The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Malcolm was practically ranting down at the Diner the other morning at breakfast for the Flatheads, nothing too out of the ordinary for the car guyz but still … he was positively hair-on-fire. “Hundred, maybe thousands of em! All over New Jersey, what the hell?? UFO’s, drones, nobody knows, nobody cares!”

Fairlane Fred put down his forkful of scrambled and asked “What are you talking about, Malcolm?”

“I’m talking about an invasion, Freddie. I’m talking about … see, this is what I’m talking about. You guys don’t even know what I’m talking about. It’s kept under wraps, under the damn radar. We’re being kept in the dark!”

Little Jimmy said, unperturbed by the pre-dawn outburst, “Well, it IS almost the shortest day of the year, ya know.” Which send Malcolm into another spasm of outburst. The breakfast crowd, seasoned socket wrenchers all, accepted Brenda’s refills, probably hoping she wouldn’t ask Malcom, no need to induce a coronary before the boys had finished their chicken fried steaks, hashbrowns and sides of white toast heavily buttered and slathered with jam from those little plastic coffins.

“Can’t you see?” Malcolm asked. “It’s a conspiracy to hide the truth.” Little Jimmy, back to his eggs, asked “what’s the truth, Malcolm?” “I don’t know. None of us know. That’s the goddamn point!”

From my perch at the corner table, a not so innocent bystander over these many years, it seems like we’ve entered the Age of Anxiety. Climate change, immigration, inflation, Trump, the Deep State, nano-plastic poisoning, the coming Plagues, pick a subject, everything is a conspiracy. Lights over New Jersey, UFO’s in Oregon, nano-trackers in the vaccines. All politics are toxic. The enemy is everywhere except us.

Malcolm finally settled into his biscuits and gravy after sputtering to a stop. He probably figured Big Larry on the grill had doctored it. Who knows, maybe he had ….

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