Can't Unsee That

Walking into my local Casey's that is now advertising fuel for $4.19/gallon (Thanks Mr President!), I was planning to get a fountain drink on this very hot day.  As I was walking in, a lady pulled up in her gigantic pickup; I could see that there were a few kids with her.  She jumped out and I noticed she was wearing a football T-shirt from a nearby town; likely she and the kids were in our town for a youth football game.  As I opened the door for her I looked down and noticed on her legs there were two tattoos.  On her right leg was the word F*CK (not asterisked out); on the other leg was the word BIDEN.  Well then.  Classy comes to our little c-store; glad she will pay be paying taxes here on her beer and vapes rather than elsewhere.  

I'm always fascinated by the people who thought that "Let's Go Brandon" was clever.  I say this fully understanding why some people didn't care much for his presidency; he was, after all, painfully mediocre.  While future historians will probably rate him higher than he is now because of the way he kept us from collapsing (for awhile) after Trump 45, there wasn't much more to look at and get excited at.  He was a solid C-.  

Yet my guess is that for this classy lady it wasn't so much that she hated Biden, but that she couldn't stand that her lord and savior was deprived of the presidency for four years.  Not that DJT lost it...that was unthinkable!  Rather, that his rightful place was STOLEN from him.  And Joe Biden, who so unfairly took his place, became the criminal whom she couldn't mention without throwing a vulgar word in front of his name.  

As this woman and her kids continue this ongoing parent-child relationship over the next few years, I wonder how that's gonna go.  Sometimes I have seen a child nuzzle up to a parent and trace the outline of a tattoo with their hand; did this woman's elementary school child learn the word F*CK (again, not asterisked out!) through the tattoo on mommy's leg?  When she goes to her school for a teacher conference, and she's sitting across from her child's teacher who may or may not be some kind of raging liberal, does she feel proud that this teacher will know how much hatred is in her heart?  When she is sitting in church as she does on Easter morning, will she feel a need to modestly cover her legs not to distract men (not that any but the most desperate of men would be attracted to her IMO), but to keep God from striking her down for her vulgarity?  And when she gets old and increasingly infirm, what's going to happen when this woman has a home health aide from a foreign country taking care her of her most personal needs and seeing those words every single day? 

But hey, our classy lady has this tattoo to scream at the world for the next half-century.  I'm guessing that someday another Democrat will join Mediocre Joe on her left leg.  We should all be so proud.  

Abishag the Shunammite, 3000 years later (pt. 2)

Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. So Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established. Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, "Do you come peacefully?" He said, "Peacefully." Then he said, "I have something to say to you." She said, "Speak." He said, "You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel fully expected me to reign. However, the kingdom has turned about and become my brother's, for it was his from the LORD. And now I have one request to make of you; do not refuse me." She said to him, "Speak." And he said, "Please ask King Solomon--he will not refuse you--to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife." Bathsheba said, "Very well; I will speak for you to the king." So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat on his throne and had a seat brought for the king's mother, and she sat on his right. Then she said, "I have one small request to make of you; do not refuse me." And the king said to her, "Make your request, my mother, for I will not refuse you." She said, "Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as his wife." King Solomon answered his mother, "And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my older brother, and on his side are Abiathar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruiah." Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, "God do so to me and more also if this word does not cost Adonijah his life! Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me a house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today." So King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he struck him down, and he died. -1 Kings 2:10-25 ESV

Abishag the Shunammite found herself at a crossroads.  Having seen out the end of her great lord the King, she wondered where the rest of her life might go.  Once upon a time she had found herself in the place of power, fully in control of the world of her lord the King.  All news of the kingdom would be filtered through her, as her role as the Copier meant that his fragile heart would never have to hear about how many of his subjects prayed for his downfall.  Once, he had been a great hero to many; a reality TV star, actor, slumlord, and man about town.  "Perfect and majestic king, you will surely live forever!  Dance with your arms alone, and make the world turn!"  Now, however, his foolishness and incompetence, pushed on by his abject corruption, had turned his people against him.  Sending troops to fight foolish and endless wars based on fantasies he had derived in his head, renaming bodies of water simply to troll his former allies, pilfering his citizens in financial schemes in which he alone made money...his people had had enough.  And so upon his death, some of his people mourned his royal greatness, but most celebrated in the streets drinking strong ales and shooting off fireworks.  

Abishag the Shunammite found herself alone.  How would she provide for herself?  Her once legendary beauty was starting to fade.  The possibility that she would marry the son of the old King had been extinguished when that son foolishly had claimed power for himself and found himself on the wrong end of a sharp sabre upon the command of his younger brother Solomon, known to his pals as the Barron.   She had thrown herself at the new upstart of a king, but sadly he preferred skanky young college girls who were willing to pay exorbitant money for well-named energy drinks.  

Perhaps, Abishag the Shunammite thought, she could make her way much as her old lord had done.  "O lord, your ability to bleed money from others makes me smile."  A friend told her about something called a stablecoal...a perfectly worthless scheme in which she told her friends to buy, buy, buy a lump of coal engraved with a picture on it, and then charged a fee based upon everytime somebody else sold that coal to someone else.  Most of her fellow Israelites realized it was all a scam, even as it had been for the old lord.  But surely there were still gullible people out there.  All she had to do was look for the people still holding onto the past, wearing red turbans that screamed 'Make Israel Great Again!'  You could usually identify those people by seeing chariots propped up on wooden logs in front of their rundown huts, unable to actually go anywhere.  Many of them sat on barren patches of ground and screamed insults against their fellow Israelites...surely, they still believed the old lies.  These fools and their money should be easy pickings.  

But there had to be more, Abishag the Shunammite thought.  Even though she had no discernible skills beyond the ability to fawn over old men, Abishag the Shunammite would make her way.  Perhaps she needed to expand her view even further outward.  Surely there were old kings and tyrants amongst the nations who needed a woman like herself to fawn over them as well!  Even though her looks were fading, her skills at telling shallow men the lies that they wanted to hear were as strong as ever.  "Vladimir, I was a fool for not coming to you for so long.  Your shirtless rides on stallions have brought me ecstatic joy.  I will now serve you forever.   There's nobody like you, my beautiful lord!"  

Oh, the skills of Abishag the Shunammite, so ready to serve her own interests above all else!  May she be praised!  

Abishag the Shunammite, 3000 years later (pt. 1)

Now King David was old and advanced in years. And although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. Therefore his servants said to him, "Let a young woman be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be in his service. Let her lie in your arms, that my lord the king may be warm." So they sought for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The young woman was very beautiful, and she was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not. - 1 Kings 1:1-4 ESV

And Abishag the Shunammite found herself wandering the halls of power.  Once she had been just another bubbly blonde on the local cable TV channel, until the day in which she found herself discovered by the king.  "Oh, I love the King!  He makes my life worth living.  I will follow him all of my days!" was the nightly cry of Abishag the Shunammite.  The king soon hired her away and put her into his service.  Paid a small ransom each month, most of her money went towards making herself attractive to her lord.  "You are my everything" she would write to him in small notes each day.  "You are the greatest king of all time, and will be greater than anybody else that will come, though I cannot imagine the universe continuing without you!"

Day by day Abishag the Shunammite continued to wedge herself into the old king's life.  Her need to be so close to him meant that she would run behind his golf chariot in high heels, and though she was told that there was no room in the limocart taking him back to Mara Slago, she crawled into the trunk to ensure that she could stay near.  "My life was incomplete until I met the King.  Even if I have no other life now, I at least can devote myself to him."  

Her influence continued to increase.  One day while fawning at her lord, she smelled something distasteful.  The old king has pooped his pants right before a important meeting with the Egyptian pharaoh; his constant diet of fried chicken and diet Coke had finally corrupted his digestive system.  How embarrassing, everybody might think.  But Abishag the Shunammite knew that one day this would happen.  In the suitcase she carried around like a sherpa was another wardrobe for the old king.  She quickly pulled him into the bathroom and quickly took off his stained garments.  She wiped the waste from his body, sprayed his body down with Fabreze, and diapered him back up in a matter of moments.  She then dressed him in an identical blue robe with a matching red turban, and got him back to his meeting on time.  "What would the world be without the brilliance of my lord?  I am his willing and faithful slave."

Oh, the goodness of Abishag the Shunammite, so ready to serve the interests of the king!  May she be praised!