Who, indeed

“Are you going to the fundraiser?”

The fundraiser in question is the political fundraiser for which I recently had done the invites.

“Naw, I don’t think so.”

“You usually don’t go, I know”

“Yeah, I’ve stayed away for those things even since…”

“I know *the campaign*”

“Yeah, I helped *this person* and *that person* but not much else. I’ve been thinking about starting to do more.”

“But who, that’s the question.”

If our conversation were to be part of some written dialog, some editor might say there are holes, some jumps. Trouble is we both know our thoughts, we differ on some things, we’re identical on other things but rarely do we need straight lines to understand each other.

Who? That is the question. The question that slows my actions. Even the politicals I know have their flaws and I’m not talking about small things either. Things like trust issues.

The conversation continued with what’s wrong with everyone.

The conversation is in a type of code, names are replaced with pronouns or ‘you know who’ a type of polite courtesy to protect the guilty. Bad mouthing folks ain’t as bad if you don’t actually speak their name, I guess.

Unfortunately sometimes there are compromises to be made.

…

The party wasn’t totally catered but there were a couple of young girls that were hired to walk around with the appetizers. I was approached with a tray.

“Would you like to try one of these? They are really good.” She spoke with a pronounced Lithuanian accent.

“Would you tell me if they weren’t?”

“Excuse me?”

I was seated, she was standing when she first asked but had now crouched in front of me and seemed to be waiting, eagerly, for me to repeat my foolish question.

I think about just forgetting my question. I try to calculate her reaction. I thought my humor was going to lost on her but I repeated my question as I took the offering.

“No, these really are good” she replied as she forced an uneasy smile.

My humor was lost on the both of us at this point.