Rancid Carpet or the Win-Win of Evil Capitalism
“Sherwood, it is my belief that our bedroom carpet should be reported to the Center for Disease Control,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Our bedroom carpet! Parts of it are crawling. Look.” I hung my head over the edge of our bed and took note of the deteriorating condition of our twenty-year old, wall-to-wall carpeting—parts of it, in fact, appeared to crawl. “Sherwood, I think our carpet may be infectious; put on your swine flu mask.”
He hung his head over the edge of our bed and said, “I’m frightened.”
“Time for a change,” I said.
After discussing the current economic situation, the problem of collapsing civilizations, the pernicious creep of socialism, and the wisdom of buying raw diamonds and burying them in ammunition boxes in the backyard, we felt impressed to have our worn out carpet replaced.
We called Chris the Tile Guy, or we tried. His old number had been disconnected—a sign of the times. I called my contact person to track down Chris the Tile Guy.
“Holly, do you have Chris’ number? We need tile.”
“He’s here,” Holly said.
“What do you mean, ‘He’s there?’”
“He’s here—at our house.” She put Chris on the phone.
I said, “Chris, I want to spend a percentage of my husband’s evil, capitalistic bonus on a new tile floor for our bedroom. When can you do it?”
He said, “Two months ago.”
He was at my house before I hung up the phone.
During the time that Chris the Tile Guy ripped out our old carpet and gave us a beautiful, fresh, gleaming tile floor his grandmother died.
Chris thanked me for my evil, capitalistic business by saying, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you called. You made my week, and because of this job, I’ll have money to help me catch up on my rent and attend my grandma’s funeral.”
I looked at my gleaming new tile floor and said, “Tender mercies all around.”
It was an evil, capitalistic win-win situation. Chris got the business, the government will get the taxes, and I got a new floor that doesn’t make my eyes water.
That is how it is supposed to work—no government officials, no demeaning handouts, no culture of impotent dependency, and no corruption of the new robber barons (unions)—just people doing private, capitalistic business and everybody won, or as my daughter’s Romanian ballet teacher was fond of saying in his thick, Romanian accent, “Not difficult, darling. Not difficult.”
My daughter’s Romanian ballet teacher was a legal immigrant and now a citizen of this country. He’s one of dozens I have met over the years who came to this country (fleeing communistic stagnation and socialistic big-brotherism) for, how did he put it? Oh right, freedom! That was the word.
Twenty million, plus or minus, human beings have NOT lied, cheated, plotted, floated, walked, staggered, crawled, run, snuck, stowed away, and dreamed their way into this country because America sucks. Think about it.
Linda (Visions of Private Jets Dancing in my Head) Zern
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