Where in the World is Kansas City Anyway?
Musings on Mistrust of All Things Trump
I had a boss for several years in the mid-1990s who owned a Chevy Tahoe. Somehow, he consistently jumbled up the letters in his mind and called it a “Toeha.”
This delighted me not just because of how ridiculous it sounds but because I hated him, and his mispronunciation justified my hatred. In my mind, you see, nothing is as worthy of hate as ignorance.
I’d even bait him into saying it occasionally.
“Hey John, how’s that new SUV of yours… ah shoot, the name’s on the tip of my tongue but I’m having trouble recalling it… anyway, how’s it running?”
“Oh, you mean the Toeha. Runs great — better than those expensive luxury models and at a much better price.”
Momentarily satisfied, I’d scurry back to my cubicle to gleefully announce my triumph to the other drudges inhabiting the bowels of this depressing monolith.
“Dumbass said it again!” I’d cackle with delight.
He probably had made a sound purchasing decision by the way — we worked for an automotive supplier and the man knew his cars cold — but that didn’t matter to me. He was still an idiot, and he’d just confirmed it yet again.
The man had also built a huge addition onto his house — an in-law suite with a full kitchen and dedicated heating and cooling systems. After he finished that, he built a jungle gym for his grandson that rivaled the one at the largest school in our district.
He once had me researching team-building activities for our annual department retreat. I nearly recommended some kind of trust game using that behemoth sitting right there in his backyard, but I thought better of tempting myself to push him to his death while horrified little Jimmy gawked out the kitchen window.
Don’t get me started on all the other ways he pampered that brat. The point here is that, though he couldn’t pronounce the name of his own vehicle, he was some kind of genius with a tool set.
I can’t build a birdhouse. For real. I tried once in ninth grade shop class and the teacher passed me with a mercy-C, though any bird occupying that precarious structure would have surely been living in a house of cards.
None of this mattered to me. I fancy myself a noble wordsmith, a warrior poet in a watered down modern world, and this fool couldn’t pronounce Tahoe. Ergo, he was an idiot to me, and I wouldn’t have changed my mind even if he’d used his magic hands to turn that Toeha into a rocket ship so little Jimmy could orbit the moon in it.
Speaking of real or imagined idiots depending on your perception — maybe even “stone cold” idiots in the words of former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill — our undignified lout of a President claimed “a natural ability” to understand the science behind coronavirus, presumably with little reading or study, in one of his now infamous press briefings. Super! I know I feel a whole lot better about the mishmash of policies our “wartime president” has rolled out now that I’m aware of his miraculous intellect, and I hope you do too.
If some trivial oversight like, say, the fact he didn’t know the location of Kansas City a few months ago when he tweeted congratulations to the Super Bowl champs causes you a moment’s pause, just cast that doubt right out of your troubled little mind. Learn a valuable lesson from my long ago experience with that nincompoop boss of mine and don’t go jumping to any crazy conclusions over one small gaffe.
My home improvement savant boss had no fallback for his struggles with the English language. Trump, on the other hand, may find his own regular genius better suited to the emerging make-believe field of intuitive epidemiology, but he can always consult that super genius uncle of his for clarification on the pesky details of geography… or real science.
