A rollicking adventure through your questions, including:
1. man-DAY-mus or MAN-duh-mus?
2. Ketchup on Chicago hot dogs (and people who make stuff like this their personality)
3. The consequences of the House GOP and Tories cycling endlessly through leaders
4. Will we ever return to The Clurb?
BONUS MINICAST: APRIL 2024 MAILBAG | Gin and Tacos
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Video
Old Clara, who hadn't stared at the skies this intensely since that Saturday in 1985 when she was waiting for Molly Hatchet to arrive in Peoria by helicopter, wasn't buying any of this shit about needing "special glasses" to enjoy the great celestial symphony.
When you have retinal callouses the approximate shape, size, and density of a catcher's mitt that's been left out in a field for a couple years, the threat of being "blinded" takes on a different meaning. Sure, Old Clara doesn't want to do any damage to her body that isn't strictly necessary, which is exactly why she told her supervisor Carly Fiorina to piss up a rope the last time the defibrilator (which doesn't work anyway, not since Gary removed the battery to scrape the lithium for a batch of Peoria Clown) fell into the hydraulics of the Tilt-o-Whirl and they expected Clara to reach in and get it. Clara was even the only person in the Greater Pekin Metro Area to get vaccinated against COVID without a court order - she knew from bitter experience that when the government says you'd best take the jab, you take it. The fools who don't...well, there's a graveyard full of pizza box headstones behind the Macomb County Fairgrounds that tells their story.
Sure, Old Clara won't lie to you, her vision isn't exactly great today. There are some bright white spots in that her doctor, or the nearest thing on the fairgrounds to a guy who looks like he might be a doctor, says may never go away. On the plus side, the searing rays of the sun burned away a nice impact zone on each of her cataracts, so unless you're former surgeon general C. Everett Koop who's really to say if staring at the eclipse hurt or helped.
They say it won't happen again until 2044, and an old woman whose diet consists of Sam's Club store brand vodka, elephant ears, cigarettes, and Godsmack roadies isn't the best bet to be alive and kicking in 20 more years. Then again, Old Clara's been declared "not long for this world" too many times to count, and if she has anything to say in the matter they'll be pointing her toward the next eclipse too, or at least they'll be kind enough to shine a powerful flashlight in her face and lie to her. ...