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While TITM is on leave, we are posting this guest post from our friend in Puerto Vallarta, Gil Gevins. Gil is a co-owner with his wife Lucy of Lucy’s Cu Cu Cabana in Puerto Vallarta, a must visit if you travel there. You can read some earlier posts by Mr. Gevins at the links below.
A Chicken is a Chicken is a Chicken
My Problem With Republicans by Gil Gevins
Sometimes you have to get these things off your chest. And what better place for a good chest-cleansing than the offices of my new psychiatrist, Dr. Seymour Mendoza Mendoza, Vallarta’s most celebrated therapist.
Dr. Mendoza made me feel right at home, offering me a seat in a big leather chair and personally serving me a cup of fresh-brewed coffee. Then, after some preliminary chitchat, we got down to business.
“In a million words or less,” Dr. Mendoza said with a smile, “tell me what has brought you here today.”
“I can tell you in one word, Dr. Mendoza: Republicans!”
“Republicans? Ah yes. My wife had one, but she had to put it to sleep. It kept making number two on the rug.”
“No, Dr. Mendoza, that’s a Pomeranian. You see, in America, we have two political parties: Democrats and Republicans.”
“You then, I would assume, are a supporter of Democrats?”
“Let me put it this way, doctor. Supposing you had to choose between swallowing a glass of sour milk, or the contents of a toilet bowl at a random gas station. Which would it be?”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Mendoza said with a look of concern, “you had better lay down on the couch.”
“Nice couch,” I said, settling in. “Costco?”
“Naturally. Now, about your Republican neurosis,” the doctor said with his charming smile, “do you believe…”
“You really think I have a neurosis?”
“Absolutely. At the very least. So tell me, please, the nature of your discomfiture with these individuals.”
“I have nothing against them individually, Dr. Mendoza—I mean, not most of them. Republicans can be nice people. Apparently. It’s as a group that they frighten me.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s hard to explain. Try thinking, 1936, men in brown shirts, corrupt clowns driving the bus…”
“Yes, yes, I get the picture. Tell me, do you feel threatened personally?
“Not at all. I mean, look at me—I’m a white male senior citizen. They think I’m on their side!”
“Well, then, why do you take all this so personally?”
“Doctor Mendoza, if you saw policemen grabbing crying children out of their parents’ arms, wouldn’t you take it personally?”
“My feelings are not the issue here.”
“All I’m saying, doctor, is, how am I supposed to feel? Like those little kids deserved to be ripped from their parents arms by perfect strangers? And put in cages! Cages, Dr. Mendoza! Did their parents deserve this, just because they wanted a better life for their family? Sure, it might have been illegal. But who were they hurting? You don’t treat good honest people that way! It’s deplorable! It’s…”
“No need to shout. I understand what you are saying, though I feel there must be something deeper involved, an early formative trauma. Something involving your mother, perhaps.”
“No, doctor this is not about toilet training or Oedipus or any of that Freudian crap. The real reason I’m here? They’re starting to come out of the woodworks!”
“Really?” Dr. Mendoza said, his eyes alight. “Please, continue.”
“It’s my column, doctor, in the newspaper. I have this neurotic—I guess that’s what it is—I have this neurotic compulsion, every time I write a column, to say something like ‘…the peanut butter was so hard you could’ve cracked Dick Cheney’s heart with it.’”
To my surprise, Dr. Mendoza began to laugh. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I found that quite humorous. The story was about scuba-diving, if I recall.”
“You read it?”
“I read all your stories. I don’t understand some of the cultural allusions, but I find your column wonderfully entertaining. Also, it’s good for my English. You were telling me that your problem was…”
“Monday morning, this frightening woman from North Dakota marches into the store. An enormous woman, with arms like Popeye and a badly receding forehead. She could have made short work of me, doctor, let me tell you.”
“But you’re a man, and you seem reasonably…”
“I’m older (and feebler) than I look, Dr. Mendoza. Anyway, this woman was extremely angry. She stalks up to my desk and asks me if I write the column in the paper.”
“Why didn’t you lie?”
“Hadn’t had my coffee yet. When I said yes, she launches into this tirade about how she voted for Trump, and she loves Mexico, and she’s a republican, and she does not like me insulting her by calling republicans ‘morons’, etc., etc. Dr. Mendoza, I was terrified. For all I knew she was packing heat. And like I say, I’m way too old for this kind…”
“Aha! So, here is a case where you do feel threatened personally!”
“Damn right! I was so scared all I could say was, ‘Lady, how can you complain about me insulting generic republicans when your Great Orange Blunder insults real people every day: Minorities. Women. Victims of Natural Disasters. Disabled people. Even entire continents!”
“I read that article,” Dr. Mendoza said. “It was quite obvious you were not being serious. Only a person of limited intellectual ca-pa-ci-ty…could think…”
“Dr. Mendoza, are you all right?”
“Yes, I am fine. It’s just that, suddenly, it occurs to me that your hypothetical neurosis might in fact be a Menninger-Strauss Class III Phobia.”
“Oh, my God! Is that worse than a neurosis?”
“Immeasurably! This incident with the woman from South Dakota—was it the only one?”
“No. There was another woman, and then, two weeks later a man standing in the doorway just starts yelling at me.”
“What was he yelling?”
“He kept calling me a ‘lying liberal’. He wouldn’t say what I was lying about, and he didn’t speak English very well. I assumed it was just another offended moron. Then he broke a valuable candle-stick and ran away.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Well. Our hour is almost up. I am going to prescribe you a combination of Xanax, Prozac and Bigmac. Also, stay hydrated, get plenty of rest, and for God’s sake, stay away from those screwy republicans!”
Gil Gevins is the author of five hilarious books, including the classic, PUERTO VALLARTA ON 49 BRAIN CELLS A DAY; and his latest laugh-fest, 1967: THE AUTUMN OF POST-COITAL DESPAIR. All of Gil’s books are available on Amazon, both as E-Books, and in paperback.
Great read with great humor.
“Let me put it this way, doctor. Supposing you had to choose between swallowing a glass of sour milk, or the contents of a toilet bowl at a random gas station. Which would it be?”
Brilliant!!!