With today’s news cycle, it becomes tempting to always write something political. Indeed, the subject is overflowing with possibility. On the left, a Crypt Keeper. On the right, a Hitler Crypt Keeper. 2024! Boebert gets caught fondling a paramour’s junk at Beetlejuice. (There is a whole spiel here where I talk about when Beetlejuice turns into the snake, but I will resist. Unlike Boebert.) Even worse, the fondlee was a democrat. Scandal!! None of the Republicans want to pass the budget. A football coach is disrupting the military. Mrs. Crypt Keeper, Pelosi, wants to run again. Freeze, Mitch McConnell! Matt Gaetz is still probably a felonious pursuer of young girls. Hunter Biden’s laptop? Children of thalidomide.

Anyway, I am driving into work the other day and there are dead raccoons strewn across the highway. It’s like some sort of hellish Dali diorama. Particularly if you are a raccoon. The masked creatures lay contorted, brains and innards meandering across the hard asphalt. As I survey this macabre scene I say to myself, why in the hell are raccoons so damn dumb when it comes to crossing the road? It’s a poser that needs answering. After all, they do very well when it comes to getting into someone’s garbage can. After only a few moments of thought they use their wits and dexterous little hand-paws to lift the lid and then frolic with the garbage within. Oh, how they revel in the glory of refuse, eating, rolling, maybe even fornicating in their bonanza of detritus.

Yet, put them near a roadway at night and they turn into wandering simpletons, completely oblivious to the terrible death machines hurtling their direction. Perhaps raccoons merely have a blind spot, an evolutionary defect, that keeps them from understanding the peril that automobiles represent. And, to be fair, can human beings claim to be much better? After all, half of our species still doesn’t understand how vaccines work or how to write down the Netflix password someplace where you can remember it the next time you need it. Jesus Christ, is that annoying! I mean, do I have to keep every password in the entire house? The answer, of course, is a “yes,” and I should have known better than to think otherwise. If I were a raccoon would I, too, be splattered over the road by a half-drunk HVAC worker speeding home from dart league? I’d like to think otherwise.

It is certainly something to ponder. Pondering, sadly, is an activity that is no longer in fashion. For example, I see that Kim Kardashian is a central character in the new American Horror Story. This was not a good choice and just goes to show that everyone, even Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, eventually runs out of ideas. Not to be overly negative, but Kim’s acting is horrendous. Unsurprising, given the fact that she has no discernible skills, sex videos notwithstanding. (Actually, withstanding. Terrible work there as well.) Of course, Murphy and Falchuk are out to sell their show and star power- no matter how ill-gotten- helps the bottom line. Still, there must have been some other star with whom they might have contracted. Glenn Close is still alive. What she lacks in youthful appearance can surely be made up for by her ability to play a menacing female character. Who can forget Fatal Attraction? Brrrrrr. I know I can’t. At least no raccoons were hurt in the filming of that movie. A rabbit got it, but rabbits don’t last long anyway. Every spring my year is filled with hopping bunnies. By late summer, the yard is a rabbit wasteland, eerily silent save for the lip-licking of the resident fox population. Rabbits, you see, are even dumber than raccoons.

But probably not dumber than Lauren Boebert. Though I hear she’s not a bad companion at a show.

It’s better than being run over in the road, anyway.