OFF THE PAGE

OFF THE PAGE

A monthly column that takes us off the page and into the life of Raymond Atkins

By the time you read this, we will be in the final stretch of the 2024 election cycle, and in my role as influencer extraordinaire, I really wanted to provide some political insights to you, but I ran into an unexpected problem when I shared my plans with Mandy. She became as nervous as Donald Trump at a NOW convention, which is to say, nervous indeed, and the next thing I knew, there was a van parked in front of my house, a nondescript white number with black wall tires, “Rules and Standards” lettered down the sides. I didn’t even know we had a Rules and Standards department here at Well Read, but I suppose ignorance is no excuse, and I guess I should start reading my emails.

The doorbell rang, and when I answered, all three of our company censors bundled into my house smiling tight smiles and looking very serious after apparently having driven all night. They came into my study, sat primly, and asked to see the rough draft of my column. I provided each of them with a copy after first throwing a blanket over the stack of Grab Him By The Ballot signs that were piled in the corner, ready to be distributed. They all read it, and then read it again, and then all three of them placed my work face down on the table in front of them.

Censor # 1: Yes. Well. Hmmm.

Ray: You loved it, right?

Censor # 2: We can’t print this.

Ray: Perhaps my good friend Benjamin Franklin here will help you change your minds?

Censor # 3: No.

Ray: But…but…

Censor # 1: It’s just too political. You’ll have to write about something else.

Censor #2: Puppies and kittens always go over big.

Ray: Well, I guess I could write about my Republican cat.

Censor # 3: No. He’s too divisive. We don’t want to offend any Right-wing cats. What else do you have?

Ray: How about I write about a car I once owned?

All Censors (in unison): Perfect!

After they left, I sat down and wrote the following. I guess I got their point, and it’s probably for the best anyway. Folks get too excited when it comes to politics.

We live in a time in which we must be on the lookout for people and institutions who would gull us. If you are unfamiliar with that term, according to Merriam-Webster, the definition of gull is: any of numerous long-winged web-footed aquatic birds. Whoops, wrong one. The one I wanted is: to take advantage of (one who is foolish or unwary). Some notable synonyms for gull include bamboozle, con, snooker, and my favorite, cozen. The thing to remember about being gulled is that it happens to all of us, and that there is no shame in it provided we learn from the experience. Let me give you an example of a world-class gulling I received early in my life.

In 1975 I bought a Ford Pinto. I purchased this car because I was poor and pretty much on foot, and it was cheap, and in my family young men were taught early on to marry good women, vote Democrat, and buy Fords. Ironically, the car I was trading was also a Ford, but I had turned the radio up very loud before I drove it onto the lot so the salesman wouldn’t be able to hear the rod knocking. We made our deal, and he even let me keep the piece of rope that I had tied the passenger-side door closed with, and I found myself the proud owner of a new Ford Pinto.

Unbeknownst to me, however, these little cars were bad to catch fire and blow up when hit from behind, sometimes taking loyal Ford customers with them. By the time I bought mine, Ford was more than aware of the issue but sold it and its tendency to combust to me anyway, but lest ye think that they were doing nothing to address the problem, rest assured that they had a plan in motion.

Every time they sold one, they placed some money in reserve just in case that particular Pinto was one of the explosive ones, and this reserve was there to take care of any legal matters that might arise should the hapless but loyal Ford customer meet his or her demise behind the wheel. I am not making that up. This was really the plan. It was a numbers game, you see, and it was much cheaper for this cornerstone of American industry to pay out the occasional settlement than it was to fix the problem.

So they gulled me. Luckily for me and mine, the Pinto I bought only caught fire once and did not explode at all, perhaps because it was usually in the shop for transmission troubles, and I eventually got rid of the thing before it killed me by trading it in on a Chevy Vega. This was the second-worst gulling I ever got, by the way, but at least it was from a different source, and that is a whole other story for a different time, anyway. At least I was still a Democrat who had a good woman, although we both agreed after a few months in Vega land that perhaps she should pick out the cars in the future, and she has done just that ever since.

The point of the story is that I learned from my gulling, but what if I hadn’t? What if I had doubled-down on the Pinto because I didn’t want to admit I had been wrong? I have this scene in my mind of me and several of my compatriots standing around looking at a burning pile of steel that used to be Pintos. A couple of them are wearing hats with MPGA imprinted on them (Make Pintos Great Again).

MPGA #1: Those Pintos are totally not on fire.

MPGA #2: Totally.

MPGA #3: And even if they were on fire, it would not be their fault.

MPGA #4: Right?

MPGA # 5: Well, what say we go buy some more Pintos? (Agreements all around).

This, of course, could never happen. I mean, people are smarter than that, right?