Francine retreats into the heat, leaving the house and the mounds of comic books piled by Donald in the living room as he does his yearly reorganization of his collection, and heads for Purgatory. She sweats down the street, and expects to find a relatively empty coffeehouse today. How many people will really want a hot drink on a hot day?
Instead, she finds the coffeehouse packed with people--mostly older, mostly white, mostly grumpy--drinking hot tea. She makes her way to the counter, where Eve is hurriedly serving some patriotic pastry--The Declaration Of Donut, Constitution Cookies, and Washington Cherry Americans (formerly known as Danishes)--to some hungry tea partiers. Eve sees Francine and exhales loudly. "Are you O.K.?" Francine says.
Eve wipes her hands on a towel, and says, "I'm just relieved to see a regular."
"Some of the teabaggers are pretty demanding, huh? I'm surprised Lilith let them have their little meeting here."
"That was my idea. We need the money. Lilith refused to work the meeting but otherwise didn't object. It hasn't been too bad actually. Some of them are quite nice. There were a couple people who asked me if I was Red Chinese, but that's been about it. They seem more intent on debating which presidential candidate they're going to support."
"Huh? Aren't they all going to vote for Paul Lipton? He's the National Tea Party candidate."
"Yes, but some of them don't think he'll win, so they 're considering supporting Dick or Polipo, but mostly Dick. Plus there apparently had been a bit of a scandal when it came out that Lipton didn't really drink tea. He prefers coffee apparently."
"Egads! Speaking of that, can I have a cup of the daily special?"
"Are you sure you don't want some tea? It's 10% off today in honor of the flat tax."
"Have you had any tax protests because of the sales tax yet?"
"Actually, yes. It was almost a riot in here until I rang up the orders as takeout, which doesn't require tax. I suppose I'll have to discount the actual price and pay the sales tax without telling them. That's the cost of doing business, I guess."
"On their way home, are they going to protest the roads those taxes paid for?"
"Ha! People often like the things taxes pay for; they just don't want to pay for them. The fact that governments waste a lot of money complicates things a bit though, as do all the wars, war profiteers, lazy people on welfare, and other bullshit the taxes support. I'd complain publicly about what the government does, but I find it more appealing personally to just cheat on my taxes."
"Clever," Francine glances around the room and almost gets poked in the eye by a flag carried by a man dressed as Uncle Sam, "No, no tea for me. Just coffee please. I might stick around though. This looks to be pretty amusing. I want to see what they're brewing up. Boy, they sure look mad about the national debt. They must be boiling and about to whistle."
Eve starts dispensing coffee into Francine's cup, "Francine?"
"Yes?"
"You can stay, but on one condition."
"What's that?"
"No more tea jokes, please," Eve says, handing Francine her cup of coffee.
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.
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