When Is a Door Not a Door?

Give up? When it's ajar.

I stole that joke from a Reader's Digest "Toward More Picturesque Speech" I came across many years ago in my grandparents' house. I had to look up the word in order to appreciate the droll dryness of the humor. I was thirsty for a week. And quite frankly today I'm a bit parched for insight after watching last night's Presidential "debate."

I put debate in quotes since I'm a believer in Humpty's explanation of words and their meanings to Alice during his visit to Wonderland. I can't find Wonderland on a map but I did locate a dictionary whose definition of debate is at a variance, and quite some philosophic distance from what went on (and has gone on for decades). What I saw were two long-form interviews conducted in parallel.

Don't mean to poison your well (but you did stop by here, right? No one made you click on this site), but I was neither informed nor entertained if by the use of either word we agree 'learned something new' or 'found something of amusement.' Nope, no takers. I did have a fantasy that one might come out on stage, walk around behind the podium, we'd hear the sound of a fly being unzipped and then see a shower as territory was marked. As it was, by evening's end, I felt a little soggy and smelled slightly like asparagus.

I tried to remember when in my lifetime, circular conversations like the one I just sat through, had ever been of any value. I also tried to muster enthusiasm for the next one of these hair-pulling contests (I've already lost count of how many remain), though perhaps a change of format to a cage match might attract a larger audience and give (at least) the Spandex manufacturers something to cheer about.

Otherwise, I remain convinced after last night's performance that I should have gone one more door down to abuse, because as a voter I've been getting that for years.
-bill kenny