So this guy:

Now that it’s hotter than holy hell here in Rhode Island, it’s nice to think back a couple of weeks to when it was cool and rainy and I pulled up behind this guy at a light in Lincoln. This guy takes the “I want to disparage the liberal media, but I still want to enjoy the convenience of leasing a vehicle” attitude of this guy and blows. It. Up. Blows it up good.

You know what? I think I love this guy. I can only imagine the thought process that brought him to this conclusion.

Okay! I’ve imagined it, and here it is:

 “Bumper sticker? Hell no. I want, like, a bumper sticker times twelve, bitches. Oh, they don’t sell bumper stickers that big? Well, meet posterboard, liberal bumper sticker manufacturers. Posterboard’s gonna take you to school. Now, I really hate this Obama guy, but how do I state it strongly yet succinctly? This isn’t Twitter, and I’m not speaking as @BumperStickersAndSocialistsAintShit when I’m driving my car. But how do I express that this President’s policies – and the man himself, I daresay – are synonymous with socialism without taking up too much space... that’s it! I’ll just say that: ‘Obama = Socialism.’ Done and done. But wait! What if people driving by me think that I think Obama equals socialism, but that I think that’s a good thing? Like, I like Obama, and I like socialism? That’d be awful. What if a liberal honked his approval at me on 95? I’d die. What I need is a graphic, a visual representation of dislike that is simple and universal. But what? What what what… of course! Thumbs down! No, two thumbs down! No one, even an Obama supporter, is going to think you like anything when it’s flanked by two downward-pointing thumbs. It just isn’t possible. Now to put this plan into action… offspring! Fetch me my Sharpie.”

This may be one of the biggest breakthroughs in communication in the last hundred years. So many complex ideas could be conveyed this way!

Imagine your own!

Reminder: I am not a graphic artist.

Oh, man. Has it ever been a while! I bet you were thinking, hey, that curmudgeon has up and gone native. She’s probably looking around herself right now and thinking, “Rhode Island is normal! There is nothing at all curious, off-balance, or just plain wrong about this state, and so I say ‘Stop it, Rhode Island’ no more!”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha NO. Not even.

As it happens, my tiny state actually called me into its service for a brief spell, believing (rightly!) that my cynicism, general bad temper, and virtually useless master’s degree would make me the ideal solver of the problem that was 38 Studios. You see, our last governor, in his final act of taking a crap all over the State House, promised ex-Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game startup a cool $75 million in loan guarantees. Mind you, that was $75 million Rhode Island didn’t really have, $75 million that was better spent almost anywhere else. And so it came to pass that a new governor took office, 38 Studios shit the bed like almost every video game startup does, and the legislature shone the Curmudgeon Signal into the cloudy night sky. I flew into action.

It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of late nights, a lot of hot wieners, and a lot of dropped r’s, but we got it done. Under my masterful leadership, the state assembly and I crafted a plan that would see the loan repaid with interest, 38 Studios’ books going almost instantly from red to black, and not one job lost. The only problem? I had a vacation booked just before they were going to put it all into action.

They begged me not to go.

“You can’t leave!” they screamed. “You have to see this thing through to the end! Without you it’ll crumble and all hope will be dead! DEAD!”

“Guys,” I replied, “Have you ever tried to get a refund from Sandals? It’s nigh impossible. And anyway, aren’t you being a little bit dramatic? Calm down. You’re all adults, and you all want to see this thing succeed, so just follow my carefully-laid out instructions and you’ll be fine. What’s theworst that could happen?”

“But we’ll be lost without you! We’ve come to realize that your caustic, cranky exterior masks your quiet brilliance! And you make the best cookies in the world!”

“Well, that's true, Gary, but…”

“And you look like you’ve lost weight!”

“Nice try.”

“Oh, please don’t go! We’ll eat you up, we love you so.”

“Um, okay, that was weird. I’ll, uh, let myself out.” And I did.

As I waited that night at TF Green for the first leg of my four-stop flight to Miami, I thought to myself, they’re going to be just fine. This’ll all work out. I’m just going to enjoy my vacation and forget about it. In fact, I’m so confident that they’ll follow my foolproof plan that I won’t even follow what’s happening in the news.

And I haven’t! I want to be surprised. Not that I will be. I’m sure everything worked out great.

It did, right?

Right?