Trump,Truth and Time
Jan. 24, 2017
SO I WAS saying to the cat, whose name really is Cat, how upsetting it is that the country’s Human-in-Chief is a liar.
“What do you mean?” Cat said.
“It’s what they’ve been talking about ever since he was inaugurated,” I said. “He makes stuff up and then says it’s the media that spreads mean things about him, like when he called CIA people Nazis, but when he went to Spook headquarters, he told them the media people are always trying to make him look bad.
“Where’d you hear all that?” Cat said.
“It’s what they are talking about on the Ashbrook program right now,” I said, stamping my foot, which is not one of the body parts that makes me seem cute, unlike my incredibly long eye lashes.
As usual, our humans had kept the radio going when they left us alone in our house in Newport, R.I. As I may have mentioned before, perpetual, incessant, constant and continual NPR can get on your nerves after a couple of years. Yes, I said YEARS!!!!
AN EXCEPTION, and I think Cat actually agrees with me, is “On Point,” a discussion and call-in program weekday mornings, hosted by Tom Ashbrook. It has interesting topics, usually about the news, and Tom is one of those moderators who listens to what people are saying.
“They are talking about what, Phoebe?” said Cat, with that infuriating pretend-to-be-oblivious voice he uses when there’s something on the radio that doesn’t make Trump seem qualified to be the president of the street in front of our house, much less president of the United States.
Cat also is very squirrely about his politics, and I suspect he doesn't tell pollsters the truth when they they call and the humans are away (myself, I just hang up).
“Lies, Cat,” I said. “Trump lies.”
“All humans lie,” Cat said.
“They do not.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“How come the Grouchy One tells us that ‘We’ll be back in five minutes’ whenever he and the Nice One go somewhere?”
“He’s just trying to make us feel better by saying they won’t be gone that long,” I said.
“It’s still a lie,” Cat said.
“Is not.”
“Is, too,” Cat sneered. “The Grouchy One thinks that you can’t tell time.”
“Well, he has a point,” I said.
“Look, a lie is a lie," Cat said. "When someone lies, it leaves you hanging. Can't make plans. Can't figure out how to vote. Can't argue. Can't depend on anything. Can't even tell what the hell time of day it is,” Cat snarled. (I should warn you right here that Cat’s language can get pretty wild.)
I COULD TELL that Cat was getting into one of his moods. where he might do something really mean – a sudden swipe of Trumpian claws across my cute, wet nose, for example – so I decided to let the matter drop.
“Maybe we should catch a little shut-eye,” I said, with a yawn. Just the mention of a nap usually overwhelms Cat. Indeed, he headed upstairs for the guest bed, and I climbed onto the couch on the sunporch.
To tell you the truth, Cat and I have it pretty good here. We keep up with the news, thanks to Tom Ashbrook and, we have a lot of nice choices of where to bed down while waiting for the humans to come home.
But it would be a heck of a lot easier to fall asleep if you weren't expecting to see the humans walking through the front door any second. I mean, five minutes shouldn't take that long a time, right?
SO I WAS saying to the cat, whose name really is Cat, how upsetting it is that the country’s Human-in-Chief is a liar.
“What do you mean?” Cat said.
“It’s what they’ve been talking about ever since he was inaugurated,” I said. “He makes stuff up and then says it’s the media that spreads mean things about him, like when he called CIA people Nazis, but when he went to Spook headquarters, he told them the media people are always trying to make him look bad.
“Where’d you hear all that?” Cat said.
“It’s what they are talking about on the Ashbrook program right now,” I said, stamping my foot, which is not one of the body parts that makes me seem cute, unlike my incredibly long eye lashes.
As usual, our humans had kept the radio going when they left us alone in our house in Newport, R.I. As I may have mentioned before, perpetual, incessant, constant and continual NPR can get on your nerves after a couple of years. Yes, I said YEARS!!!!
AN EXCEPTION, and I think Cat actually agrees with me, is “On Point,” a discussion and call-in program weekday mornings, hosted by Tom Ashbrook. It has interesting topics, usually about the news, and Tom is one of those moderators who listens to what people are saying.
“They are talking about what, Phoebe?” said Cat, with that infuriating pretend-to-be-oblivious voice he uses when there’s something on the radio that doesn’t make Trump seem qualified to be the president of the street in front of our house, much less president of the United States.
Cat also is very squirrely about his politics, and I suspect he doesn't tell pollsters the truth when they they call and the humans are away (myself, I just hang up).
“Lies, Cat,” I said. “Trump lies.”
“All humans lie,” Cat said.
“They do not.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“How come the Grouchy One tells us that ‘We’ll be back in five minutes’ whenever he and the Nice One go somewhere?”
“He’s just trying to make us feel better by saying they won’t be gone that long,” I said.
“It’s still a lie,” Cat said.
“Is not.”
“Is, too,” Cat sneered. “The Grouchy One thinks that you can’t tell time.”
“Well, he has a point,” I said.
“Look, a lie is a lie," Cat said. "When someone lies, it leaves you hanging. Can't make plans. Can't figure out how to vote. Can't argue. Can't depend on anything. Can't even tell what the hell time of day it is,” Cat snarled. (I should warn you right here that Cat’s language can get pretty wild.)
I COULD TELL that Cat was getting into one of his moods. where he might do something really mean – a sudden swipe of Trumpian claws across my cute, wet nose, for example – so I decided to let the matter drop.
“Maybe we should catch a little shut-eye,” I said, with a yawn. Just the mention of a nap usually overwhelms Cat. Indeed, he headed upstairs for the guest bed, and I climbed onto the couch on the sunporch.
To tell you the truth, Cat and I have it pretty good here. We keep up with the news, thanks to Tom Ashbrook and, we have a lot of nice choices of where to bed down while waiting for the humans to come home.
But it would be a heck of a lot easier to fall asleep if you weren't expecting to see the humans walking through the front door any second. I mean, five minutes shouldn't take that long a time, right?
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* EDITOR'S NOTE: Phoebe doesn't write every day, in case you're looking Day Four
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