Politics Before the Apocalypse
The ladies at Jolene’s Gift and Boutique were eating their bag lunches in a corner of the back storeroom they’d converted into a break room. Microwave, coffee maker, mini-fridge and a small TV hooked up to a crummy antenna they’d mounted on the back of the building and run a coaxial hookup thru a window. Since their usual soap opera wasn’t on for another 5 minutes they were watching CNN’s coverage of Trump’s tax returns.
“You imagine losing 900 million dollars?” Alice said, munching her cucumber sandwich. “How many lifetimes would it take to make that much?” Shelly laughed, put her iced tea down and pretended to do the math. “Oh, too many if you mean ours? Maybe with plenty of reincarnations.”
From behind her cup of coffee Katie volunteered, “My Jim could lose that much at the casino in a year too if he had it when he walked in. Heck, he may have lost nearly that already. I sure don’t see a paycheck these days. Goes to the tribe.”
“White man’s guilt,” Alice observed with a smirk.
“Maybe he can write it off as a loss,” Shelly suggested. “Isn’t that what Donald did, gamble and lose?”
“Or a charitable donation to the Indians,” Alice tossed in. A commercial for the Washington Lottery came on with improbable timing, its snappy slogan appearing at the end: You cannot win if you do not play. Katie groaned. “Jim should have that tattooed on his fat ass.”
“More like you cannot lose if you do not play,” Shelly suggested, taking one final gulp of her cold coffee and considered pouring a fresh cup, then decided her stomach was already upset.
“You suppose he really is rich?” Katie asked aloud.
“Jim, you mean?” Alice asked and laughed.
“The rich don’t pay taxes,” Katie muttered, “so I guess he must be rich.”
“And the best part?” Shelly moaned, “ it’s all perfectly legal.”
“He claims he’s the only one who can change the laws because he knows how to use them so brilliantly. Brilliantly, he said,” Katie added bitterly, switching the channel to the Young and the Resentful.
“We must be dumb as rocks,” Alice pronounced. Katie got ready to go back to her register. “I might vote for him, though.”
“Dumber than rocks,” Alice reiterated.
“He got rich, didn’t he? And we’re working for minimum wage.”
Shelly got up too. “And we pay taxes.”
Alice turned off the TV. “Dumb as rocks.”
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Tags: Tax the Poor, Trump and the Art of the Steal, Trump Taxes