Lord, if you won't take care of us, won't you please, please let us be?

  Well, it'd be fitting if the year closed out on me missing Deadline. The burger I ate tonight from Peppertown Restaurant was burnt and tiny, and the fries were soggy. It has a sort of poetry.

 I wrote the title around 7 p.m. and then pretty much fell asleep. Today was another one of those Big Sleep days, though I did manage to have a somewhat productive morning. But it's 10:15 Country Standard Time and I'm on it. I figure I can get 500 words in before the clock turns midnight and Enon Holler says goodbye and good riddance to 2020.

 I don't think anyone would disagree on it having been a booger of the year. No matter where you stand on, for example, the COVID-19 plague, I think we can all agree that it's been bungled greatly from the top to the bottom. People are still calling it overblown or, worse, some sort of intentional something designed to do... something.

 Conspiracy theorists are never really clear on that except it's somehow another way "They" can control us and/or track us. We never find out who "They" is and we all carry smartphones that are being tracked constantly and an internet that we've known for at least 20 years is tracked by the NSA. Wave hello!

 As for a method of control, please. Call me cynical but human beings, especially Americans, are incredibly easy to manipulate. Seriously, spend a season watching football fans. Or people who post on websites about television shows. It doesn't take much. For what it's worth, I think people who've lost loved ones to COVID-19 should be allowed to beat these sort of conspiracy theorists about the head and kidneys with a whiffle bat until they spit teeth and piss blood.

 Harsh? Perhaps, but I think it's fair. I've never been one to look back. That's why I write all this down, so I can remember it. But this has been a booger of a year and I am hopeful 2021 isn't quite a drag. As someone who watched a lot of B-grade science fiction and apocalyptic movies, I'm still sort of amazed we're living in this sort of future. I don't think anyone had "badly handled worldwide pandemic" and "millions of Americans cultishly following a complete dope" on their bingo card, as the kids say.

 Just to dip into the news for a bit, we're looking at Congressional Republicans being buttholes about the Electoral Vote count on January 6 when nothing they do will make any difference. There are a few complete lumps like Louie Gohmert who probably believe the latest Trump Conspiracy but most are Josh Hawleys, cynically manipulating the easily manipulated - speaking of the fact that Americans are so easily bamboozled that they'll almost beg for it - to set them up for a 2024 run.

 We really haven't considered the possibility the reason Trump's yowling about the election being stolen - apart from using it as a quick way to grift the griftable - is that he himself cheated. He'd already stated that if he lost it could only be due to chicanery and still maintains Hillary Clinton got three million dead voters in 2016 when that's patently untrue. And let's face it. Donald Trump is a lifelong cheat. He's cheated on his businesses, cheated his employees and contractors, cheated on his creditors, cheated charities, and cheated on his taxes. He's cheated on all three wives, cheated his kids, cheated his siblings, and would've cheated his folks if his dad hadn't been smarter and nastier.

 So fuck him and I'll be glad to see the end of him. I'll be glad to see so many awful people have to live with the realization that despite his high turnout, even more people turned out to see him gone. Hopefully next year we can get on top of COVID, have cops stop killing black people for spurious reasons, release everyone in prison on non-violent marijuana charges, get health care figured out and affordable, and figure out a way we can all exist on this planet, having a good time and being cool with each other, while not having to work ourselves to death just to be able to eat.

 Even if hoping 2021 is better than 2020 is a low bar, I'll still take it.