It’s All About the Dough

A friend from high school invited me to his house on Saturday. Some of his college friends were there and they congratulated him on the new house he purchased back in August. He did not tell me it was a housewarming party. I bought some Chinese roasted duck.

He and I go all the way back to high school. We were closed, but went separate ways after we graduated. He joined the Army and became successful. We both ended up in Virginia, but hadn’t kept in touch for over 20 years. One of the reasons was his constant deployments.

I met up with him about a month ago and we reminisced on the good old days. We were still the same old friends even though we had taken our own path. He went through a tough divorce, but the break was clean since they didn’t have any children together.

During the party, he and his friends talked about politics. I enjoyed the food and the Rémy. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t feel the need to get into the discussion. After all of his friends left, I sat alone with him and we talked about the past. Then politics came up again.

He asked me if I voted and I said, “of course, it was my civic duty and my rights.” With some booze in my system, I could no longer hold back. I plowed into our political discussion. I had tremendous respect for my friend who put his life on the line to defend our country. I also wanted to understand why he went with the orange turd. From our conversation, I learned that he voted with his pocket book. He chose the dollar over democracy and decency.

As an old friend, I was a bit disappointed, but I had no ill will toward him. He was not alone. In fact, the majority of America had voted that way. I told him that I hope I am dead wrong about the threat to our democracy. As a country, we abandoned decency for money. What a damn shame.