Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.
The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.
The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.
Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.
"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.
It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.
"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.
In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.
And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.
You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.
The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.
I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.
Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.
"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.
Discipline is a journey.
Thomas Massie: “The force of the whole swamp has come down on me.”
“It’s three billionaires.”
“They’re hedge fund managers and gambling magnates.”
“They’re upset that I’ve never voted for foreign aid.”
“Particularly foreign aid to Israel.”
“And they’re upset that I vote against the wars.”
“These billionaires are funding a super PAC called MAGA Kentucky.”
“They are not MAGA, and they have never been to Kentucky.”
“There will be $6 million spent this week on TV and radio and mail.”
“Fox News, they’ve got a monopoly on the screens in a lot of Republican houses, particularly people between the ages of 65 and 75.”
“For the last 18 months, they’ve not invited me on a single show.”
“They have blacklisted me.”
“I can’t get on TVs in the living rooms of the people that vote in this election unless I can buy TV ads.”
@RepThomasMassie@MassieforKY