What Me Worry?

There was a knock on the door. There stood two twenty-somethings who avowed as how they were reporters for a local media. They were accompanied by an officer of the law looking quite stern.. It seems there was a clamoring to know what we had done with His Majesty Norton II, Emperor of Petaluma, since they had read none of his insane ramblings on Petaluma 360 for lo these many weeks. The householders swore that they hadn't seen His Majesty in weeks, but that the Red Rose tea and chocolate chip cookies being left at his attic door continued to disappear.

CSI: Petaluma

The officer removed his baton from its holder and unsnapped his gun holster while announcing it would be necessary to take them to the attic and prove that His Majesty was alright. Seems they were suspecting some sort of Howard Hughes lockup mystery conspiracy.

As we made our way up to the attic, the officer and reporters were shown the empty plate and tea cup from the night before. That wasn't good enough and they demanded the door be opened. There was a heap on the bed with a black top hat sticking out from under the covers. The officer prodded the heap with his night stick and there was a grunt from under the covers.

I want to be alone...

The officer asked His Majesty if he was ok, but there was only a mumbled, "Go away" from under the blankets. The reporters quickly stepped up with pads and pens at the ready and enquired as to why there had been no pontificating of late.

Here is what His Majesty replied.

There's no need Everything's fine. Everything's been fixed. There are no more causes to march for. The Recession's on the way out and will be over by next year. The bad guys from Enron to Madoff and the banks who took people's hard earned cash have all gone to jail and returned the money. Unemployment is only a problem to the unemployed. Sacramento's got the budget thing figured out, and we don't need no stinking parks anyway. Education for children in a constantly changing world is overrated and unneeded. Congress is giving everyone healthcare and the government is finally releasing the cure for cancer they've been hiding since the Kennedy assassination. The Iraq war was won and the State Department has decided the money they were going to spend on the future wars in Afghanistan and Iran, and Korea could be better spent somewhere else. Petaluma is finally going to have enough asphalt and fried chicken to fill its potholes. The City Council finally is happy they've built enough shopping malls to plug their leaky retails. Safeway and Raley's have solved the abandoned cart problem. We've finally planted enough trees to stop climate change. Everything's been taken care of. There's nothing to complain about.

The reporters, writing furiously, asked, why then, if everything was hunkey dorey, was His Majesty hiding under the covers whimpering.

"Because", he replied, "when they tell you there's nothing to be afraid of anymore, that's when it's time to get terrified."