Rip Van "Twinkle"

Let's say your name's Rip Van Twinkle and you've just awakened from an 18-month nap.

I say "Twinkle" because hey, we're here in California, and, well, you know...

And I say "awakened" because I know the English language and how to use it.

Anyhow, when Rip laid down early last year the Federal Minimum Wage was $7.85 an hour.  We were at so-called "full-employment," meaning everyone who wanted a job had a job, and a Big Mac combo cost about $5.99.

Rip just woke up.  And realized he was hungry and needed a burger and some fries.  So Rip hops in his car, which needs gas, and so he fills it up.  For $4.87 a gallon.  Or about a $1.50 more than it was when he lay down for that nap last year.  "What could possibly have happened," he wonders?  

It's even higher, he's now learned, than in San Franpoopco.  Imagine $6.00 a gallon!  Of course, our gas prices are now about $2.50 a gallon higher than in most of the rest of the Country, but that's due to the commie pukes who've done their best to install socialism here in Sacramento, at the very highest levels.

And Joe O'Biden's having stopped our drilling.  No crude, no gas at the pump.  Which means higher prices.  Which it would seem half the country is happy to pay if it meant getting rid of Trump.  No more of those mean Tweets, right?    

Rip also noted the sign as he hit the drive-thru.  "Help Wanted," it states.  "$16.10 An Hour," it blasts!  "Start Today" it proclaims!  And then Rip learns that sign is in front of a McDonalds!  

We have more than 10 million jobs available today, yet the dimbulbs in Gummint have been competing with our businesses by paying our workforce to stay home!  

Did Rip ever imagine when took that nap that he'd have to compete with our Government, the very same Government to which he pays taxes, for his employees?

And then good ol' Rip learns that there's a pandemic upon us, and that there's a couple of things he needs to know.  Desperately.  First, he has to wear a flimsy plastic mask, that doesn't keep out viruses, just to placate the dumbasses at the CDC and the White House who treat masks as their new religion.

(The pore size in the masks are twenty times larger than the size of a virus!)

Second, he needs to get vaccinated.  And I don't care if he's allergic to vaccines, and getting the shot might kill him, he must get it.  Today.  He must get the shot and be able to able to prove it ("Show me your papers!").  The reason is that depending upon where he lives, he just might be shunned.  Considered an "other."  Among the "Unclean."  Made an "outcast."  He may not be able to enter a restaurant, or a government building, or take a ride on a plane, or visit any other public area unless he does.  In fact, many hospitals and universities and airlines and railroads and even the United States Military are firing those of their employees who refuse the vaccine.  Today.  As this is written...

 The "shot" has become the "brass ring."  It's proof that he's "woke."  That he will have joined the Club.  That he's among the cognoscenti.  That he cares desperately about his Fellow Man. 

Wow!, Rip thinks.  All this in one year.  We've lost one-third of our restaurants, half of our movie theaters, nearly all of our oil and gas and coal workers, and many of our police.  Is this progress?  Funny.  The "Progressives" are in charge, it must be... 

Rip sits back and contemplates all that he has witnessed since awakening.  Damn, he says!  All of this has happened under the "Progressives?"  "Forgive me," he says, "stop the world and let me off!  I don't need no more stinkin' progress!"  

So Rip gets his "shot," quietly packs his bags and moves to the Hill Country of Texas and starts a winery.  Where there are no taxes, property is cheap and nobody cares if he wears a mask...  

THE END.