I started with the Tea Party. I figured with all the attention the Occupy Wall Street movement was getting, that perhaps the Tea Party would be feeling jealous and overcompensate. I had hoped, that maybe, there would be some lovely door prizes or somebody serving cocktails, I was sorely disappointed. All I received upon showing up with my sign was several almost imperceptible headnods acknowledging my arrival and a slight parting of the crowd to give me room to stand on the sidewalk.
These guys weren't even trying. There was no hostess with the most-est, no hors d'oeuvres, no cupcakes, donuts or even a stick of gum. Just a overwhelming sense of Dockers and sensible haircuts. Maybe they just needed some motivation. I pulled a forty of Sam Adams (patron saint of the Tea Party) Oktoberfest out of my backpack, shotgunned it, took off my shirt to reveal Obama Sux! painted on my chest, and started pumping my fist to "We're not gonna take it", by Twisted Sister which was now blaring from my iPod powered speakers. "C'mon guys, join in!" Nothing. They were content to sedately protest, and anything other was seen as unbecoming. Eventually the weight of their vanilla stares became to great to bear and I headed out.
The Occupiers appeared to be in a much more jovial mood. I followed the sound of Bob Marley blaring from a beat up boombox to a group of hygienically challenged gentlemen standing on the university sidewalk. They were laughing and yelling about how the man was keeping them down. As I walked up, they eyed me angrily and I realized that I hadn't put my shirt back on. I told them that some Tea Party thugs had jumped me and painted it on me. One guy gave me an understanding nod and said something about how they had given him an anal probe and eaten his cat. One of the other gentlemen explained how only Bob Marley could save me from the evil lizard people. And a third wisely postulated a puddle of puke on my shoes. Just then the homeless shelter van pulled up and asked if they needed a place to stay for the night, and all of my companions boarded the van and disappeared. Thank goodness, those were just crazy homeless guys. For a minute there I was concerned that the 99% was more in dire straits than I had ever imagined.
So I set off down the street to look for the real Occupy Wall Street'ers. But they were nowhere to be found, because they got bored and went home. If I had finished this piece when it was semi-topical, lo these many months ago, it might have ended in a funny manner. I would have said some terrible clever things about the hypocrisy of the OWS and standing for the common man when, let's face it; they hate the common man. But I didn't finish this in November when I should have, and now it just stares at me accusingly when I start up blogger and I guiltily open it up and try to finish it and then give up moments later and run up the stairs crying like a little girl and scream, "I hate you, damn political parties and your street movements, oh how you taunt me so!" and "I wish that I was a real writer", and then I curl into a ball and let my racking sobs lull me to sleep. So. I can either wait for the next incarnation of the OWS, in all their hipster glory. Or I can just publish this pile of nonsensical unedited crap and hope that you, my gentle readers, will get some small level of amusement out of it. Or maybe you'll hate it, but at least then I will have someone to share in my misery with, so that's a win-win situation for me.
Oh, in the end of my story, I was gonna go hang out with the crazy street people, because they were the best of a bad lot. That's some hard hitting political commentary there, huh?! I showed them! Take that you Conservatives and you Liberals and you... other people.
