The Sacrifices One Makes to Reset the Balance of the Universe

I consider myself to be a regular good person. I care a lot about my friends and family while at the same time still caring about how much time I can ignore all of them and watch crappy TV. I listen when people talk to me when they are making sense. I give thoughtful gifts when I want attention. I love and care for my pets . . . most of the time. I'm one of those normally nice people. So when the forces aligned tonight to put me in the same room as one of the devil's underlings I was unsure that my mere average sized good personness would be enough to balance the cosmic good vs. evil scales. Yes, that's right; when my mom and I ran into Borders earlier tonight to grab two work-related books we were shocked to see none other than Mr. Never Again himself, John "Ashy" Ashcroft!

He and I exchanged a quick glance before he coddled and cuddled another tiny baby patriot with his clammy crazyhands.

My mom stalked between bookcases just to get a quick look at his wrinkly countenance. "He looked at me and squinted like a hawk!" My mom later said of their momentary exchange.

I went into a quiet panic. "I must do something," I thought, "to help the balance and make a point!" I began searching around, grabbing at every vaguely liberally-titled book I could see. "I'll buy every liberal book I can in order to offset the balance of his minimally well-attended book signing. That will affect . . . something. Right?"

I stood tottering at the edge of the line with at least 43 bold statements of my political slant weighing down my tired arms. Was this too much? Could it possibly be worth having these ridiculous comedy hand-on-hips, smirky, sarcastic jokey articles sitting around my apartment just to try to prove something about one person's beliefs vs. the 50 or so glassied-eyed, eager signees'? I dropped the stack of "RepublICKans" and so forth, picked up a compilation of American short stories, and was done with it all.

Take that, Ashy! In the end, I didn't even care enough to buy Garrison Keillor's political rants for $11 to make some point about you. How's them short-pants fittin' ya?