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I was just about to enter the Wal-Mart store when I noticed two men in the parking lot. One was a television cameraman and they other man was a well dressed man in a suit. The man in the suit caught my attention because he didn’t look like he should be in a place like this.
Suddenly, the man in the suit collapsed. I dropped my bag full of Chinese made goods and ran over to the stricken man.
“What happened?” I asked the cameraman as I dropped to my knee and fumbled through my wallet for my Red Cross CPR card.
“I don’t know,” the cameraman said. “I was shooting some shots of the parking lot and this man ran up and swallowed my camera.”
Sure enough, the eye piece of the camera was sticking out of the man’s mouth. I looked at his terrified face. “Inside Politics” was showing in both of his dilated pupils. Then, I recognized who it was.
“My God, this is Senator Hagel,” I said as I carefully checked him for a pulse and if any air was getting through his airway past that camera. His Purple Heart seemed to be fine.
“You had better call 911,” I said as the cameraman pulled out his cell phone.
Hagel’s hand reached for my arm and he tried to move his head from left to right. I bent down to listen.
“Bla berr,” he said.
“Don’t worry about that now, Senator,” I told him as I patted his arm. “We don’t have black only cemeteries anymore and that’s more of a Senator Kennedy or former President Clinton gesture.”
“I think he means his Blackberry,” the cameraman suggested as he put his cell phone back in his pocket. Off in the distance, you could hear the wailing sounds of an approaching Lincoln Fire Department ambulance. A crowd started to gather.
I checked his suit jacket pocket and sure enough, there was his Blackberry. The Senator grabbed my arm again.
“Spee 1,” he whispered past the stuck camera.
“You have to pee?” I asked.
“No,” the cameraman said as he knelt down and took the Blackberry from my hand, “he wants you to speed dial number 1.”
“Go ahead,” I said as the cameraman took the device from my hand and dialed. The cameraman got a funny look on his face.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Voice mail for some guy named Stephanopoulos. It says he is out having a cokie or something and to leave a message.” The cameraman left a message that the Senator had collapsed and to call back as soon as possible and hung up.
“Did you tell that guy that the Senator was in Lincoln, Nebraska?” I asked.
“No, why?” the cameraman asked.
“Well they would never guess he was here and would probably send people to New Hampshire or some power bar in Washington or New York looking for him.
The ambulance came to a screeching halt in front of us. Soon, the paramedics took over the medical examination. Two buses full of Hagel staffers showed up as well. They watched and emailed each other from a safe distance.
“We need to put him on the gurney and take him to the hospital as soon as possible,” the paramedic told me as he stepped back. “We’re Americans so we aren’t doing any heavy lifting.”
I looked at the crowd. “Are there any illegal aliens who can do some of this heavy lifting for us? You don’t have to worry about immigration. This is Senator Hagel so he will make sure any immigration officer who bothers you will face retirement.”
Thirty small men came out from under the Wal-Mart carts. More came from the nearby trees by Home Depot. Eight of the strongest came up to help.
“Just put him on the gurney and put the gurney in the ambulance,” I told them. “We’ll pay you $2 an hour and forget the Social Security and withholding taxes.”
A Mexican man looked at the Senator. “Santo politico Hagel!” he gasped.
The Mexican women dropped to their knees and made the Sign of the Cross. A mariachi band came out of the trees and started to play.
“He needs to go,” the paramedic said.
“But how?” I asked as a CNN news truck pulled up.
“What do you mean?” the paramedic said. “We need to put him in the ambulance and take him to the hospital and get that camera out."
“Not necessarily,” I said. “We had better take a poll.” I looked at the crowd and the staffers. “OK,” I said, “all Republicans, or ones who play that role in Nebraska, who are not staffers over here on my far right. If you are a Democrat be patient, you will be allowed to offer amendments, but please stand quietly on my far left.”
“No they won’t!” a bothered staffer said as he held his Blackberry to his ear and typed on his PC with his elbow. “They don’t let us make amendments.”
“Oh, ok,” I said, “my bad. I am just a typical Nebraskan so I don’t understand all of that stuff.”
None the less, using that select group of typical voters, we fashioned a poll with three choices. The Senator could go by ambulance to the hospital accompanied by eight Mexicans to do the hard lifting. He could go with the CNN crew and they would retrieve the video tape and give it to Wolf Blitzer and share it with Stephanopoulos if he called back. Or, the Senator would go with the garbage truck and the mariachi band to the Nebraska political dump.
I didn’t participate in the poll but I must say, I did enjoy hearing the mariachi music coming from a specially designated holy place in the Lincoln landfill later that night.
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