Reaction to midterms 2022
In 2016 on I-40 near the Houck chapter of the Diné Nation a billboard read Navajos for Trump. The Navajo Times conducted an investigation into the billboard’s claim but could not identify any of the Navajos affiliated with the billboard.
They didn’t exist.
In 2020 I saw a photoshopped version of the billboard that read Dumbass Navajos for Trump making its rounds on Facebook. 2020 and 2021 I worked remotely teaching college courses online from my home in Tuba City.
AZ congressman Tom O’Halleron paid a visit to our Diné College Tuba City campus just before the 2022 midterms; midterm elections not college midterms. Earlier this year he introduced the Diné College Act allocating funds for higher education on the Navajo Nation.
I ended my class early so my students could meet their congressman. He was several classrooms from mine vying for our vote.
I didn’t meet him. I mailed my ballot early. I already voted for him. And my office computer needed attention. It wasn’t working due to years of nonuse during the pandemic. I filled out another IT ticket while my students met their congressman.
The next class I asked my students about Tom O’Halleron’s visit. They said he was very pleasant and personable. They got selfies with him.
Tom O’Halleron lost his race. My office computer shows brief improvement after IT performed some updates but there’re still issues. I hope to have everything up and running to pre-pandemic levels before next semester.
I.
Let my corpse be cocooned in painter’s plastic, my shimmering forever sleeping bag, and laid across a wooden pallet to be hoisted via forklift to the mouth of a giant refrigerator on wheels. Carpenters installed extra shelves. My shelf is frosty from the cold. Ready. Lay me down on my back where most of my lungs remain. There is space around my shoulders. When I die, place two tubs of Haagen Dazs to freeze on each side of my neck. They’ll store safe for my Speaker of the House. Unless hungry polar bears find the mobile mortuary, they’ll store safe.
II.
My governor shall be cleanly shaven and have his hair styled by a mortician in a hazmat suit wielding scissors with her hands covered in purple latex gloves. Her curses are muffled underneath her cloth mask because fog fills her prescription glasses with each breath obstructing her view. She holds her breath long enough to apply blush to each cheek. Just a few brush strokes. The mortician turns away, walks six feet, and removes her cloth mask for an extended exhale. She inhales and exhales several more times. The back of her ill-fitting safety garment faces my governor.
III.
Do not bury my president. Do not nail together two caskets around him and reinforce them with duct tape. When my president dies, cut him in half and put him into two large ovens. Fly his ashes over Mount Rushmore in Marine One. Dump him over Abraham Lincoln’s hard stone brow like lawn trimmings out of black Hefty bags scattering against the propeller’s wind.
