Debatacle 2008

Two national election debates? Us and that ailing geopolitical gorilla next door? Simultaneously? The situation called for a savagely massive cable hookup, a big bowl of salty snax at one paw, and the TV remote at the other, giving me the power to cover the (in)continent's political circuses at the flick of a claw. Maybe Prozac and beta blockers to cushion my delicate psyche against the inevitable crash...

...two bags of grass, seventy five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicoloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a bowl of Cheezitz, and two dozen amyls. The only thing that worried me were the Cheezitz. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a coyote in the depths of a Cheezitz binge....*

Early on in the verbal thrust and parry, I began to realize the aptness of a rustic expression from back in Alberta, where we coyotes come from: "Slicker 'n liquid pig shit!" A reference as literal as it sounds. Warm and soft and brown as Sarah Palin's eyes, with the heady aroma of Stephen Harper's belated attempts to look like some ordinary nice guy. Suitably aged, it makes adequate fertilizer. Fresh, it renders the hair in your nose unconscious, then dissolves it.

Relief came when I found I could drown out both debates by cramming my mouth full of Cheezitz, crunching loudly, and frenetically flipping in the approved ESI fashion: channelling OCD and ADD in parallel. It was worth the unfortunate fluorescent orange fangs, just to be able to block it all out.

Problem was, after a couple of hours of high speed flipping and chewing, I began to feel a little woozy and dizzy. Maybe I dozed a little. Could've. Images streaming in from the ether north and south of the border fumed, spun and merged into a coyote's worst nightmare. Sarah still had her perky cheerleader chuckle, but her smile had become Steve's twisted grimace. Her eyes had mutated to a cold, calculating ice blue.

I may have hallucinated the lizard tongue. Or not. Whatever. Fear and loathing is alive and well in North America.

* ... with orange-fanged apologies to HST...