If you have a lousy sex life, remember:
you can always get screwed in politics.
Posted in Politics on January 11th, 2008
Over on Atlantic Free Press, Stephen Pizzo has posted an article about the current state of the U.S. economy. Mr. Pizzo thinks the economy stinks and will smell worse before it smells better, if in fact it ever does smell better.
I won’t argue. I don’t know enough about economics to argue with anybody who knows enough about economics to write an article about economics. For me, the nicest thing about economics is that lectures on the subject make me vomit an interesting shade of green.
Mr. Pizzo’s article caught my eye because it discusses inflation. In that discussion, Pizzo recalls President Gerald Ford’s moronic, 1975 effort to stem the tide of inflation by urging Americans to wear little red buttons emblazoned with big white letters: “WIN”.
Old farts like me will recall that WIN was an acronym for “Whip Inflation Now.” Young farts probably can’t believe that any president of the United States ever did anything so stupid, but they shouldn’t laugh. After all: they never knew Gerald Ford, and I hear they’re still signing up to go to Iraq.
One good thing about WIN buttons: They were cheap. Mine came as a prize in a sack of potato chips. I remember we were smoking pot and we had the munchies so bad that when my buddy tore the sack open, he pulled a little too hard. The sack came apart and chips flew all over the place. My buddy fought the dog for the big ones. I snatched the WIN button off the floor and consoled myself for the loss of the chips by eating cookies, which were still in a bowl on the table.
We were in college at the time. I wore my new WIN button to school. Imagine the thrill I got when the most beautiful girl in my history class — who had never once in six weeks acknowledged my existence — suddenly developed an interest in me. She sat with me in the cafeteria at lunch. After we ate she took me home with her, where we screwed like a pair of demented weasels all afternoon and evening and far, far into the night.
Next morning I woke up and, of course, reached for the beautiful girl lying next to me.
She did not respond as expected. Instead she evaded my grasp and sat bolt upright on the edge of the bed. Cold as ice, she drilled me with her meanest look. “Get out of here!” she exclaimed. “I’m done with you. I never want to see you again. Go!”
“Why?” I asked. “You were so hot yesterday afternoon and all night last night. I thought you liked me! What is this, all of a sudden?”
“It isn’t ‘all of a sudden,’” she said. “It’s the same now as it was yesterday and last night. I only brought you here because you were wearing that WIN button!”
I was incredulous. “The WIN button? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
Her answer was unanswerable: “I always wanted to fuck a Republican.”
I could have tried to salvage the situation by telling her that I voted for George McGovern. But I didn’t. For one thing, I was afraid she might feel cheated and avenge her loss by yelling “Rape!” For another, I sympathized with her impulse and didn’t want to spoil her triumph.
So that’s how it was: I started out thinking WIN buttons were a particularly stupid joke but ended up thinking they were a pretty good thing. Believe that or else, as it suits you. And thanks, Stephen Pizzo, for the memories.