My grandma and I have taken to having weekly phone forums about politics and the goings-on in the world. Occasionally, we’ll kiki two or three times a week if the political tea is extra hot.

The week you-know-who got you-know-what after months of downplaying a pandemic was an especially great week for not only Grandma and me, but all of us who cuddle in the warm embrace of schadenfreude. When it rained, it poured with that administration and my grandma and I had the galoshes and umbrellas ready to go. We trade political news and hearsay like a small town knitting club discussing the affair the town hussy is having with the married pastor of the local church.

“Now, I saw on the news that they plan on sanitizing the entire White House before Biden gets in there. Did you hear that?” Grandma whispers with the hushed secrecy that the pastor’s wife may pop in at any moment forcing us to reveal what the whole town knows but doesn’t have the heart to tell her.

“I did, Grandma!” I pour more rum into my teacup. None of the knitting club knows I haven’t topped off my tea in at least an hour and am drinking straight rum at this point and will have to be escorted home.

Like always.

It is 10am.

“It probably is for the best that they do that, Grandma.”

“It sure is!! When I heard that I said, “OoooOooo.” Let me pause here to say when my grandma hits that “OoooOooo, ” I know the tea has scalded, honey. “No telling how many germs he put in that White House.”

“ It really is gross. Mmm. Shame. The sheets are probably stained orange too.” I reply.

“His wife… what’s her name? Melanie?”

“Melania.”

“Ok. Her. You don’t think she cleans after him?”

“Well, the rumor is she hardly even stays there.”

“But she’s the President’s wife!”

“Yeah, but they say she is really only there for the money.”

“Mm! Mmm! Mmmm!”

We are the Statler and Waldorf of political gossip.

—-

My mom cornered me as I was making spaghetti for breakfast one morning. It’s important to note here that I usually eat breakfast around 11 or 11:30. I believe you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

My body, my choice.

These types of responsible decisions are why I live at home.

“Grandma, insulted me the other day!”

My attention was had. If Grandma felt a wig needed to be snatched, it had to be good.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She asked me a question about politics and before I could even try to answer she said, ‘Oh, never mind. I can’t talk to you. You don’t follow the news. I’m going to talk to Pharra about this’ and that was the end of the conversation!”

—-

The other day, my grandma left a voicemail:

“Hello, Pharra. It’s Grandma. I need you to go online and look up ‘tax evasion.’ Bye.”

Dios! What a cliffhanger. My fingers could not dial her number quick enough.

“Hello, Grandma.”

“Did you get my voicemail?”

“I did… what exactly do you want to know about tax evasion?”

“I want to see how to get Donald Trump in prison! I heard on the news that he might be guilty of tax evasion so I needed to see what exactly tax evasion is all about because HE. NEEDS. TO. GO. TO. PRISON!”

Another voicemail:

“Hello, Pharra. It’s Grandma. Give me a call back when you can. I heard Trump is coming to Georgia and bringing the Coronavirus with him.”

I immediately returned the call.

“Hello, Grandma.”

“Hello, Pharra. Now, I just heard that Trump is coming to Georgia to do one of his rallies. Did you hear that?”

“I did. He—”

“OoooOooo! He can’t come down here spreading the Coronavirus! We already have enough.”

“Well, he is the president—”

“We need to write a letter to him and tell him not to come down here bringing the Coronavirus! Can you write him this afternoon? Just say, ‘That’s ok. You don’t need to come. You can stay in the White House.’”

She was serious. I briefly considered it. Then, I recalled it was highly unlikely that he can even read.

My grandma is 90. She has seen and lived through many of America’s greatest and most shameful historical events. She’s from an era when people actually pretended to have a decorum of respect for politicians instead of having one hand in a bag of corn chips and the other wildly plotting a kidnapping of their governor because she asked them to wear a mask in public during an international pandemic. History has never known oppression as stifling as being asked to wear a mask in public.

Just ask any woman or person of color.

There was a time when people weren’t privy to the scams of politicians and believed their elected officials truly cared about doing something for the people. You could pop over to a town hall and chat with politicians face to face. Of course, back then the odds of being shot at or having a shoe thrown at you by an angry citizen were much lower.

**Knock knock**

“Heeeey! President Roosevelt. How’s it going, bud?”

“Good evening and God Bless America. How are you… uh… who are you? There are so many citizens the mind goes blank sometimes.”

“I’m Generic White Man’s Name­­ .”

“Not sure I recall…”

“I’m one of the 12 people that lives in Montana.”

“Ah yes! Social security number 138806394! How are you?”

“I’m good, Pres. Was just taking the wife and kids on a tour through our nation’s great capital and thought I’d pop in. Seeing as how this is the ‘People’s House’ and everything.”

“Sure. Sure.”

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“We can talk out here.”

Generic White Man’s Name stretches his neck to look over the President’s shoulder and marvel at the spectacle of the most important house in the entire country. He notices a piece of art hanging on the wall. It’s a nude painting of Thomas Jefferson’s slave mistress painted by the former president himself.

“What’s that?” He points a blue collar working man’s dirt-under-the-nails finger past the President who struggles not to appear too repulsed.

“Oh. Uh, just a painting.” The President pulls the door closer to block Generic White Man’s Name and his view of the work of art. It was never meant to be viewed by the public. Generic White Man’s Name is far too uncouth and frankly, poor to have even seen this painting. An embarrassing mistake.

“It’s ugly. I don’t like it. Take it down.”

“But—”

“Shh! My tax payer dollars… ‘People’s House.’”

“Right.” The President sighs.

“Hey, listen. There was an ulterior motive to this visit.”

“It usually is. What do you need? Tax refund? If you’re here because you want to take a second wife, I can’t help you. One vageen per peen. Them’s the laws. I hear something might be starting up in Utah if you’re interested but otherwise you’ll just need to take a mistress like the rest of us.”

“So you know that World War II? Not gonna work for me.”

“The entire war?”

“No! That’s fine. Fuck the Nazis. Got a Jewish wife myself actually. She wants the kids to celebrate Hannukah this year but I’m like babe, we just got out of the Great Depression and now you want to depress the kids even more and have them spin dreidels and eat stale crackers with parsley for eight nights instead of opening presents from an imaginary figurehead who physically couldn’t endure the strain of delivering presents to the world’s children in one night even if he was real? Not to mention the psychological crush when we one day reveal the truth of his existence? You really want to say your eight nights of being thankful about some miracle oil are better than our one night celebrating the birth of a man that wasn’t actually even born in the winter and has nothing to do with Santa Claus? HAHA!”

“That’s a bit insensitive.”

“That’s beside the point. I mean I don’t want to go fight. I have this whole thing about getting blown up or shot. It doesn’t work for me.”

“It’s an honor to fight for your country’s freedoms, social security number 138806394. You don’t want to die for your country, young man?”

“…No?”

“Ok! Well, that’s understandable I guess. You’re excused. We’ll say you have bone spurs or something.”

“Great! Thanks, Pres! So glad we can just pop in whenever we want and air our grievances. God Bless the U.S.A!”

Then, they both turn to the camera as a bald eagle squawks overhead dropping fireworks as it flies away and tanks driven by baked apple pies roll across the lawn of the White House with the tune of The Star Spangled Banner ringing from the tanks’ speakers like an ice cream truck summoning future diabetics.

This is what they don’t teach you in the history books.

I was homeschooled. 

—

Talking political shop with my grandma has taught me that, we all love to watch a train wreck. Having a communal sense of “at least we aren’t those fools over there” is age-defying.

“Hello, Grandma.”

“Hello, Pharra. Did you see they impeached him? Again! We had another good day today.”

“We definitely did.”

“Wait a minute. I’m getting another call… Oh, it’s just your mom. She can wait. Run and tell her we’re talking right now and I’ll have to call her later. It’s too much going on.”

I shout the message to my mom. I’m a great grandchild but I’m not about to run myself anywhere when I have a voice perfectly capable of reaching the upper level of the home.

My mom shouts down, “Tell her I have started watching the news too and to stop ignoring my calls!”