“I can’t even make my mouth say ‘I told you so’ anymore,” Fat Mack was looking dreamily at what had to be the tallest stack of pancakes I had ever seen on one plate.
“Temporary Hardships”, by Derek Drake, OrlandoAdvocate.com
“How many orders of pancakes is that?” I asked, thinking it absolutely had to be 4 or 5. I slid into our favorite booth and motioned for Shirley to come over.
“What’s it to you?” Mack asked, as maple syrup cascaded over and down the pancake mountain into his plate. I looked over at Little Willie. He shrugged his shoulders before cutting into his steak.
Uncle G looked up from reading the newspaper and nodded to me. “Let the man eat,” he mumbled. It was barely eight o’clock in the morning and already Uncle G was in a mood.
“Before you ask,” Shirley whipped out her order pad and then looked right into my eyes, “we’re out of eggs.” I love this woman. She’s sexy, but it’s more than that. Maybe the word is ‘sultry.’ She looks at me, and I feel like I’m melting on the inside. Her family has owned the neighborhood diner for as long as I can remember, and for almost seven of those years, I’ve been working on getting her to first date me and, more recently, to move in with me. But she’s got that Beyonce thing going on: “If you want it, then you gotta put a ring on it.” So, I’m working on it, and I told her last week it’s gonna be sooner than she thinks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I shook my head. “No eggs? Man! I had scrambled eggs and cheese on my mind all the way over here.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m sitting here eating steak and mashed potatoes instead of steak and eggs,” Willie gestured toward his plate.
“Damn shame.” I hadn’t noticed before. I looked over at Mack. “So is that what you meant by ‘I can’t say I told you so anymore? The price of eggs still going up?”
“Uh, do you want something to eat or not?” Shirley was back to being all business. The diner was packed, after all. I apologized for holding her up. She smiled, took my order, then leaned over and whispered something deliciously nasty in my ear. Before I could say anything, she was gone.
“What did she say?” Mack asked devilishly, pushing a couple of pieces of bacon into his mouth.
I wasn’t telling.
“You ever set your alarm clock, it goes off and you don’t hear it?” Uncle G asked. “That ever happen to you?”
“Not that I can remember,” I said. “Why?”
“That’s what just happened in this country— again,” he said. “The alarm went off, and people got up and walked around, but they didn’t wake up.”
“You’re talking about the funding freeze?” I asked. “You know he rescinded that executive order, right?”
“Wake up, young blood,” Uncle G folded the newspaper and set it down. “Illegal or not, he did it, and the Republican-controlled Congress didn’t say a word. First, that South African Elon Musk says Americans are too stupid to hold engineering jobs, and Trump doesn’t say he’s wrong. Then, that Ramaswamy fool who thinks that white people can’t see that his skin is brown says American culture is mediocre, and Trump doesn’t say he’s wrong. Now, Trump puts a halt to all federal spending with the stroke of a pen, and causes widespread disruption in healthcare, healthcare research, education programs, Medicaid, and Head Start— in everything. And he still has supporters? These people still haven’t woke the f*** up?”
Fat Mack raised his fork and nodded in agreement, and after swallowing a huge mouthful, said:
“Elon Musk warned us. Remember, he said if Donald Trump appointed him to lead the government efficiency efforts, Americans could expect some ‘temporary hardships.’ I just wished I could have grabbed him by the collar and told him: ‘None of us would have to experience any temporary hardships if you billionaire jackasses would just pay your fair share of taxes like everybody else.”
“My thing,” Little Willie jumped in,” is if Trump is so concerned about having the states take care of their own problems, how about giving the states back the taxes they give the federal government? How about that for a radical, reduce-federal-spending idea? But no, the MAGA crowd doesn’t want that because the blue states contribute over 70 percent of the money that the federal government gets. So, if all these red MAGA states had to fend for themselves, they’d be full of starving people running around wearing red MAGA caps.”
Shirley had come back with my food and was listening in.
“You know, guys, I feel you all, but I think that a lot of MAGA Republicans DID wake up and saw that Trump and his billionaire friends don’t give a sh*t them or about anybody else— black, white, brown or blue. I might be wrong, and we might have to keep reminding them of this, but I believe in my heart that both the House and the Senate are going blue in the midterms— because things are going to change in 2026.”
“I think you’re wrong, Shirley,” I said. “Trump once said ‘I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.’ And I think he was right, but we’ll see if Elon Musk was right or not.”
I left it like that as she turned and walked away.
2026.