“SANITIZING” AND “SUGARCOATING”
by OPOVV, ©2018
(Aug. 22, 2018) — “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ‘The Pulse of the Nation,’ the one place to get the straight skinny, which is Navy parlance for the facts. Hello, my name is Roving and I’ll be your host for tonight’s show. What we do is hang out on this corner across the street from the railroad station and ask people on their way to the big city what’s on their minds. What do you say we get the show on the road and ask this lady a question or two? Excuse me, Miss, care to answer a question for our viewers at home? My name is Roving and you’re on ‘Pulse.’”
“Oh, yes, I know who you are. You had my husband on last month and he said that he was going to the museum to ‘get mesmerized.’ He never takes me along; all he does is watch the trains go around and around. How boring.”
“Apparently not to him. So you’re retired?”
“Just retired. This is my first week of my life either not working or on vacation.”
“So tell us, what’s your main bug these days?”
“You want the truth or do you want me to sugarcoat it?”
“Maybe you better sugarcoat it; after all, this is a family show and we wouldn’t want to upset the little kiddies, now, would we?”
“I suppose not. Okay, I’ll sanitize my answer so you won’t have to bleep-bleep me; fair enough?”
“Go for it.”
“That girl, the one who went missing in Iowa? They found her dead. The animal that killed her led the cops to where her body was. Why did he have to kill her?”
“Well, think about it: maybe she could jeopardize his continuing collecting Social Security Disability benefits, ever think of that?”
“Well, no, but I think you might have a point there. I mean, with our NAFTA treaty with Mexico we can’t execute any Mexican who kidnaps, tortures, rapes or murders any of us, can we? We send them to prison where they get free medical and dental and when they’re all healthy we send them back so they can come on over again and kidnap, torture, rape and murder another one of us. Am I making any sense?”
“Perfect sense.”
“I wonder how many other women he’s killed or tortured? How many women has he beaten up?”
“Don’t know, but I’m afraid any of his priors are not admissible in a court of law.”
“But what if he’s a serial kidnapper, torturer, rapist and murderer?”
“Then he needs one of two things: either a better diet and our prayers…”
“What’s the other one?”
“A bullet in the head: BANG! End of story; the problem just went away; ‘it’s off the table.’”
“I have a daughter we sent away to college, but we didn’t make the same mistake that father did, the one who was offering the reward?”
“What mistake did he make?”
“Well, now, I don’t know this for sure, but we knew the day would come when Mary — that’s our daughter — would leave the nest one day and as responsible parents it was our duty to prepare our daughter for the real world.”
“Real world?”
“That’s right, not everybody else gets raped. Why, even high school boys can rape their date and if the girl fights back then she could get beaten pretty bad, maybe maimed for life. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I agree; go on.”
“Anyway, for Mary’s 12th birthday we got her a BB gun and Max, that’s my husband, set up a shooting range in the basement for her. It was fun, I mean, Billy — that’s my son — Mary, Max and myself would have shooting contests every Saturday morning, and this went on for years. And then for Mary’s 16th birthday we got her a revolver, a duplicate of the one I’ve been carrying in my purse ever since Max got it for me when he asked me to marry him.”
“How’d that go?”
“Simple. He said, ‘I want you to be my wife but only if you agree to always be able to protect yourself,’ and he handed me my lightweight .38 revolver. I just took the gun, which was my way of saying ‘yes.’ So every Saturday morning Mary would be at the shooting range practicing with her equalizer.”
“Equalizer?”
“Her gun. Then on her 18th birthday we got her a Lifetime Membership in the NRA and we never, not once, ever worried about our daughter’s safety. She’s now a grown woman with a child of her own and that same gun we gave her on her 18th birthday is in her purse and has always gone wherever she’s gone. I’ve never asked her if she ever had to use it but one time she called me, I guess it was around 1:00 in the morning, and all she said was ‘Thanks, mom, for the gun,’ and then she hung up. I’ve asked her about that phone call and all she’s ever said about it was, ‘Don’t worry, Mom, I’m okay.’”
“That’s a pretty good story.”
“Yes, it is, I’m proud to say. So what I was wondering: did that father do everything in his power to teach his daughter to be safe in a dangerous world? I don’t know, but I’ve got a feeling he didn’t, and that’s really sad because he could’ve and his daughter would be alive today and that scum who killed her, he would be the one lying dead in the cornfield. And here’s my train. Nice talking with you.”
“And off she goes. And off we go, so thanks for watching and so, on behalf of the crew, I’ll be wishing each and every one of you a goodnight: Goodnight.
“Let’s grab a couple of burgers: my treat.”
“Respect” (2:27)