Ben Sings

A girl came to the door tonight. She was going door-to-door for the AFL-CIO. She had a piece of paper, and she pointed to a section of it. It had a list of things, Health Care, Jobs, Education, a couple of other things. "Are any of these things important to you?" she asked me. What could I say? Warden was a little frantic. I didn't want to talk to this lady, really, but she was walking around knocking on strangers doors in nasty weather conditions because she believed in unions. What could I say? I invited her inside, and offered to make her a Hot Toddy. Economics are confounding to me. The impact of unions within our economic system particularly, and I wanted her to help me understand. She said no, she just wanted my signature and my address and my phone number and aren't these things important to you? I said, is space exploration really worth mortgaging my children's future? "How old are your children?" She had me right where she wanted me, I could tell. "Ben is 12," I said, "And I have to go pick him up from choir practice." We stood there, awkwardly. I like unions, I do. I think I'm moderately progressive, really. I have a contrarian streak sometimes though, I guess. "Curt Jimenez never thinks of himself as being political," I told her. "I admire what you're doing here, I really do. But Curt Jimenez is an independent spirit, and he signs nothing." At that moment, I wished for nothing more than for Ben to have been an actual person. Curt Jimenez was referring to himself in the third person in a conversation, and was questioning his own sanity. She seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. "Listen," I said. "I'm against jobs. I'm especially against good paying jobs, and I'd like for you to get off my stoop!"
This exchange, however mundane, was the highlight of my day. Winter is sucking the life out of me.