence. I surveyed the landscape, noting which local establishments I would no longer frequent – the local diner, a vet, and two gas stations. I wondered if, perhaps, the owners were comparing presidential elections to a board of supervisors’ election. The difference could easily be seen as analogous to wisdom teeth and hernias. John, my not-so-democrat partner remained silent (he doesn’t call himself a republican because, after all, he voted for Jimmy Carter). I struggled to not break my silence. I wanted to scream – who in their right mind puts ten, or more, political signs in the parking lot of a business? Do they really think that there are no liberal minded people in the neighborhood? Ok, so we are few and far between – but we spend our dollars with more intellig…in a more informed manner. Do I take my parrot to the vet with the 5×10 McCain/Palin sign prominently featured in front of the business sign, or do I drive the extra ten miles to a vet who doesn’t share with his clientele his preference? Hmm. I don’t shop at Walmart because of their political affiliations – and they, unlike small entrepreneurs in a struggling economy, likely won’t miss my money. But I drove without saying a word.

Hospital waiting rooms are interesting places. We weren’t in the emergency room, we were in the outpatient surgical center—you know, a place people PLAN to go.

The first person to catch my eye was the woman in the stars-and-stripes pajamas, with the matching stars-and-stripes visor. Who needs a visor when getting ready for bed? I sat as far from her as possible. She had on two Palin buttons. I had at first considered that she was a patient, but quickly realized that she was, like me, the designated ride for someone and had planned this outfit. I moved to a more distant corner of the room. She didn’t like CNN broadcasting the poll numbers on the TV closest to her and went in search of the remote, which, surprisingly, was given to her. She insisted it was inappropriate to air politically one-sided broadcasts in the public waiting room. Um, ok, honey. She clicked through all of the stations three times before settling happily on the 700 Club. I opened my laptop and tried to not look too liberal.

Sitting in a section, all by herself, was Marie, the woman from New York. I can tell you most of her life story – which I know because she was talking loudly on her cell phone the whole time I was in the waiting room. Everyone in the waiting room knows her mother is a self-centered-narcissistic-bitch who was spoiled by her father and then her husband. Marie told her brother, Tony, that she had been neglected most of her life as she was being neglected now. Her 75 year old mother refused to make the drive from New York City to Richmond to be with her only daughter in her time of need, Marie’s husband was having the same procedure John was. She paused long enough in her phone conversations to shout across the room to the volunteers, demanding that they immediately check on her husband’s condition. Yeah, her mom was a self-centered-narcissistic-bitch, so I guess she came by that honestly. I began playing a computer game.

Last, but not least, to garner my attention was the Ross family. The first three arrived somewhat inconspicuously and took seats at the far end of the room. They were dressed in a way that said rural-fashions-from-Walmart-ten-years-ago. Only one had matching clothes and brushed hair. But there’s lots of that here, picture a sort of Dukes of Hazard caricature: Uncle Jessie, Daisy, Cooter… I focused on my game, I’m building apartments. When I next looked up, stirred out of Simm-dom by some background noise, the Ross family had doubled in size, and was growing. People of all sizes and shapes with the same fashion sense joined their group. It was a family reunion. All told, there were eighteen of them before it was over. Eighteen. Who invites eighteen of their closest family members to their out-patient surgery?

The Ross family, all of them, except the toddler Billy-Joe (really), and Gramps, began watching CNN on the TV closest to them. Barack Obama came up on the screen after a protracted John McCain segment and the apparent family patriarch, Bubba, said, and I quote, “That uppity-n****r.”

Thankfully, it was at that exact moment, John’s surgeon came out to talk to me. Little does he know that he likely saved an entire family from extinction.

Surgery went fine, the anesthesia would cause some short-term memory loss. I drove home reflecting on how challenging it came be to be blue in predominantly red neighborhood—everything becomes politically charged. My reverie was interrupted by John insisting we had to return to the hospital for the clothes he had put in a bag there. I reassured him that we hadn’t left his clothes at the hospital, that indeed he had his clothes on as I drove into the setting sun.

Yes, this is my life.

Tags: Politics, The Satan Series