Writing Prompt: One morning you awake to find yourself in a straight jacket, being taken off to an asylum. How do you prove your sanity? What do the guards and psychiatrists say you did?
Writer's Digest has a website that offers weekly writing prompts. I come across this one coincidentally after answering the phone from an unknown number that simply reads "Somerville." The only people I know in Somerville are judo people, and I know even if they're calling me, the name of the dojo will come up on the machine.
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I answer the phone.
Turns out it's the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Well, it's not the entire association; it's just one lady from the MTA. She wants to ask me a few questions.
Ha. I know how this game goes. Better yet, I know how to play it.
MTA: Hi, I'm calling about the upcoming special
senate election. Are you planning on
voting for (singing and giggling and vocally painting pretty pictures) Democrat
Ed Markey, or are you planning on voting for (sneering, suddenly channeling
Mercedes McCambridge via Linda Blair from The Exorcist)
that horrible Republican Gabriel (gagging and wretching) Gomez?(The MTA is nothing if not left-wing subtle. And predictable. And pedantic. And oh-so gullible. If I say Markey, I'll be on the phone for at least fifteen more minutes while I answer their skewed questions, listening to the political pabulum about homelessness, communism, and the horrors of owning a handgun.)
Me: Gomez-------
(Click.)
When one works in public education, the only answer to any political question is, "I'm a liberal Democrat," even if one isn't. Make no mistake: I'm not a religious right-wing zealot, either, nor am I registered as an Independent (which is about as effective as writing in Nose Picker Party on the registration card). I am officially registered as unenrolled. This means I can vote in either primary and that I can always vote with a clean conscience rather than simply checking off across party lines.
Someone at the MTA must've found out that I'm not a huge supporter of the socialist agenda. Once she hears the word "Gomez" come out of my mouth, she unceremoniously hangs up, never asking me those "few questions" she claims she would. Clearly I am mentally unsound since I am not a normal, natural member of the MTA machine.
This folks . . . this is exactly how I end up in that straight jacket being carted off to the nut house.
This is my answer to the writing prompt. This is my story. I'm sticking to it, kids.
