I do upholstery work in Northern Wisconsin (Eagle River). Yesterday I was called to offer some cost estimates for a couple living on their own semi-private lake. This individual has been asking me to their home for many months now, getting to the point of dropping by my home, unannounced, leaving notes on my door about how he is “Still Waiting” (for me to come out for dinner).
The house is far off the beaten path, indeed down a semi-private gravel drive. Turing into his drive, both sides of the entrance are littered with yard signs for Trump/Pence, Sean Duffy, and several other Wisconsin Republicans. Ron Johnson. I considered turning around immediately however as a small businessman I try to keep politics as well as religion out of the conversation. My own yard is not littered with signs for Hillary & Russ for the very reason I know it would turn off my customers.
The man took the time to let me know about the 4000 feet of shoreline he owns on a 35-acre lake, and the 80 acres around it. The house was a huge grand log structure. The privilege was displayed by his insistence on getting into the golf cart to ride from the side of the house about 50 feet to the front of the house.
On one of his docks we look at a sewing issue on the lift canopy. Then, instead of heading out to the other dock he sits down on his bench. Its obvious he is taking the opportunity to say things to me, which I expect will be a mix of Jesus whooey mixed with Clinton Hatred. I’d been dreading this visit. He has called me so many times I programmed his number into my cell so I knew it was him, again. Early on I had him pegged as a lutheran evangelical who had been trying to get me to his home since my first call from him to do some boat seats. Sit me down for dinner and yammer about god crap. I’ve no wish to mix either politics or religion with my small at-home upholstery shop. If I told him I am in fact cincured and tonsured with a gnostic church in Chicago: how would he take that, as heresy?
Anyway, the guy’s wife arrives, suggesting as its 5 o’clock in New York she’s having a cocktail. They both invite me in for cocktails, he having put the remainder of his estimate request out of mind. He had me right where he has wanted me for over a year. Out of some sort of courtesy I agree, maybe just have a beer while we talk about his other sewing needs. He and I sit down in the grand lodge style living room. His wife comes to hand me a Manhattan, along with the non-sequitur “That bitch Hillary” and so the inevitable must devolve. They asked me here, they wear their politics on their shirt sleeves, and they were sitting pretty, about to get me to confirm their own ideas.
Upon several occasions he noted how current I am on events both local and global, asked me how I come across all my information. I tell him he needs to turn away from hate radio and hate TV.
Shockingly unaware of so many of the facts we all know here in the reality-based world, He’s greatly concerned with Hillary’s emails and secret basement server yet blissfully unaware of the 22,000,000 missing Bush admin emails. He does not know who Nigel Farage is. But he and his goodly christian wife were convinced Trump was one of them, speaking to them. As I pressed my case, using facts I have learned from this website and others like Think Progress, Media Matters, Raw Story and Crooks & Liars, I am warned by him that he does kick people out of his house for uttering such blasphemy like how USA Today has declared “Trump Unfit” (He wonders why a paper that has been around 100 years(!) could do such a thing). He standing with his arm pointed to the door as I collect my swatch samples, Manhattan only one sip less than full. He is blustering “WHAT ABOUT BENGHAZI!!!” as I hurry out the door, past his goodly wife who is hanging her head over the kitchen sink, trying to be invisible I think.
So: what about Benghazi? What about all of Hill’s missing personal emails? Once home I embark on a sort of texting/messaging to offer responses using his answering machine. Colin Powell used an AOL account. Bush admin deleted millions of emails. Trump only wants to win, not actually do the job. Mike Pence would take away my new-found right to marry the one I love (a girl can dream can’t she?) Short calls, just a few facts at a time. I could imagine the two of them sitting in the darkening grand room as the shadows press in, listening to my disembodied voice. After perhaps 4 or 5 calls, the answering machine did not engage and I did not have to hear, again, how “May God Bless You and Yours like He has Blessed Us and Ours”.
“Hello Patrick, this is Vilas County Sheriff Jacob Kammerer. The nice (white rich) people here caused me, a public servant, to attend to their telephonic dilemma. Meaning sit by their telephone in the hopes I would ring in just One. More. Time.
I did.
I wanted to mention the embassy bombings during the Bush 43 administration. I wanted to say that ambassador Christopher Steven should probably not have felt as comfie as he did, in a location with minimal security.
Instead, they sicced the cops on me. Now, was I harassing them for no cause, or had they invited this all upon themselves? There had been constant requests from this guy to drive 20 miles out into the sticks to looks at his expensive toys, help rebuild his covers to protect his worldly possessions.
Feeling quite irate, I called the non-emergency line to demand to speak to the captain or lieutenant in charge. Seems he was handing some emergency for the next several hours. He’ll call me back. “When does his shift end?” 6 am.
I feel brushed off. I ask the dispatcher if there is an emergency requiring the head of the department, for the next many hours, how is it they have a deputy with nothing better to do that sit in some rich people’s home waiting for the phone to ring? I do not get a good answer.
What I do get, is the deputy who had answered the phone standing at my own doorstep, with back-up no less, warning me of all kinds of dire things if I persist. “They asked me there” I told them, which seemed to be new info, and both cops toned down a minor amount. I told them I am a taxpayer, and I feel their office has been abused by these rich people who had ulterior motives in trying to get me over for dinner or whatever, for over a year now. Want to turn me onto Jesus, want to find a kindred winger they can share complaints about That Bitch Hillary Clinton. I pointed out to the cop I do not announce my political leanings in my front yard as it would obviously not be good for business. The man & womans house was far down a gravel drive with only two or three residences beyond them so the bounty of yard signs straddling their drive were kind of wasted, besides off-putting to contractors like me just trying to ply my trade. Who were they trying to impress, the two other households further down the gravel drive?
Vilas Co. Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Kammerer threatened me with arrest several times as I told him why I was there in the first place. I did get the impression neither cop liked to hear that they had been used by their betters to sit around and answer their telephone. My loud response to their insistent threats of arrest was I have already done 5 years federal so anything they got is bullshit compared to what I already have been through.
I drove over to the sheriff’s office today to lodge a complaint; no one home on a Sunday, probably off watch the Packers or maybe out on the Cranberry Marsh tours. Important cop duties.
I am still simmering mad, as this is the second time (in 2 years) a wealthy POS has screwed me over, themselves involving the law first, myself explaining to same law how they are being used and abused. They do not appear to appreciate these views.
I didn’t move here, 4 hours away from Madison, to be self-employed. I chased a job, which after 3 god damn days banned me from the property. The only sewing machine operator they could find in over a year, and they don’t even give me the time to settle in. I almost lost my house.
I keep my gay pride flag hanging on the back wall of my garage; only slightly visible to the world outside. I’m with Her but I’m not about to put that in my front yard as most everyone up here are with the orange-faced ferret-wearing shit-gibbon. Do I ever mouth this out loud, like the good christian wife took it upon herself to serve my drink with the curse “That Bitch Hillary” My god, we had not even broached politics when she blurts out this crap.
Tomorrow I will go again to the Sheriff’s Office to log my displeasure with them being used as the royal guard. And not for the first time since I moved here looking for work.
Its a beautiful part of Wisconsin, a bleak preternatural dreamscape. It is full of people missing many teeth, rivalling what I witnessed in my 5 years in West Virginia. Damn that ObamaCare anyway.
I really and truly hate having moved here, and I have a 30 year mortgage with Wells Fargo to deal with before I can bail out for more sensible climes. My house was on the market 3 years before I came along, so a fast sale is not going to happen. Indeed, every time I see my shrink, he ups my anti-depressants. The therapist stopped asking me to return for “venting” sessions, I guess she was feeling my barbs landing too close to her own home. Some professional, huh? When was the last time your therapist said “no further appointment needed”.
/rant