By John F. Di Leo -
Introduction: Imagine, if you will, an alternate universe in which a confused old man – Joe Buckstop – stumbles into the presidency, and spends his entire term in his basement. Each evening, an aide walks downstairs and serves him his bowl of soup, and engages him in conversation about current events, in a losing effort to keep his mind hale. Tonight's episode is an excerpt from the ongoing series, "Evening Soup with Basement Joe," by John F. Di Leo, a fictional chronicle of the events of 2021, a political satire available in paperback or eBook from Amazon.
"Hey, boss! You ready for your soup?"
"What are you yelling for?"
"Because I'm still on the stairs, boss! If I whispered, you wouldn't hear me!"
"Just bring me my soup!"
"Settle down, boss. I'm working on it…. Okay. Made it… You have too steep a staircase for my bum knee, boss. You need to install an elevator."
"Come on, man! Stop complaining and bring me my soup!"
"It's right here, boss. Here we go. Knoephla soup. You're gonna love it."
"What did you call it again?"
"Knoephla soup, sir. Kind of a German soup. Chicken, carrots, potato, homemade dumplings…"
"I don't see any dumplings."
"These rectangles, boss. They look like thick noodles, but they're dumplings."
"I don't believe it."
"Trust me, boss. I made them. I should know."
"Oh. Well, okay. Are there crackers?"
"Of course, boss. Here you go, everything you need. Soup, napkins, spoons, and your crackers, boss."
"Why does it have a funny name?"
"It's a German soup."
"I don't like the Germans. They make me self-conscious."
"What do you mean, boss?"
"They're so good at everything. They make the best cars, the best machines, they run the best factories. Hate that. Why don't they give somebody else a chance, you know?"
"Did anybody ever tell you that you have the strangest ideas?"
"Huh? What?"
"So anyway, boss, this is a great traditional German chicken soup. I don't make chicken soup often enough, boss."
"Well, then make it more. I don't care."
"My kids are always telling me those 'Why did the chicken cross the road' jokes, so I always feel like I'm tired of chicken, but you know, I was thinking about it, and I realized I'm not tired of chicken, I'm just tired of the chicken jokes. So I'm going to start making it more often."
"Fine with me, as long as it comes with plenty of crackers."
"You know, you sure have issues, boss."
"Your kids tell you jokes?"
"Sure, boss, in a normal family, kids tell their parents jokes. Didn't your kids tell jokes?"
"I don't know. I was on the train."
"Well, mine must have told me thirty different versions of the 'why did the chicken cross the road' jokes over the years. Never knew there were so many."
"Oh, stop talking about roads and let me eat."
"Why? What's the big deal?"
"Oh, they're all whining about the road tax in the spending bill."
"Road tax? You mean the per-mile tax, boss?"
"Yeah. They thought it was buried deep enough, but I guess it wasn't. Somebody found it."
"You know, boss, as long as you bring it up, that is something I'd like to ask about. My brother does a lot of driving for work; he travels every week, and he was telling me he's nervous about that one."
"See, that's what they were saying. People are all nervous about it. They shouldn't be."
"You mean you're not really doing it, boss?"
"No, I mean they weren't supposed to know about it."
"I beg your pardon, boss?"
"Well, see, it was supposed to be buried so it wouldn't be noticed. Then nobody would be nervous. It's become a big obstacle for the bill."
"I'm not sure I understand, boss. Its there a tax in there or not?"
"Come on, man! How hard is it? There's a tax, sure, but it's gradual, see? And it wasn't supposed to be noticed!"
"You know, boss, you're not making any sense at all."
"I don't see why not. Instead of a per-mile tax, we're proposing a study, that's all. Just a study."
"Oh, that's a relief. What's the study on, boss?"
"On how a per-mile tax would work."
"You mean, like by mandatory odometer checks, or installation of monitors or transmitters in the car, or GPS tracking, boss?"
"Well, yeah, I guess. Something like that. The bill just says to experiment on the best way to do it. It's not like we're collecting the tax now! I don't know what they're so upset about!"
"I heard the tax was in the bill. So what's really in there, boss?"
"Just test cases to see what's the best way to do it, that's all!"
"Oh. For how long?"
"Well, we put in a four year test plan. So it's through 2026. Just testing. Just to see what works. That's all. It's not really a nationwide per-mile tax test at all, see? Just a test!"
"Oh. Well, boss, I guess that should be a relief. So what are they going to look for in this test, boss? Is it to gauge public reaction to it, boss?"
"Come on, man! What do we care about public reaction? No point in tracking that. No, it's to see which method works best. Tracking by GPS, tracking a transmitter, having the local towns report it, having the local repair shops track it and report it when people get their… umm… oh, what's that called… when you bring in your car for that service… ummm… oh darn it, come on, you know the thing…"
"Oil changes, boss?"
"Oh, right, oil changes. So yeah, there are lots of ways to do it, and the pilot program is just to evaluate the various options."
"So what's the plan after the pilot program is done, boss?"
"Well, then once the pilot program is done, we'll implement it of course."
"So you mean, you ARE going to tax cars on a per mile basis, boss?"
"Well, of course, why else would we be doing the pilot program?"
"But you said we didn't have to worry!"
"Right, you don't have to worry now. It'll be years before it happens! Unless it isn't, of course."
"What's that?"
"Well, if the pilot program works really well, really quickly, and we can manage the technology on a broad scale right away, then we can do it sooner."
"But you said not to worry!"
"Right! Don't worry! It's not like it's going to be tomorrow!"
"But it's in a few years?"
"Well sure. What would be the point of doing a pilot program if we weren't going to do it? That'd be pretty darned stupid, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, boss. Almost as stupid as people who are dumb enough to think that a political party would institute a pilot program for a massive new tax, if they didn't actually intend to impose that massive new tax at some future point, boss."
"Heh heh. And they call ME the dumb one. Heh heh."
…end of transmission…
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based transportation and trade compliance professional, writer and actor. A one-time political activist and former county chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party, his columns have been published by Illinois Review since 2009.
John's first book, a collection of his short stories about voting fraud originally run in Illinois Review, is available on Amazon under the title "The Tales of Little Pavel."
The first volume of his new fiction series, "Evening Soup with Basement Joe," a political satire, set in a parallel universe not quite identical to the Earth of 2021… in which a confused, crooked old man becomes president, and a young aide brings down his nightly bowl of soup and engages him in conversation, in a losing battle to restrain the onset of dementia. Volume one covers the first ninety days of this strange new world.
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