Making College Safe Again (Social Satire)

Del Boca - Are We ThereYet? (A Social Satire)

     In early June the Del Boca Gazette broke the story under the banner headline, “ 1 in 5 Del Boca scholars say they were bilked.”    The scholars to whom the article referred were the scores of Del Boca university students attending college in nearby Andromeda city.  Typical was the case of twenty year old Eden Forbes, who remembers going to a tailgate party where she got “blackout drunk”.  The next thing she knew she woke up in a strange bed with three goats, a feral cat, and a bill of sale with a scrawl on it which purported to be her signature.  “I was bilked against my will”, said Forbes, “like, if I was in my right head that’s not something I would do.  I don’t even like cats.”

     The disturbing revelations in the Gazette article electrified Del Boca.  An emergency meeting of the Neighbors and Friends Association was convened to discuss the problem of non-consensual bilking.  Morgana Worth, Andromeda University’s Dean of Student affairs, and Simon Gatsby the Police Chief of Andromeda City, were invited to explain themselves to the good people of Del Boca.

     “We send our kids off to Andromeda,” said Francine Frei, “and what happens?  They get bilked against their will!  What are you people doing to protect our kids!?”

     “Well, it is a difficult problem,” said Morgana Worth, “Everyone knows that bilking is bad, but with the alcoholic haze that hovers over America’s universities today it is sometimes difficult to know when you have a binding contract and when you’ve been bilked.  Much lies in the perception of the contracting parties, and when they are both drunk it is sometimes difficult to sort out intent.”

      “Sounds like you want our kids to stop partying.” said Francine Frei, “The Constitution says they have the right to party.  It guarantees them the right to do whatever they want to do without being hassled.”

      “Well, of course adults and near adults should be free to drink as much as they want, whenever they want, wherever they want,” said Morgana Worth, “but being drunk can place you at greater risk of something bad happening to you.”

      “That just sound like victim bashing.” said Estrellita Charnovsky, “The University needs to make sure that everyone respects each other at all times no matter what condition they are in.  What are we paying you people for anyway?”

     “Well there are some bad people out there who will always take advantage,” interjected Chief Gatsby.

      There was an audible gasp from the assembled crowd.  The clicking of Tweets drowned out every other sound:  “#Chief Gatsby calls People bad.”  “Gatsby thinks we are still living in #20^th century where #the People are the enemy”.  “No bad people.  Just #bad cops.”

     “I mean, I’ve read about such people in history,” the Chief quickly back-peddled, “not that there is anybody bad out there now.  I’m just saying”

     “What are you saying Chief Gatsby,” said Francine Frei.

     “Well, it’s just if you have a big fat old wallet full of cash, or a purse stuffed with cash and credit cards it might not be the best idea to get blackout drunk just on the off chance that one of those ‘bad people’ from the old days might just happen to show up and bilk you.  A fool and her money are soon parted.”

     “I for one,” said Ned Clapp, “can’t waste my time arguing up hypothetical non-existent ‘bad people’.  We have a serious problem here and we need real solutions.  Perhaps the solution is to lower the drinking age to six or seven so young people can learn to drink responsibly before they get to college.”

    Principal Violet Bell, from Del Boca Elementary, perked up at this suggestion.  She thought that wine and cheese should have replaced milk and cookies long ago.

     “I’m not sure I agree with that approach,” said Morgana Worth, “as an educator I think it is more important that younger children learn to wash and dress themselves and learn how to read before they  learn the finer points of beer pong, body shots, and keg stands.  Children need to learn self-discipline and self-restraint.”

     The room erupted in Tweets: “Andromeda U run by #fascists!” “Sieg Heil Andromeda U”      

     Francine Frei tried to calm the crowd and return the conversation to something reasonable and achievable.  “I’m going to recommend that we petition the University and the Mayor to make it mandatory that people wear warning labels, so that our kids will know who to look out for.”

     “Brilliant!” said Ned Clapp, “A scarlet letter B sewn on the front of a garment to signify ‘Bilker’, and maybe ‘CF’ for crypto-fascist,” he said, looking squarely at Morgana Worth.

      When the meeting broke up, the people of Del Boca knew that they had done all THEY could by voting to lower the drinking age and to compel everyone to wear warning labels, but they were not quiet in their minds.  It would probably take intervention by the Federal government to clean up the mess the university and police had made of their children’s lives.

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Grievances (Social Satire)

Del Boca - Are We ThereYet? (A Social Satire)

     Trudy Grassmeade was bombarded by things that offended her.  It started when she stopped for coffee.  Washington, Jackson, Franklin.  Slave owners all.  What were they doing on our money? 

     Trudy carried a great many fives.  She could trust good old “Honest Abe”.  But even he had now fallen under suspicion.  She had recently read what Lincoln had said of a former girlfriend, “I knew she was called an 'old maid,' and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the appellation; but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features, for her skin was too full of fat to permit its contracting in to wrinkles; but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head, that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy, and reached her present bulk in less than thirty five or forty years…”  As a former girlfriend herself (an experience she enjoyed on many occasions including the present one), Trudy could tell that Lincoln didn’t respect women.  She would have to look more closely into his record.  Maybe he didn’t deserve that big marble monument.  

     As Trudy walked down Thomas Jefferson (TJ) Avenue she made a note to ask the Neighbors and Friends Association why they named a street after the sexual harasser of underage girls.  This street should be named after the victim, Sally Hemings, not after someone who belonged on a register of sex offenders.  And then there was St. Anselm’s church.  She knew what was in there.  Stained glass windows depicting Roman soldiers walking cheerfully through the streets of Jerusalem on their way to the Crucifixion.  Roman soldiers!  The Roman Empire was a military tyranny that oppressed people for a thousand years and yet someone in that church thought it was a good idea to put their likenesses in the stained glass windows.  She could never go into a church that had depictions of Roman soldiers in the windows.  The thought made her cringe.  It may have been two thousand years since the Romans burned the ancestral village, but Trudy kept the memory green. Romans belonged in museums, not in church windows. 

     And so it continued as she made her way down TJ Avenue and up Poplar Street, getting angrier and angrier.  There was the post office sporting an American flag.  So militaristic.  All of that “rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air”, stuff.  Why couldn’t the country’s flag convey something more positive?  Maybe happy faces instead of stars, and multi-colored stripes instead of boring red and white.  There was that awful Porky’s Barbecue Pit, which sold sugary drinks that would make children obese.  And here up the street came that poor exploited rooster Machiavelli, who had to work for chicken feed while H.C. Clarke raked in who knew how much money because of Machiavelli’s efforts.  This walk was like Trudy’s own personal march to Calvary (minus the Romans of course).

     Finally she reached the Del Boca Medical Arts Center and the office of her therapist Dr. Humphrey Smothers.

     “I am so angry Doctor Smothers!” Trudy began.

     “Oh, I know, I know,” said the sympathetic Doctor Smothers, “shall we start where we left off last time.  You were telling me how angry you were because Turner Classic Movies had the effrontery to run the movie “The Littlest Rebel”, starring Shirley Temple.

     Trudy began spewing forth in a torrent all of the pent up outrage and anger of the previous week, occasionally interrupted by Dr. Smothers interjecting a sympathetic, “Tell me more,” or “I know, I know.”

     While doing no actual good Dr. Smothers, to his credit, was doing no actual harm.  He was performing the same sort of service that any friend would perform, he was being a good listener.  In his case, of course, he was being very well paid to listen.

     Dr. Smothers knew, that like many other people in Del Boca, Trudy Grassmeade actually enjoyed being wedded to her grievances.  She found comfort, purpose and identity in her righteous indignation.  What Dr. Smothers longed to say was, “Get a grip!  Opinions are like a**holes.  Everyone has one.  Yours are no more valid than anyone else’s !”  But then that would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg.  So instead he said, “Oh, I know, I know.”

      “So you see Doctor Smothers,” said Trudy, “if I am ever to be happy and know peace everyone else in the world is simply going to have to change!”

     “Oh, I know, I know,” said Doctor Smothers, nodding sagely, “but now I see our time is up. Shall we continue next time from the same place?”

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The Washington Speech Writer (Social Satire)

     Norbert Ealy, was a talented young man with a gift for words, and should have been one of Del Boca’s most eligible bachelors.  Unfortunately, Norbert’s talents and gifts did him little good when it came to women, because he suffered from a medical condition known as, “involuntary eye roll.”  Whenever, Norbert heard a falsehood, a half-truth, or even a statement that could not be easily corroborated, his eyes would involuntarily roll.  Thus in the midst of passion, if Norbert said, “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” his eyes would involuntarily roll, since conceivably somewhere in the world there could be a more beautiful woman.  Unreasonably, women accused Norbert of being “the rudest and most sarcastic” man they had ever dated.  When Norbert tried to explain his rather rare condition they called him a “liar”, and he was forced to quickly exit amid a stream of flying books, flower vases, and picture frames.

     Unlucky in love, Norbert was lucky in his professional life, for he was the head speech writer for Congressman Dorrance Ague.  Of course, Norbert’s eyes were constantly rolling given the things that came out of Congressman Ague’s mouth, but his colleagues wrote this off to Norbert’s “coolness”. “Norbert sure doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid,” other speech writers and aides said admiringly.  In the Congressman’s defense, it should be said that most of the words coming out of his mouth (the very words that caused Norbert’s eyes to roll), were, in fact, the words that Norbert had put in the Congressman’s mouth.  No one could make even Dorrance Ague sound positively Churchillian or Reaganesque like Norbert Ealy.  With the insertion of a few “Indeeds” and a rolling cadence, Norbert could turn the dreariest old platitudes into crowd pleasing draughts of inspiration.  A typical speech for the Congressman went something like this.  “We are, Indeed, the American people.  Indeed, we are the people who love Mother (I call my Mother ‘Mom’).  Indeed, we are a great people who love Mom and pie.  Indeed, we love apple pie.  Indeed, we are a great people who love Mom, apple pie….and yes, we are, Indeed, a great people who love, the Flag…the flag that stands for the land we love, Indeed, that land is our home, the land that loves Mom, apple pie and the people of America!”  At this point the crowd was usually on its feet chanting “USA! USA! USA!”

     Had it not been for his unfortunate medical condition, Norbert might actually have been able to take Dorrance Ague’s place in Congress, for Norbert was a talented young man with a gift with words and Dorrance Ague, while amiable, was a dunce.  Of course, it didn’t really matter that Dorrance Ague was a dunce.  He was, after all, only a Congressman, and had once proudly boasted, “I never read any piece of legislation that I ever voted on!”  Dorrance Ague regarded this as good time management.  He knew he didn’t have to waste time reading all of those tedious Bills.  All he had to do was get the word from his primary financial backer the celebrity magician and ventriloquist Selby Ampeter (aka “Selby the Great”) and he would KNOW in his heart how to vote.

     Now normally Dorrance Ague was the easiest man in the world with whom to get along.  But in early January he was tense.  Very tense. 

      “Ealy, Selby the Great is the opening act at the Party’s National Convention in Andromeda City next month and he wants me to give the warm up pitch to his newest magic trick.  This is the biggest speech of my life…you’ve got to pull out all of the stops son…all of the stops.”

      Norbert Ealy knew this was the big one.  All of the Party’s big wigs would be there, not to mention all of the Party’s big donors.  This speech could carry Dorrrance Ague to the VP spot on the national ticket, and who knew, maybe in a few years even beyond.  And Norbert Ealy could be there with him, if he could hit this one out of the ballpark.

     And so on the fateful night Congressman Dorrance Ague said, “My fellow Americans, many in America now-a bed shall think themselves accursed that they were not here with us tonight!  Here, on this historic anniversary month of Rosa Parks’ birthday.  Indeed, on this most historic of Thursdays.  Rosa Parks thought about buses in a new way.  Indeed, what she did on a bus changed everything.  And now, what Selby the Great will do has the potential, Indeed, holds out the promise to future generations of Americans, that all things are Indeed possible in this great land and that if we embrace the old with the innovations of the new we can all move forward, together, to the bright sunlit uplands!  Behold as Selby the Great makes a pig dance and sing for its supper!”

     The entire crowd was on its feet chanting, “Ague! Ague! Ague!”

     Norbert Ealy felt tears in his rolling eyes.

This story is from the "Del Boca" social satire series.

Del Boca - Are We There Yet? (A Social Satire)

Reality is no respecter of delusions, except perhaps in Del Boca, a model American community, struggling to be heard above the din. The days are fully packed as the good people of Del Boca deal with such problems as elitism, education reform, celebrity culture, political correctness, free speech, science, and politics. A social satire about life in our times.