With Halloween behind us, Ricky tells us about the next horror: city council election season… complete with Baby’s election outfit opinions. Meanwhile, Myles runs for city council but runs into the brick wall of Ratsville voting tradition.
Podcast Script (not including ad-libs):
Well, with Halloween behind us, we here in Ratsville moved on to an even bigger horror show: city council election season.
Haha… just kidding… not really… I mean, politicians suck, but they pretty much all just pocket tax money for themselves and don’t actually do anything good or bad aside from that.
And us rats figured out long ago that whatever they say they’re gonna do is all bullshit anyway, so at some point we mostly all just started voting for the tallest dude running for office and I’d say it’s not any worse than any other place where they try to pick the best candidate.
After all, they’re all a bunch of lying scumbags just after money and power, so what difference does it make?
Usually I don’t even bother to vote—not that I’ve had many chances to vote, being 23 and all, ‘cause it’s only been a few years that I’ve been eligible to vote. And usually they have the elections on Saturdays when I’m busy working.
But this time was Baby’s first chance to vote and she was all excited about finally getting to take her election selfies in front of the big “I VOTED” backdrop in the hallway in our old elementary school just outside the gym.
She’d been hoping to take pics in the actual voting booth, too, but she was warned by her friends at cosmetology school (who were a bit older and voted last time) that the election folks were confiscating cell phones if you tried to take selfies inside the voting room. So, I guess that was a bit of a bummer for her.
I, of course, was gonna be tasked with driving Baby to and from voting on Election Day. And Baby had strict orders for me as to what I was to wear so as to co-ordinate with the special voting outfit Baby had planned all the way back in July.
“Ricky, do you have anything orange?”
“Naw, Baby.”
“What about cream-colored?”
“I mean, I guess I got a couple stained tank tops that are kinda cream-colored now, but they used to be white.”
“Are they the same shade of cream-colored as the Ratland flag?”
Now, I had no idea what she was talking about but Baby’s very particular about color, so she was gonna have to come by my house and go through my closet to inspect things. And when Baby’s old man caught wind that Baby was gonna be hanging out in my bedroom, he went ballistic and insisted we had to be chaperoned.
Ugh…
As often happens, chaperone duty fell onto her cousin Myles, which is kinda funny ‘cause Myles really don’t give a shit and he kinda resents being ordered to tag along so he just spends the whole time on his phone or laptop ignoring us. Still, I wasn’t gonna be trying nothin’ with him there ‘cause that would be weird, which I guess is the whole reason Mr. Rattsen insists on Myles chaperoning us.
Anyway, so about a week before Election Day, I picked Baby and Myles up from the Rattsen house and brought them both over to my house so Baby could inspect my voting clothes. (Or lack thereof.)
Mama Rat wasn’t there, which was good, ‘cause Mama always acts weird when my friends come over, trying to rope them into doing chores for her and saying rude things about their moms if she knows them.
We headed straight downstairs to my basement bedroom, though I was a good host and first offered Myles and Baby cookies from Mama’s cookie jar and juice.
“I’d offer y’all some beer, too, but we’re all out and Mama keeps the hard stuff locked up.”
“Oh, that’s OK, Ricky. Daddy will get upset if Myles and I come home smelling like alcohol.”
Myles rolled his eyes and said, “Speak for yourself, Barbra.” Then he pulled a little flask out of his jacket pocket and poured some vodka into his orange juice, and when Baby scowled at him, he added, “What? I’m a grown-ass dude and if I want a screwdriver, I’ll have a screwdriver.”
But Baby was soon distracted by the prospect of snooping through my stuff. In no time flat, she had my clothes divvied up into three piles on the bed: a very small pile consisting of my old burgundy Confirmation suit and a couple plain button-down shirts, a regularly-small pile of jeans and plain black t-shirts plus a couple sweaters Mama Rat made me, and a big ol’ pile of everything else.
Then she declared that the big pile had to go.
“Go where?”
“The trash, Ricky.”
“What? C’mon, Baby: that’s my favorite Ramones shirt!”
Myles interrupted his drinking and texting to pipe up in my defense. “Shut up, Barbra. Let the rat man have his rock shirts.”
“Nuh uh! Ricky needs a glow-up.”
“Glow-ups are for girls.”
“He needs more dressy clothes! Voting is a formal occasion!”
“Voting is a farce designed to let the deluded plebs think they have control over the system.”
“Pfft! I’m wearing a nice dress to vote and Ricky needs to wear a suit to vote with me.”
“People vote in their PJs and bunny slippers or flip flops. It doesn’t matter. And he has a suit.”
“But it’s burgundy!”
“So?”
“So it’s gonna clash with my patriotic orange and cream dress!”
So Myles and Baby kept yelling at each other about men’s fashion and whether or not a girlfriend has any say in the matter while I went through the pile of t-shirts and torn jeans, occasionally interrupting them to ask about what was wrong with various shirts: “Baby, I just bought this Megadeth shirt. It ain’t even got no mustard stains on it yet!”
“Ugh… fine. You can keep that for wearing to work… I guess.”
And so I was able to reclaim most of my wardrobe, though Baby did put her foot down about the Mötley Crüe “Dr. Feelgood” shirt on the grounds that it had too many holes, but I still got to keep that one on the grounds that it was borrowed from my cousin Darren and thus not mine to let Baby throw away.
Baby then moved on to inspecting the contents of my underoos drawer. “Eww… tighty whities?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“You should get some of those Ratvin Klein boxer briefs. In black.”
“OK, I’ll mention that to Mama Rat for Christmas.”
“Your mom buys your underwear?”
“Yeah?”
Well, Baby just looked at me weird, but Myles explained to her that that’s what mamas do until such time as their sons have wives to buy the underwear for them instead.
At least my socks passed inspection.
“Ooh, are these handmade?”
“Naw, I think Grandma Rateriff has a little machine that does the knitting for her so she can focus on watching her soaps and playing online poker.”
Myles examined the socks. “Doesn’t your mother knit, too?”
“Yeah, but socks for the whole family are Papa Rat’s mama’s job. Apparently, there was a whole fistfight about that before I was even born. Mama made me them two sweaters, though.”
The sweaters met with Baby’s approval. Which is kinda a problem as I usually just wear band hoodies when it’s cold—as per standard studio rat fashion protocol—and now Baby was gonna be nagging me to wear sweaters instead and thus look like a dork.
Fortunately, it was when Baby was admiring Mama Rat’s handiwork that Mama Rat came home, ready to yell at me to help her bring in the groceries. I snapped to it, as did Myles, and we even put away all the grub before coming back downstairs.
Mama Rat squinted at Myles. “I recognize you! Aren’t you that mouse that’s trying to take over the city?”
“Uh, Mama, Myles is only half—”
“Shush, Richard!”
She kept glaring at Myles, who wasn’t the least bit intimidated. “Well, Mrs. Rateriff, I believe it’s about time Ratsville City Council curbed their out of control spending and—“
“I read in the Ratsville Star Sentinel that you’re backed by big money interests from Mouseton.”
“Ah, that hit piece… Mrs. Rateriff, it’s true that my father owns a bunch of car lots in Mouseton and has recently branched out into real estate, but I assure you that he couldn’t care less about Ratsville and—“
“Well, exactly! You don’t have our interests at heart!”
“I do, actually. I’m a resident of Ratsville now and—“
Well, Mama muttered something under her breath about border control and I pointed out that Myles is half-rat and his mama is from right here… and I got told to be quiet and stay out of it and respect my elders.
And Myles tried to explain his platform but that went in one ear and out the other. (To be fair, anything anyone tells Mama Rat that isn’t what she already made her mind up about also goes in one ear and out the other.) Even though Mama couldn’t really say anything against Myles’ policy ideas, she kept just attacking his character based on crap the Ratsville Star Sentinel said about him—half of which couldn’t possibly be true: I mean, how could Myles be a Soviet agent when he wasn’t even born yet when the Soviets fell? And I’m pretty sure there’s no way he was involved in causing the Jonestown massacre either!
But Mama is a very loyal reader of the Ratsville Star Sentinel and has been ever since I can remember, even if they’re as bad as the Ratland Enquirer, which ran an exposé hit piece in which they talked to 17 girls Myles went on dates with who complained that he insisted they pay their halves of the dinner bill. Plus five of them were chicks he hooked up with who said he never called them back.
I dunno why the press have it in for Myles so bad, man. Like, just on Wednesday the Ratsville Daily Facts ran a piece from an anonymous source claiming to have inside knowledge that Myles didn’t tip the barista at Ratbucks last weekend and he didn’t tip at McRat Burger either, which seems to me kinda silly. I mean, I sure as shit don’t tip the Ratbucks baristas either and since when are you even supposed to tip at McRat’s?
And don’t get me started on the Ratsville Gazette’s anonymous scoop saying that Myles didn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom.
Baby said she heard the press was in the pocket for the current mayor, Alan Waterat, who’s golf buddies with the editors of those papers, and Waterat is pissed at Myles for blogging about how Waterat owns the paving company that the city council just signed a three year contract with to repave all the roads.
In any case, we were all supposed to return to the Rattsen house for dinner at 6:30, so around 6 o’clock I mentioned that we needed to jet.
The next day, when I was helping Mama decorate for the trick-or-treaters, Mama kept harping on how I need to stay away from Myles.
“You need to be careful around those types, Richard. They can’t be trusted. They’ll steal every penny from you when you’re not looking. They’ll—”
Here we go again. “Mama, just ‘cause he’s half-mouse—“
Mama stiffened up and acted all offended. “I was talking about politicians!”
Well, I knew damned well Mama was just using that as a cover, but I just grumbled and finished hanging up the plastic skeletons so I could head to work.
Or so I told Mama, but the reality is Baby roped me into helping hand out fliers with Myles’ campaign promises. Me and Myles and Baby and Baby’s sister Martina all took to separate corners of Edam and Main with our stacks of fliers. I couldn’t help but notice people tended to ignore Myles even though he was the one who was actually dressed up like a politician. The guys would go flirt with either Baby or Martina, which pissed me off, but Baby would keep pointing across to me and I would scowl and the guys would take off.
The women, however, would make a beeline for me. “Oooh… are you gonna be mayor?”
“Naw, ma’am, I’m just helping my buddy campaign.”
“Who’s your buddy?”
And I’d point at Myles and they’d scowl. “He’s short.”
“Yeah, but he’s got good policies.”
“Yeah, but he’s short.”
So I learned pretty quick to just lie. “Um, yes, ma’am.”
“How tall are you?”
“Five foot eleven.”
“Hmm… Al Waterat is six foot two.”
“Yeah, but Al Waterat used his office to get a big contract for his paving company. And—“
“Yeah, but he’s six foot two.”
Sigh… no one wanted to talk about policy. I mean, I ain’t much for talking policy neither but it never even got to the point of me being out of my element.
Everyone just asked about my height. Like I said earlier, here in Ratsville we usually just vote for the tallest candidate and it’s been going on so long and so many people ask about how tall the candidates are that finally the Ratland Election Authority gave in and put a chart with all the candidates lined up in a row in front of a height chart like one big group mugshot and they put a huge banner of it in every polling station so the voters could just check that for themselves before casting their ballots.
And I think you can guess how this all went down on Election Day, when Al Waterat won the mayorship again by a landslide and of the 30 candidates for the ten spots on city council, Myles came in dead last with a whopping 27 votes.
Now, I voted for Myles. And I know Baby and her four sisters and their boyfriends and husbands voted for him, and obviously Myles voted for himself and his mama and grandma did, plus Baby’s mama and daddy, so that’s 15 votes right there. I’m guessing the other 12 votes were from Myles’ accountancy clients.
Or there might actually be a whole dozen folks in Ratsville who actually took the time to read about policy and vote for common sense governance and against corruption.
Or they checked the wrong box because Myles’s name was next to Mike Mabrat’s on the ballot and Mike Mabrat is 6’3”.
Probably that’s what happened.
Links
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