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So someone in this Republican bastion decided to go through an upscale Knoxville neighborhood and abscond with all the John Kerry signs to be seen. Normally, this is politics as usual. But the abductor stepped on the toes of my friend Andre.
Now, Andre isn’t terribly political. In fact, he’s not even a U.S. citizen and can’t vote. The sign was placed there by his girlfriend, bleeding heart Vikki. But the theft of this sign really rubbed Andre the wrong way. He and I are a lot of like. We obsess about the small things, and this was a small thing worth obsessing over.
So Andre went out, secured two more John Kerry signs and put them in his yard, determined to be undaunted by this right-wing sign thief.
But this really brought out the Ho Chi Minh in me. I decided to shift into prankster mode and take John Kerry into captivity each time Andre put him back in the front yard. I made a point of driving by there and grabbing the signs, tossing them in the back of my truck, and stealing away. Andre started mumbling about setting booby traps and resorting to video surveillance.
And then I launched my coup de grace.
With great care and the help of the every devious Herb, I recrafted the Kerry signs in my own image. When Andre went to pick up Vikki at work, I left, planning to get to their house, plant a few Benz for President signs on the front yard and wait on the side porch for Andre to pull in and see them.
But I was dealing with a crafty victim. He knew something was up. Apparently, Vikki had gone over the top telling Andre how amused I was by his sign fever. And he suspected something was up, but couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Although he’d told Vikki he was on his way, he really was hiding out in the house, waiting to catch a sign thief.
I got there, planted my signs and went around to the side porch, where I was talking to Vikki on my cell, wondering why Andre hadn’t arrived yet to get her. That’s when Andre burst out the back door and nabbed me.
When he saw the signs, though, I realized all was not lost. He really got a charge out of it, even if my prank went somewhat awry.
“Related or unrelated, if it was a fact, I knew it. Important or unimportant, whether the amount of coffee grown in Brazil last year, or the weight of Trotsky’s brain, I deal with facts.”