Had enough?

[Guest guest]

S

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:52:16 -0000

Had enough?

 

 

Had enough?

 

Just imagine it. You're just an average Joe. Maybe you've voted

before, maybe you haven't. You probably have some kinds of opinions

about " the issues, " but chances are you're neither a fundy wingnut

nor a revolutionary communist. You probably don't pay much attention

to politics. Maybe you vote the same way your parents did, or for the

guy who had the better commercial (So and so eats babies? Better not

vote for him...)

 

Anyway, you're walking to work, where you get paid dirt. You're

thinking about your daughter, whose fourth-grade teacher works a

second job as a waitress. It's a hot summer day, and, though you

might not believe the lefties completely, it really does seem to be

getting hotter every year. Your mom has trouble paying for her

medicine. Oh, and you're worried about your younger brother in Iraq,

but you try not to think about that. You probably shrug it all off,

though--that's just the way things are, right?

Eventually, you stop at an intersection and press the little button

to cross. As you do, you glance up and see a little sticker on the

pole. It's simple, black and white, and it just says " Had enough? "

 

You don't really know what it's referring to, and you don't give it

much thought. Eventually, the light turns, and you continue on. You

pass a homeless man in front of McDonalds. Why doesn't he get a job?

you wonder. But then you also remember that, a few years ago, there

weren't any bums in this part of town.

 

Then you step into a liquor store on the corner and get a soda and

some gum. It ends up coming to $3.25, which kind of surprises you. It

also reminds you how much you paid for gas the other day. Was it

always this much?, you wonder, about both.

 

Anyway, you give the Arab-looking guy behind the counter a five and

you get back a dollar and three quarters. You wonder if he sort of

looked at you funny, but, no, he couldn't be, could he? Probably not.

You shake off your vague suspicion and continue on, stuffing the

change back in your wallet. But then the dollar bill catches your eye-

-and, wow, you need to stop at the ATM again--and you noticie

something written next to Washington, who has a sour __expression on

his face. " Had Enough? " is scrawled in blue pen. Huh. You wonder who

wrote it or why, but you think to yourself, " Well...yeah. I guess I

have. " And then you keep walking.

 

A few days later, you're in the supermarket getting groceries. You've

heard that the really cheap ground beef is really some pretty gross

stuff, but you don't think the organic stuff is worth it. You've also

heard that the cows live in some pretty rotten conditions, but, hey,

being ground up isn't much fun either, is it? The price of milk has

gone up again too, you notice. As you're putting a jug of it in your

shopping cart, you notice a little sticker on the handle you hadn't

seen before. It's familiar and, sure enough, it just says " Had

Enough? "

 

Now you're sitting in the airport. You've had to go through security

twice now, and both times they made you take off your shoes. You

complain, but you're informed that The Terror Alert Level Is Orange,

so what you can do? It's always orange, you mutter to yourself.

 

As you're waiting at the gate, you notice a worn paperback copy of

The Da Vinci Code lying on the seat next to you. It doesn't seem to

belong to anyone, and you have a long flight ahead of you, so you

decide to pick it up and read it on the plane.

Now you're in the air, about an hour into the flight--but still only

about a third of the way there. You've gotten about twenty pages into

the book. You turn the page, and there, on page twenty three, is a

post-it note. On it, in a woman's handwriting, is a phrase you're

starting to recognize. " Had Enough? "

 

You turn to the guy next to you, who's staring out the window (you're

in the middle, too bad). You make a noncommittal little laugh-grunt

sound, just loud enough to get his attention. " Hm? " he mutters, with

an audible question mark.

 

" Oh, nothing, " you say, " just these little stickers I keep seeing. "

 

" Ah, " he asks, with a knowing smile, " and have you? Have you had

enough? "

 

You look back on the past week or two, ever since you found that

first little sticker. And, decisively, more decisively than you've

said anything in a long time, you respond, " Yea. I really have. "

 

" Nice to meet you, then, " he says. " I'm a Democrat. And I have too. "

 

* * *

 

When you get off that plane, you've learned a lot. You realize you're

not the only one who thinks that something's wrong with the world. It

isn't anything big, of course, it's just a bunch of little, subtle

things that start to add up. You'd always figured that was just the

way things were. But that guy in the window seat had a lot of things

to say. Things you'd never heard before.

 

You learned that we've spent a grand total of 0 days at terror altert

level green or blue. You'd always sort of had that impression, but

maybe it had never really occurred to you there might be a reason,

more than just coincidence. You found out the Vice President is still

very connected to the company that's handling Iraq's reconstruction

and, now that you mention it, that does seem a little fishy. Your

buddy on the plane informs you that a homeless guy can make more

money begging on the street than he can on minimum wage--and really,

who wants to work at McDonalds anyway? You hear more and more of

these little nuggets of information, and you start to wonder what

else you've been missing.

 

You decide that maybe you'll check out that website he told you

about. What was it called again? Daily something--it started with a

K, but you can't really remember. Daily Katz? Nah, too Jewish...

Daily Kos -- that's it. www.dailykos.com

 

http://www.dailykos.com

 

About a week later, you're back home, picking up your daughter from

school. As you walk her to the car, she notices something written in

chalk on the sidewalk. " Had Enough? "

 

" What does it mean? " she asks you. You don't really know how to

answer right then, so you just keep walking, asking her how her day

was. But in the back of your mind, something clicks. You have had

enough. And you ask yourself, in a mental tone of voice you haven't

used in years, does she really deserve this?

 

And all of a sudden, you've really had enough.

 

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