Waiter Worries

On Saturday, Eclair and I picked up Cris from the airport and ended up at PF Chang's for a late lunch.
As I often like to do, I was playing a few rounds of, "How Much Would You Take?" where I asked contestants Cris and Eclair what they'd charge to eat the whole dish of hot mustard or drink an entire bottle of Chinese pepper oil. Cris said she'd want $50 for eating the mustard, which E. and I thought was high.
The waiter, an adorable, young, ex Marine, heard us and offered to eat the mustard for only $2.
Then he said when he was in the military, he snorted a big line of rock salt, squeezed a half lime in his eye and drank a shot of Tabasco, all for only $165. He said his eye was swollen for a week and the salt screwed up his sinuses for quite a while.
Loving his adventurous spirit but sensing a bit of stupidity, I asked him who he planned to vote for in November. He said Bush.
Naturally, I launched into an autioneer-paced denouncement of Bush, but with the waiter being swamped with other patrons, Cris rolling her eyes and Eclair digging her fingers into my thigh, I had to miss an otherwise perfect opportunity to educate a misguided young voter.
Yesterday, Eclair and I shared a long float in her pool on a double-sized raft. The sun felt warm against our skin, and we languished in that cozy stage between sleep and awakeness.
All I kept thinking about was going back to PF Chang's and getting the waiter's e-mail address so I could begin the arduous process of reeducating him about Bush. I didn't mention it to her because I feared she'd think I was politicizing the tender moment we were enjoying.
But that's what we're going to have to do, folks.
We have to ask who and why, and attempt with all our might to gently remind dormant minds just how many ways Bush has fucked America.
We don't have the money to hire actors to portray NYC firefighters so we can stick John Kerry in ads with them in the background.
We don't have puppetmaster Karl Rove in our corners, showing Bush how to pander to the terminally sentimental.
This is a ground war, my friends.
That's why my otherwise adorable Bush lovin' waiter got a 15% tip instead of a 20% tip.
No sense lulling him into a false sense of economic security, eh?