It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times by Leghorn

[Mod Note: This story was not written in good faith but as an attempt to be racist or sexist (or whatever). Considering the comments, it's obviously not an effective attempt to do that, so there's probably no harm in leaving it here.]

...’cause we had come through the pandemic and vaccines had been made available, but a lot of ppl chose not to get them. You can imagine the state of things: hospitals started filling up with patients again, and morgues were overflowing with bodies as people were still piling maskless into restaurants and supermarkets.

I got my vaccine, and got boosted as soon as allowed. I posted a picture on Facebook of the “I Got Vaccinated!” sticker on my tee-shirt, but a lot of my friends gave me grief: they said things like, “why are you wimping-out like that? Why don’t you stand up for your freedom?” and things like that. I got way more thumbs-downs than thumbs-ups. Then I lost my job when the factory shut down after the second wave hit. Suddenly I had all this time on my hands, no money to buy anything, and no one to spend it with anyways. It was awfully lonely and boring. This was the “worst of times” part of it...

...But then I did a TikTok video of me dancing and singing and saying funny things about people who won’t get vaccinated and—lo and behold!—it went viral. Suddenly I had all these new friends. They were a lot more tolerant than my old friends I had lost—well, they were tolerant in some ways, but not so tolerant in others: they liked me getting vaccinated, but they didn’t like me eating all those steaks, and they told me so: it was cruel and inhumane, and left a big ole fat ugly carbon footprint; and they didn’t like me toting my groceries in plastic bags. “But the grocery store gave them to me,” I told them, “and they make really good trash-can liners,”...

...but I was eating a lot of steaks ‘cause these companies started paying me to wear their clothes or hats or shoes or whatever in my videos, and I suddenly had a lot of money. And I love steaks, especially marinated fillet mignons cooked on the grill, with a baked potato slathered with butter and sour cream. Adidas sent me an e-mail wanting me to wear their shoes, and I replied, “Sure! I used to walk the halls of Carolina back in ‘81 with Michael Jordan. We had a class in the same building, and when the bell rang and we all piled into the hallway there he would be, walking out with his fawning buddies ranged on either side, smiling the smile of a guy who knows he’s the biggest man on campus. Anyways, I’ve always loved that swoosh!” They told me that “Mr. Jordan”represented “a different shoe company”, and I told them that was okay, that I would be their Michael Jordan. It was like a dream come true, to be like Mike and all. This was the best-of-times part of it...

...Then some of my old buddies started trying to cozy up to me again, since I had all this sudden fame and wealth. At first I was very acceptant of them: I’m not somebody to shun people. But when it became clear they just wanted to ride my gravy train and get what they could out of it, I cut them all off; especially when they started wanting me to make videos of me bleaching the vaccine out of my system, or wearing a Fuck Biden tee-shirt. I told them I wanted my vaccine, that I didn’t want to end up dead like so many of their uncles and aunts had, and grandmas and grandpas. They said, “They’re in a better place.” I told them, “Well, why don’t you die and go there and see how good it is?”

By now I had a live-streaming podcast and was on Instagram and Twitter and all that stuff. All the attention was really great, but I got so tired of staring at a screen all day and clicking on this and that. I used to go for walks in the park that were so refreshing...or boring, or whatever. I mean, what used to seem boring seemed refreshing now in my imagination...

...So one day I got a call from a viewer on my cast, and at first she was real congenial and all and we talked and laughed for a good minute or two...then all a sudden she turns on me and starts complaining about how I don’t recycle my beer cans and how I smoke—which is bad for me—and that I don’t respect the rights of women, etc, etc...

...now I must confess that I was confused and upset in that instant, and didn’t know where she was coming from, but turns out she was referring to a comment I made a couple days earlier about how a woman shouldn’t even be allowed to have sex if she isn’t gonna raise the baby...

Now, I don’t regret having said that, and I didn’t regret it then, but when she kept on pressing and pestering me about it, I just lost my cool: I screamed, “Why don’t all you women just get hysterectomies! Then we wouldn’t have a problem, would we?”

That’s where I fell off my gravy-train: ‘cause everybody started calling in, and Adidas didn’t want me to be their Mike anymore, and I got a lot more thumbs-downs than thumbs-ups; and suddenly I didn’t have enough money to buy fillet mignons or cigarettes anymore, but had to start eating beanie-weenies with saltine crackers and rolling my smokes instead—that was the worst of times...

...I pleaded with all my sponsors that I was really sorry, that I would straighten up and be better if they’d just keep the money flowing. They said it wasn’t that easy, that I had to “put in the work”. They suggested sensitivity training and anger-management classes. They said there would be a long probationary period for me, and they would assess my progress afterwards, so I signed up for some classes ASAP...

...In anger class we learned how destructive it can be. We learned ways of giving it safe outlets: like, instead of hitting your mate, taking a plastic baseball bat and beating a cushion. You would not believe how furiously some of those guys went at it! One guy beat his cushion so hard that stuffing was flying all over the room—it was like snowing in there!—and his bat got all bent up and he was sweating so much a pool of water collected on the floor: we had to get a mop-bucket and vacuum in there to clean it all up...

...There weren’t many women, mostly men, but right beside me for every class sat this woman who glared at me constantly in such a menacing way I was afraid to look at her—maybe she recognized me from my podcast, I don’t know. But whenever I coughed or shifted my position or even moved my hand I could feel her turn her gaze toward me. I got to where I just sat stock-still—which is a hard thing to do for 90 minutes.

In sensitivity we learned the long history of men’s oppression of women. The only woman in there was the teacher. She taught us how men were always tripping over their own balls, and that a vagina, being an empty space, could be filled with whatever a woman wants to fill it with—or be left empty. I had never thought of it like that before. What freedom women have! I got to the point that I was seriously considering getting myself neutered...

...but when I talked about it with a buddy of mine over some beers—and btw, I recycled the cans—he said, “Dude, when you take a shower and reach down to lather those Bad Boys up and there’s...nothing...?” I had to admit he had a point: I could imagine the horror. So I changed my mind about that.

But the most important thing I learned was that a guy shouldn’t treat a woman as a woman, I mean, as a weaker creature in need of his help. The instructor took turns with us practicing going through a door together: we weren’t supposed to open it for her, but let her open it for herself—and even let her hold it open for us to go in first. I have to admit this was hard for me, cause my mama taught me to be a gentleman and all that, and I told my instructor about it. She said my mama had been brainwashed by my daddy, that he just used that to keep her in her place...

...now here I have to admit my anger-management training came in handy, cause what she said pissed me off royally; ‘cause I loved my daddy, and I didn’t think he ever abused my mama. So I remembered to take a deep breath, swallow my anger—literally: “gulp!”—and calmly recite, “I don’t agree with that, but I see you have a different point of view, and I respect that, and will take it under consideration..,” but when I got back home the first thing I did after walking through the door was go get my plastic baseball bat and......well, it’s made out of recyclable plastic...

As soon as I passed both classes I e-mailed all my sponsors right away with the good news. I actually got the Adidas guy on the phone. He acted like he didn’t know who I was, but when I told him I was “Adidas Mike” he said, “Oh yeah, Adidas Mike! How are you?” I told him I was doing fine, that I had passed all my sensitivity classes and all, and he said, “That’s great, Mike! Uh...well, it’s been a few months, and...well, we have a new guy now. I’m sure you’ve seen the ads online.” No I hadn’t, I told him glumly...

...”Oh yeah!” he said, “he’s great! He’s a famous Kenyan distance runner. He runs all over town, and when he sees someone wearing our shoes he points at them and says, ‘No, no, no! Not like Mike!’ then laughs with that infectious guttural African laugh, with that deep ‘ho ho ho!’ that’s like from an African Santa Claus. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it. Well Mike,...so the situation is like this...”

I cut him off. I hung up. I could see how much the hard work I put in was worth. And I never got a single response back from any of my other sponsors. This was the worst of times all over again.

Now I was penniless like before and starving and taking long boring walks in the park—why did I ever miss them?—when one day I was walking along smoking a home-rolled cigarette and trying to figure out what to do next when I heard a distant “No no no! not like Mike!” followed by a deep guttural “Ho ho ho!” that really uplifted me and put me in the Christmas spirit—till I realized who it had to be. Sure enough, I could see a tall lanky black figure coming my way down the path...

...I glanced down at my feet—why was I still wearing those stupid Adidases?—and before I knew it they were about to swoosh past me, him and the cameraman: “No no no! Not like Mike!” he pointed at my shoes. “Yes yes yes!” I blurted out, “exactly like Mike!” and stepped in front of him, bringing him to a halt. He just stood before me with a goofy smile on his face. The cameraman kept going on a little ways, then came back, still recording: “Ho ho ho!” cried the goofy smile...

...”Do you know who I am?” I said. “No no no!” came the reply. “Well let me tell you: I’m Adidas Mike, the guy whose contract you took over, the guy who used to have your job. The guy who was gonna get his job back if some silly shit-hole-country athlete didn’t come along while I was getting sensitivity training and took it away from me unlawfully...what do you have to say to that you fake Santa Claus, you illegal immigrant, you—“, and then I used some language that is not reproducible; I mean, things you just can’t say...

...Now, if he had just run off and left me alone at that point, everything would have turned out a bit differently. But he didn’t. Instead, after I said all those abhorrent nasty abominable things, he just looked at me with that same goofy smile, and cried, “Ho ho ho!” That’s when I flicked my smoke off into the grass and smacked him—and I mean SMACKED!—I hit him with my open hand as hard as I could, right across his face...



...So I’m writing all this while lying on a cot in my cell in the State penitentiary, where I’m now serving a very long sentence for hate-crimes. I couldn’t deny it: it was all caught on video; so, persuaded by my court-appointed lawyer, I pleaded guilty, and avoided life...

...Hey, some ways it’s even better in here: now I take long walks around the perimeter of the “playground”, as we call it, and I really enjoy them, even though I’m surrounded by twelve-foot-tall fences topped with barbed-wire; and I get to smoke real contraband cigarettes; and we make “jail-yard hooch” out of fermented banana peels that’s got a bigger kick than even my old ice beers used to have; and I’ve made friends up in here like I never had in the “free world”, as we call it—people that I identify with and who would have my back in any situation...

...but best of all, I get true respect: whenever I walk down the hall with my buddies, everybody cries, “Here comes Adidas Mike!”—and they give way to me and give me high-fives down the line: after all, I got a contract with Nike to furnish every inmate with free sneakers...