Beau Elliot
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Then one day, the Sun rose in the west, and everybody’s shadow was somehow different.

“Hey, dude, you’re standing on my shadow,” some random dude told me.

“No, I’m not trumping your shadow,” I said in that familiar, jocular, bro-like way. “Your shadow’s going in the wrong direction.”

Things could have gone south from there, but luckily, the Sun had moved to the north, and our shadows went south instead. So we decided to repair to a local watering hole noted for its familiar, jocular, bro-like ways and catch the Cubs’ game.

“It’s all OK,” President Trump said later that evening on the news. “It’s all alright (ignoring the correct spelling on the Teleprompter, because when you’re president, who needs spelling). “The Sun rising in the east was bad for the light in my casinos, so I banned it from rising anywhere but in the west. Better for my casinos, worse for bettors, better for America. You can find a mention of that, media Jacks, in Two Corinthians.”

Then I woke up. I didn’t think the Trumpster still owned any casinos, I said to the cat. Something about bankruptcies and stock deals and ownership whatchmacallits; way too much like Three-Card Monte.

But the cat just stared at her empty food bowl. Cats. Sun rises in the West, and all they can think about is food.

Well, at least I didn’t dream about Ammon Bundy, I said. Who? the cat said. I think. I was still kind of sleepy.

You know, Ammon Bundy, one of the leaders of the right-wing militants who took over some wildlife refuge in Oregon — why is it, by the way, if the perps are white, they’re never called terrorists?

And why did they take over a wildlife refuge in the first place? They didn’t think there was enough wildlife there?

The great thing about Ammon Bundy is that he hates the federal government so much that in 2010, he took out a federal government loan for $530,000 to aid his Nevada business. Now, that’s deep-down hate.

The cat just stared at the empty food bowl.

But today’s the day, I said. No, not Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is just a movie. FilmScene is screeening a Groundhog Day marathon today, I hear through the grapevine — or rather, through the Scene-vine, because, let’s face it, grapevines are rather withered and dormant this time of year. Kind of like the rest of us.

You have to wonder what a groundhog marathon would look like. Kind of slow, I’d imagine. It’s OK, groundhogs, keep at it, one paw at a time; we’ll check back with you next month. It’s only 26 miles. And change. You can believe in.

No, today is the day of all days that all the presidential candidates and their foofarah, and their fumfarah, and all their other farahs (though not Farrah Fawcett) walk out of their hotels, see their shadows, hustle out of Iowa, and skedaddle off to New Hampshire for six weeks.

Well, OK, one week. It’ll seem like six weeks in New Hampshire.

The cat just stared at the empty food bowl.

Easy enough for you to say, I said. Donald Trump isn’t president just yet, so he hasn’t banned cat food. But wait until he finds out cats are immigrants.