Rousting America from a lovely dream about being slowly devoured by a snake, a belching clamor emanating from the nation’s musky back den confirms that President Peepaw is mad at the lady on the TV again. This time it was Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, who apparently said some things that really set Peepaw off—though he couldn’t say exactly what, since he wasn’t even watching. All he knows is that the lady is stupid and he’s pretty sure she had a facelift, and Jesus Christ, now the whole damn house has to hear about it.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” he bellowed into the calm of dawn. “Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”
Peepaw has a rather fractious history with the ladies on the TV, having expressed disgust with their bodily functions, made unwanted sexual advances, and generally belittled them in a manner that many today would find misogynistic and downright reprehensible. “But that’s our Peepaw!” his millions of doting grandkids and Paul Ryan just shrug, explaining that Peepaw comes from a different generation before everyone got all “politically correct,” when being vindictively, disgustingly sexist and using the power of the highest executive office in the land to demean them is just how men behaved, whaddayagonnado. Besides, Peepaw promised to put a nice big tax cut in their birthday cards this year.
Peepaw’s relationship with Brzezinski is a little more personal, with the two having actually been pretty close at one time—close enough that he even volunteered to officiate her wedding to her aforementioned “psycho” co-host Joe Scarborough, a suggestion that was met with the same uncomfortable silence that envelops the national dinner table after every one of his little outbursts. We quietly tell ourselves that it’s just the way he is, and hey, maybe if we stop acknowledging it he’ll finally quiet down and maybe just go golfing for the next three years, and then we can finally get a little peace.
Sometimes we murmur to each other that someone should really take away his phone, but then, no one really acts on it. Peepaw’s new wife once even announced that she thought everyone should stop cyberbullying—a passive-aggressive dig that we hoped might get through to him. Although, she hasn’t really talked about it since.
But so far, nothing’s really changed. So far, we wake up every day to the sound of Peepaw yelling at the TV, and we sit here exchanging pained glances and soft little jokes about how he’s really on a tear today and here we go, and we close our eyes and wait for the snake dream. Oh, that feeling of sliding down, down, down into the snake’s warm gullet as the air closes around us and all becomes silence.
Anyway, Brzezinski replied to Peepaw’s latest outburst with a photo of a Cheerios box “made for little hands.”
Oh boy, that’s really gonna set Peepaw off.