As told to Ellis Dean
I was watchin’ TV the other night, and I happened to click on to this show. Some guy was talkin’ about how the dinosaurs lived all these millions of years ago, and all of the things they did back then, and I just had to laugh! “Did you say millions of years ago, Mr. Educated Professor of Whatever-You-Call-It?” I said. “How many years of college did it take you to dial that wrong number?”
I mean, come on! Where do these egg heads come up with these things? At a think tank? I’m tryin’ to picture what it must look like at one of these so-called think tanks. I’m picturin’ all these people in their tweed coats with the patches on their sleeves riding their bicycles up to some ivy-covered building, and takin’ their little lunches inside, with the crusts cut off of their little sandwiches. And then they sit there all day in some room full of books, and…think! Can you imagine? Little furrowed foreheads. Pondering things. And about 3:30 in the afternoon, right after nap time, someone decides that the dinosaurs lived half a billion years ago. 260,444,389 years ago to be exact. That was his big accomplishment for the day.
And when he gets home, his wife, who probably doesn’t shave her legs, or his “partner”, or who probably does shave his legs, pour him a glass of some fancy French wine, and asks, “What did you do at the think tank today, Geoffrey.” And of course, he spells it G-e-o-f-f-r-e-y, even though everyone knows you spell it J-e-f-f. And “Geoffrey” — can I just call him “Joffrey”? – says to his “partner” “I thought.”
I wonder how much they pay somebody to think all day? Sounds like a pretty good job to me. Sign me up! A course, where I come from, you have to actually do something before you get paid. I always thought that’s what a job was. Gettin’ paid for doin’ something. But here’s this guy who gets paid for thinkin’ things. That aren’t even true!
It’s all I can do not to call this guy up on the phone and say, “I hate to break it to you, Joffrey, but the dinosaurs couldn’t have lived 20 million years ago, because the world itself isn’t even 5,000 years old yet! I may not be an Einstein with mathematics and all the” calculus this” and “quantum that”, and all their so-called trigonometry. What’s any of that have to do with the price of a new shotgun, I’d like ta know.
But meanwhile, here’s Joffrey, pedalin’ his little bicycle down the street to the think tank. And no matter much thinkin’ they pay him to do, it never occurs to him that he’s payin’ all these taxes to the government! Which is another way of sayin’ socialism. Payin’ taxes to the government, as most of us who don’t get paid to think could tell ya, is socialism. Uh huh. Our friend Joffrey over here is actually a socialist in tweed’s clothing. A socialist, who believes in socialism. Who wants to take all your hard-earned money, and turn America into the United States of Socialism.
You know what a socialist is? A terrorist with a fancy name. Anyone who wants to give all their money to socialist politicians, raise your hands! Hmmm, let’s see, I don’t see any hands in the air. Did you hear that, Mr. Hussein Socialist? Americans don’t want to give your socialist government all their money. I have a few neighbors up here in Alaska who’d dare ya to come and try to take all their money. We do a lot of huntin’ up here, but us Alaskans are self sufficient. There’s elk season an’ duck season an’ bear season an’ wolf season. But we have an expression about socialists who don’t believe in free enterprise. “It’s always open season on politicians.”
As a matter of fact, we abolished taxes in Alaska. Didn’t wanna pay ‘em, an’ we never do. Matter of fact, up here, the government pays us. Every citizen of the great state of Alaska gets a check from the government every year. Because the government works for us. Makes sense to me. Why would I want to pay taxes to a socialist government, when I could have the government paying me? Maybe I’m not smart enough to figure out why I’d actually want to give the socialist government all my money instead of the other way around.
But then, I’m not a socialist. I’m just an old-fashioned housewife who quit her job as governor halfway through so she could drive her kids to the TV shows they’re in. I devote my life to my family. If I’m lucky, I squeeze in a little time tape my own reality show. If I’m really, really lucky, that might include shootin’ wolves from a helicopter. Same as our pioneer forbears did. I don’t “work” at a think tank. We don’t have think tanks in Alaska. But hmmm, we don’t pay any taxes, either!
