Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Me Who

I was at Tandem, walking out into the parking lot (it was the wrong parking lot and road entirely, but was no place specific). Obama had decided to drop out of the presidential race, and I had been tapped to take his place. I was going over demographics in my head, trying to figure out who I would get for my VP running mate. As I was figuring that I probably couldn't get away with a black woman, I got to my car. My cell phone rang as I was getting in. It was some guy from the Democratic party. He told me they hadn't announced yet, and that my mom was freaking out about the whole thing. I told him to go ahead and announce.

"That will calm her down?" he asked.

"No, but it will smack her in the face with the reality of it enough to shut her up."

Then he said I'd probably have to start wearing suits. I looked down at my t-shirt, black jeans, and chucks and said that I was a Quaker and they would just have to get used to it. By then I was driving out of the parking lot, which they were getting ready to repaint. They had put up traffic cones marking the old lines. I kept hitting the traffic cones, even though I was trying to avoid them. Eventually I got out of the parking lot and came up to the light, where I got in the right hand left turn lane, with a purple, crotch-rocket motorcycle (the rider had a matching helmet) on my left. When the light turns green I have trouble accelerating. I realize I'm in third gear, but before I can shift into first I stall out in the middle of the intersection. I look over and see that the motorcycle next to me has stalled out too. I turn the ignitions, and even though there is no key in the ignition it starts up. I'm still having trouble accelerating. In the street I'm turning onto there is a line of people making a left turn towards me from the parking lot behind Slice of Olde Town (a pizza joint in Gaithersburg). Some of them are pedestrians. Two of them are old, fat white men in leather and facial hair, walking their motorcycles (hogs this time). We manage to maneuver around each other and I pull up at another stop light, the square red brick building of Slice of Olde Town on my right with its windows reflecting the clear blue sky.

As I wake up I'm thinking that the old fat guys with the motorcycles were famous, and I should have recognized them.

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