There's Only One of Me

And I finally wrote something.

There’s Only One of Me

It’s been a while since I actually sat down to write. For sure, I’ve experienced the pressure placed on my neck by habit, by want and by need, but I’ve resisted. I know why, and I’ll share. It’s a great big world out there, Substack is growing and there are already too many opinions being expressed. A lot of them, expressed with eloquence. Or at least the pieces are written on subjects that matter. Does that mean I can’t do that?

Certainly not. But will I? Probably not.

I’m not a great spectator, either. I’ll read your stuff but probably won’t agree with all of it, and then I’ll comment, and the next thing you know I’m getting slashed-at by people who adore their conspiracies and who hate dissent; blocked, by some of the more sensitive “writers” on here, and every once in a while, someone replies with a valid point, that I can appreciate. Bottom line: All of that takes time. Time when I could be writing.

But you know, I’m only one guy. I’m a man with many responsibilities, none of them taken lightly. I used to be retired, but now, I work. This was something that was coming regardless of who became President, although the outgoing dude made it happen a lot sooner, and with debt attached. With that revelation, it may appear that I’m a bad planner. I suppose there’s truth to that, although I’m not as bad as I may seem. I had a retirement nest egg, and I inherited, too. The drain cock opened when I began taking in strays and feeding animals. Then, the green new deal and bidenflation hit, and the drain cock disappeared altogether. There’s a gaping hole in the bucket.

So, life has once again taken an all-too-familiar turn. There’s so much going on that I have to remind myself that I’m an old man now, and can’t really deal with it all. But, can’t I?

Well, yes. I can.

So my car, once taken for granted because it always started and drove and only sipped gas, is all apart in my shop at home. The throw-out bearing fragmented on its last trip home and tried to tell me it wouldn’t complete the trip. But it did make it, and only moved from its parking place to the shop since. It was all of three years ago that it started to make an unhealthy noise in there, and my mechanic quoted me just over a thousand dollars to remove the transmission and replace that bearing. At the time, he remarked, “I can hardly hear it. Why don’t you wait until it starts making some noise?”

Well you know, a lot changes in three years. Biden had already been president for a year but I wasn’t out of money, yet. I still wasn’t working and had an extra vehicle, which has since been sold.

Well, now I am out of money. I have a job but my car died on its way home, the price is now two thousand dollars to fix it, and I can’t swing it. So I’m fixing it myself because I can, and without all of the proper tools to do it. And, what am I driving?

My son had a Jeep, and it was just sitting there, in my driveway where he left it. I talked him into letting me drive it, and before the conversations were over, he simply transferred the title so that the liability and the insurance are mine. Hopefully when I stop paying for heating oil in the spring I can pay him too much for it. Why will it be too much?

Jeep owners are hardy people, most of them, and they’re proud to own their Jeeps, regardless of condition. This Jeep is truly a rough specimen, an un-rusted southern reconstruct with grossly-oversized tires. It wanders all over the road if the driver isn’t extremely vigilant, and it possesses a flaw known to Jeep owners as “death wobble.” Consequently it travels at half the speed of an average car because if death wobble strikes, the vehicle must nearly stop for the teeth-rattling, unnerving wobble to stop, an extremely unsettling occurrence in traffic. For that matter the slowness can be unsettling, so I must rely on the patience that very few drivers possess, pick an alternate, less-traveled route to work, and I get my ass the hell off the road as quickly as I can to let other vehicles pass me by.

Needless to say, my mileage is less than half what it was. Travel time went from forty-five minutes one-way to an hour and a half, but pilgrims, I make it. And that’s a great big deal.

If that was all I had on my plate, I’d probably be doing alright. It sure isn’t. Animals don’t stop eating just because the money is slim. At work, I’ve reported a case of abuse because, you can yell and scream-at and abuse me, but not my clients. I won’t stand for it. But management doesn’t believe me because the clients can’t be interviewed, and now I’m “re-training.” It’s a sticky situation and it calls for another, hopefully better job. Just, not right now.

So, my plate is full, and I’m very busy, for an old man. Date? Go out, have a meal, get laid? Hah!

Not happening.

At the end of the day, I’m just one guy. But I do have some icing for on top of this cake, and it sure ain’t butter-cream frosting.

President Trump has proven, once again, that the clock is not moving against him at nearly the speed it moved against his, sorta-predecessor. The man is tireless, and his actions inspire me to keep going, to keep fighting because, I will win. I will work my way through this and I will come out on top.

But consider, all of the awesome actions being taken by him and his appointees are actually reversible, because they are not matters of law. The same group of buttwipes who were appropriating money without oversight, the dinglebrains that make up our Congress, are mostly still there. I don’t wanna hear about a Republican majority, they don’t vote together and cannot be depended-upon to deliver for us. There are still too many of them with pockets full of graft, and lifestyles to match. Those lifestyles now depend on a continuing flow of income from that graft. So, the monumental changes we’re seeing, and often, gloating about, those changes rule only during this administration.

I really hate to turn on the lights so the elephant in the room can be seen.

I just did.

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