Go To Bag
By Mark D. Crantz
I’ve got the essentials spread out on the dining room table. I’m down to which essentials I’ll put in the Go To Bag. The medicine is a must-have. Blood pressure tablets, anxiety pills, and I must not forget, the super-duper anxiety pills for the original anxiety pills that aren’t working enough. Then there’s the Post-It note with the hotline number to the 24/7 mental health therapists, who are trained to help save me from the claws of Western medicine. Damn those Flintstone vitamins. That was the gateway drug that got me into this mess…now I have a Go To Bag filled with drugs and no room left over for my superhero underwear.
I’ve decided to go commando. It’s a fresh start. I’ll feel free. Underwear is so restrictive. It’s time to cut loose and live a little. I’m done with American politics. I’m out of here. It’s a long overdue goodbye to the elephants and the donkeys. The country is divided 50/50 on which mascot to go with for the next four years. Who cares. Both animals partied away $8 trillion dollars in their former administrations. The national debt clock spins higher and higher as the elephants and donkeys tramp around the barnyard, baying and braying about fixing the mess with more tariffs or taxing the super-rich, namely, Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg. I have to think they have Go To Bags, but not like mine. Theirs are filled with bearer bonds, not Flintstone vitamins et al.
Meanwhile, back at my dining room table, I’m pouring over a map, deciding on the best route out of here. Yes, readers, I’m using a paper map over Google Maps. It’s more dramatic with the gooseneck lamp’s intensive illumination of the escape route while I’m surrounded by loved ones crying over why my departure is taking so long. “Hey Pop Pop, quit jawing about it. Just go. I’ll look after things. The Porsche is in good hands. Oh, come to think of it, please make another sweep of the house for all your medications. I overheard Grandma talking about hosting a pill party. Ever since she got kicked out of the Red Hat Society, she’s been mad as a hatter about starting a competing group, which she calls the Green Beanies. She says she’ll show those old Red Hat biddies how to party hardy.
I reassure the family that I’ll leave in a quick and efficient manner. I want to make my exit by boat. But I don’t have a boat. I can’t call a friend with a boat because I don’t know any. I’d dash to the marina, but Laguna doesn’t have a marina. My grandkids suggest I take a long walk off a short pier. But Laguna doesn’t have a pier. Well, it did until the late 90s when a storm took it out. As I look out the window at the grandkids securing a banner, “Born Free,” to the Porsche, I think there’s got to be a way. I wave back to the grandkids.
That’s it. The immigrants are coming to shore in droves to secure citizenship. And they’re coming by boat. For a little cash, I’ll make a deal to return a panga boat back to where it came from. Well, I guess that’s it America. I’m out of here. Oh, one last thing. As Ellen DeGeneres, the inappropriately labeled, ‘Queen of Mean’ says, “Be kind to one another.”
Crantz tells the Indy that he would add to Ellen’s words of wisdom with “Or don’t be kind to one another, but expect to end up on the ‘King of Mean’s’ Revenge List sooner or later.
