Conventional Wisdom

Welcome to the first annual People Who Don’t Watch the Republican or Democratic Conventions Convention. We have a long list of speakers prepared for day one so let’s get started. Oh, and if you’re peckish, in the back of the VFW hall we have a wide assortment of luncheon meats, Albanian goat’s milk yogurt, durian flavored thumb-print cookies, bitter coffee and watered-down tea.

Now, our first speaker is here to tell us some details of the republican convention which he watched from the comfort of his Loungeman 3000 easy chair while sipping a tallboy of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Please welcome arc welder Gary Melch.

Gary: Yeah, uh, thank you, thanks. It’s nice to see everyone, all  . . . six of you. Uh, I was supposed to fill you in, on, uh, what happened at the, um, convention there. But you see I didn’t actually watch it like I’d planned. After I settled into my chair there and popped open my beer I couldn’t find the remote so I ended up watching that Honey Boo Boo show. I didn’t know she had sisters and they have weird names too. I think one of them is Snickers and another is called Rutabaga and the oldest I believe is Chickenfoot. Anyway I saw maybe three hours of that. By then I was drunk and the show actually started to make sense . . . a little. At least I could understand what they were saying which was frightening.

Thank you Gary, for nothing. Go get yourself a sandwich. Our next speaker watched, hopefully, the Democratic convention and is going to fill us in. Please welcome local cheese log taste tester, Kitty McFiggins.

Kitty: Hello. I was asked to come here today to speak on the Democratic Convention. As far as I know the president spoke, and probably the vice president and maybe some other people. I’m sure the speeches had to do with things that the Democrats believe in and possibly some bad things were said about republicans.

Kitty, it sounds as if you didn’t watch the convention at all.

Kitty: Well, no. You see I was . . . sort of . . . with Gary . . . at the Red Lobster.

All 3 nights?

Kitty: No, just the first one. The next night we went to the United Methodist Church Social, Barn Dance and Covered Dish Spectacular.

And day 3?

Kitty: I’d rather not say.

Gary: We were in my Uncle Munchy’s camper.

Kitty: Gary . . .

Gary: We were naked.

Kitty: GARY!

Gary: I was out of beer but still had a tallboy, if you know what I mean.

Kitty: Oh, Gary.

All right, all right, Get off the stage, both of you. Well, this has been a tremendous waste of time.

Sort of like the conventions.