“Jesus Christ. We fucking tried, guys,” an exasperated Ghost of Christmas Present told The Humor Weakly over Zoom, “We were up all night haunting all 535 of their selfish asses. They just don’t give a fuck about any of you.”
The three ghosts from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol were hard at work the night of Christmas Eve 2020 well into the morning trying to convince the United States Congress and Senate to fucking do something, anything, to help the America people, but it seems their efforts were in vain.
“We even brought fucking Jacob Marley in to herald our arrival. We weren’t sure that would help as much as with Scrooge since those two were business partners. It’s not like any members of congress knew Jake personally, but we figured all the fucking chain rattling would have made an impact.”
“Yeah, no,” Marley interrupted, “Some of them knew me from the book, but most of them had no idea who I was. Fucking Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania said the chains would help the steel industry. I tried explaining the astral nature of my hellish bonds, but it didn’t sink in. The fucking moron thinks ghost chains are going to bring back steel jobs.”
“I tried showing them Christmases past in their own lives,” said Ghost of Christmas Past, “But it only made things worse. The Republicans just kept saying stuff like, ‘That’s when America was great!’, and trying to use getting huge cash gifts from their wealthy parents as examples of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I know this is beside the point, but I’ve always hated that expression. Originally it was used as an example of something a person can’t do. You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s physically impossible. I mean, not for me. I can fly. Mortals I mean.”
“Ya know, with Scrooge, all it took was showing him two graves; His, and Tiny Tim’s,” said Ghost of Christmas Future, “I don’t want to ignore the work of my colleagues in turning Scrooge’s heart that night. It was a team effort for sure. The stuff they showed him kind of laid the groundwork for that moment, but I think that’s what did it. It was the graves for sure.
But Jesus fucking Christ, it was like a speed round trying to show them all the graves from COVID deaths, and just… nothing. I might as well have been showing them slides from my vacation to Branson. They just didn’t care. Used to be you show a guy one child sized grave and he’d turn his shitty life around. 2020 is fucking wild, y’all.
I even tried showing Mitch McConnell his own grave, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but that expiration date is fast approaching. Have you seen that guy recently? His hands died like three weeks ago.”
“We thought we might get somewhere with the democrats, but no,” said Present, “Nancy Pelosi spent 45 minutes telling me how significant $600 was. When I reminded her you guys weren’t even getting that anymore she told me it was the thought that counts.”
“The democrats made some good points about the Republicans obstructing the process, sure, but they could have done more,” said Marley, “Malinowski? Booker? Throw hands. Punch Lindsey Graham in his fucking face. You’re from New Jersey. Act like it.”
“We’re not miracle workers,” said Past, “We can show people how their actions affect others, but it’s still on them to actually make the right decision. We can’t magically give them empathy.”
“It just seems like none of them are up to the task,” said Present.
“The Squad was pretty cool actually,” interrupted Past.
“Oh yeah, no. We’re not talking about them. They’re all right,” corrected Present, “Elect more people like that and you actually might live to see 2025, right Future?”
“I’ll never tell,” said Future, putting a bony finger up to its… face? It’s hard to see under the hood on a Zoom call.
——
Merry Christmas, everyone but Congress.