The roller coaster news cycle has been jarring this week. Who better to ride the Beast with than Meat and Tater?
I beat them to the punch and was knocking on their front door yesterday with a pot of coffee. Tater let me in.
"Why do you knock, SJ? Meat just barges right in!"
"Well...you know...I don't want to be rude."
"He doesn't want to get shot."
"O Meat, you wouldn't shoot SJ!"
Probably not now, but there was a time. I'm not sure Tater realizes how much she's changed the old boy. He was once convinced a certain president was going to take his guns and he'd pull the AK from under the couch as soon as he heard steps on the front porch.
But I digress. Let's not dwell on Meat's past. There is so much more interesting past to dwell on this week.
Meat's in a good mood. "Boy SJ, I don't know about you, but Tiger winning the Masters has me thinking maybe things are turning around. All could be right with the world.
You may not believe this, but Meat was a scratch golfer in the 80s. He once drove down to Atlanta and we rode over to Augusta for a Master's practice round. Of course, we got thrown out when Meat spit tobacco juice on the 12th tee. He probably wouldn't have done that if he just hadn't had seven beers by 10:30 in the morning.
"Yeah buddy, I kind of got the same feeling. Seeing old broke down Tiger Woods beating up on the twenty somethings who always talk about dreaming of playing against Tiger. Well here's your nightmare!"
"It figures you two would be hung up on some sports story and double if it's old rich white men sports."
Meat turned to Tater. "Come on honey, it's so big Obummer and Cadet Bonespurs actually agreed on something. Make Tiger Woods Great Again and America will follow!"
"O lord. Y'all can drink that kool aid all you want. When a place like Notre Dame goes up in flames, it's hard to focus on good."
"Don't be hung up on the past Tater!" Meat's plea produced a long, exagerated eye-roll. Tater's eye rolls are so pronounced, you can hear them.
Meat pushed on. "Look at it this way, that is if you can straighten those eyes. Notre Dame is an institution people kind of took for granted. It almost went up in flames and everybody thought it was gone. But it wasn't. It mostly survived the fire and can be fixed."
Meat looked directly at me. "Some might say that's a perfect...what's that word...you know, representation of the good old USA."
I cocked my head. "You mean metaphor?"
"I don't know what you met her for, but it's like our country is on fire and everybody's worried it's going to burn up. But maybe it isn't. Maybe we can put the fire out and rebuild, just like old Notre Dame."
Tater stared at him. I stared at him. We were both speechless for the same reason which would be Meat exhibiting reason.
What a week!