Kevin and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

By BRUCE LOWITT

Kevin went to sleep with votes in his pocket and woke up with votes all over the floor.

When he got out of the bed this morning, as he had the morning before, he tripped on his ego and by mistake he dropped his conscience in the sink with the water running and the drain open.

And he could tell it was going to be another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

At breakfast yesterday, Jim Jordan found a bunch of votes in his bowl. This morning, Byron Donalds found a bunch of votes in his bowl. And both mornings, Kevin found a lot more votes in his bowl, but not enough to satisfy his appetite.

“I think I’ll move to adjourn,” Kevin sighed.

And so he did. (Well, he didn’t, because he would have been shouted down, but somebody did.)

And the Democrats, who were having a second straight wonderful, delightful, magnificent, unified and very good day, smiled at the pathetic, unruly, rebellious, disorderly, MAGA-locked Republicans wallowing in their anarchy and offered them a path toward the way back to respectability.

“If we give you everything you want, everything you’ve dreamed of,” the Democrats said, “will you withdraw your opposition candidate and vote present on the next ballot, or the one after that, or the one after that, so we can end this idiocy, this lunacy, so we can elect Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker of the House – because we know for certain there is no one on your side of the aisle capable of receiving 218 votes – and so we can get back to the government business of governing?”

And the Republicans, after they finished upchucking into their desks at the mere thought of cooperating with anyone not a hidebound nihilist, decided to listen to the Democrats’ offers.

So the party of sensibility offered Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Bobbysox, a full and free pardon for any future criminal charges he might face – but Gaetz said he would agree to the deal only if it included a lifetime ticket to any junior proms he might wish to attend. And the Democrats withdrew their offer.

They offered Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Camouflage, a special exemption allowing her to bring a sidearm into the Capitol – but Boebert said she also wanted carte blanche to carry her Dragunov semiautomatic sniper rifle to her children’s parent-teacher conferences. And the Democrats said no.

They offered Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Whitesheet, fully paid memberships in the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys – but Gosar insisted on being appointed lifelong Imperial Wizard and Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. And the Democrats declined.

And so it went, until the party of sanity and competence realized it couldn’t convince the hostile, spiteful, venomous, malicious rebels to do anything constructive, and so it sat and watched the Republicans devour themselves.

And Kevin hoped that he could move to adjourn once again.

And this time, despite shouting and waving of arms and a big rumpus, he did. And although the meanies who hated him and all that he stood for didn’t get a chance to voice their displeasure for a seventh time, Kevin knew that he had experienced yet another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

When he was a boy, his mother used to tell him, “Some days are like that.”

And today, Kevin knew that tomorrow would be another one, just like that.

*With thanks (or an apology) to Judith Viorst