May I have your attention please

By Drew Millard

Well, after having watched the first of many Democratic and Republican debates, I have concluded that there are no suitable candidates for President. Not that the debates helped, of course. The questions posed to the Democrats ranged from easy (Name your favorite Supreme Court Justice — Ginsburg!) to ridiculously easy (On a scale from one to ten, how bad is the Iraq war? — Eleven!) to gimmes (On a scale from Gary Busey to Angelina Jolie, how concerned are you about Global Warming? — Matt Damon!).

And don’t even get me started on the Republicans. All in all, they referenced Ronald Reagan (whose library was lent out for the debate) and his politics a total of nineteen times, which is about fifteen more times than they would have mentioned him had Nancy Reagan not been sitting in the audience.

A moment that really struck me as just bizarre was when John McCain glared at the camera and vowed to “follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell.” Really, I think that he should stop at the River Styx. That, and Rudy Giuliani mentioned that he was mayor of New York six times that night.

The softballs lobbed to the Republicans were just as easy as the ones asked of the Dems. Sample question: Which is worse: abortion or a chicken salad sandwich? All answered “Abortion,” except for Giuliani, who said, “Eh, well I’m gluten-intolerant, so I’ll have so say the sandwich.”

This is beyond intolerable. If any of these candidates from either end of the political spectrum win the presidency, then the entire United States is doomed to World War III, and we all know it. Which is where I come in. I’d like to announce my candidate for the presidency of the United States. I’ll be running as an independent, as I’m not technically registered to vote and am not technically allowed to run due to my age. Still, I’d like you to consider me.

I know that a presidential candidate’s opinions on the issues are almost as important as stuff like hair, teeth, and whether or not any of my relatives has their own brand of beer, so I’m going to tell you where I stand on all of the “hot-button issues.” So, well, here goes.

I think that Medicare and Social Security are vastly more complex issues than the American people should have to deal with, so I would eliminate both of them. People don’t seem to like taxes either, so I’d stop making people pay them. All homeless people from here on out get dancing lessons so they can finally stop being useless bums and turn into endearing vagabonds, hearkening back to a simpler, happier America that never actually existed. Millard Fillmore would be on the seven-dollar bill, which I would create. As for abortion, same-sex marriage, terrorism, and the war in Iraq — eh. I’m sure they’ll all work themselves out.

How I spent my spring vacation

By Drew Millard

Okay kids, story time. Here’s the scene: I was staying in Myrtle Beach a couple of weeks ago in a beach house with a bunch of my friends. I won’t lie to you, it was pretty sweet. Let me just say that you have not lived until you have tried to swim in the seventy-degree waters of the Atlantic Ocean, or attempted (in vain) to haggle with a foreign man over the price of a Grateful Dead t-shirt, or lost money getting hustled by a fifteen-year old pool shark from New Jersey who may or may not have been named Sanchez, or watched Borat at least once a day for five days straight. Some may disagree with me here, but I digress.

Point is, the night before my group was to depart, Lewis, Reed, and myself left our golf clubs out in the open carport under our beach house. When we woke up, mine and Lewis’s clubs were nowhere to be found. Missing. Kaput. 86’d. The clubs were as gone as F. Scott Fitzgerald after a night on the town with Ernest Hemingway. So it goes.

Now I know what you’re wondering, and yes, our clubs were stolen. Oh, and the thieves were kind enough to leave some of my stuff behind: a dirty sock, a golf ball, and my right golf shoe. I can only assume that they took only the right shoe because the thief was a one-footed golfer.

Upon the realization that our clubs had been, we called the security force at the neighborhood where we were staying. These fine gentlemen told us that (a) we were dumb for leaving our clubs out in the open, (b) the clubs had probably been stolen by a meth addict from New York, and (c) these days, society has no morals. I can find no fault with any of these statements. The security officer then called the police, and an officer was dispatched to see us immediately.

This was the most physically threatening police officer I have ever seen. He was about six foot five, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds of pure masculinity. He looked like the type of guy who played football in high school and upon graduation, entered the police academy so he could keep hitting people.

He asked us where the clubs had been, what had been left, and for a description of the situation as we saw it. He then proceeded to ask us for an exact inventory of what had been taken.

See, this was a problem.

If you are a golfer, then you know that I couldn’t have just given him a description of the clubs and leave it at that. You know that I had to get into brands, talk about all my little headcovers for the woods, the exact specifications of each and every club, the type of shafts, distinguishing marks, and of course the length of the putter.

Obviously, this man was not a golfer.

Irked as our police officer was, he continued to serve the people and take down my ever-expanding inventory of lost items. He seemed okay with it, until I told him that I was finished, and then said, “Oh yeah, and there was another thing. One golf shoe.”

At this point, the guy kind of lost it. Actually, I said that wrong. At this point, the officer wanted to lose it, because there was a seventeen-year old idiot who was pretty much asking to get his golf clubs stolen wanting to add that — in addition to almost a thousand dollars in merchandise already laid out in enough detail to choke an ox — one and only one golf shoe was stolen from him. Point is, the officer made a motion with his pen that let me know exactly how exasperated he was. You’ve seen it before, that little tic that someone does whenever they want to slam their writing utensil into the gap between Elton John’s teeth, but they can’t because their status requires them to carry themselves with an air of calm at all times. That gesture where the pen-slamming motion starts, but all that ever happens is the person just ends up setting their pen down for a moment and then resumes their writing as though nothing happened, but actually, they will never be able to love or trust or even be wholeheartedly nice to you ever again. That’s the one I got.

I quickly finished giving my description of the clubs, told the guy that I didn’t want to come to the club thief’s (if they catch him) bail hearing, and didn’t need to be notified upon the date of the alleged club thief’s alleged release from the alleged prison that he would hypothetically go to if he were dumb enough to get caught. I then fled the scene and let the officer talk to Lewis, who is more of a “people person” than I am and knows when not to babble.

The officer told him that we were the victims of grand larceny in that the value of the items stolen from us was in excess of one thousand dollars. That really didn’t phase me, but the one thing about the entire incident that kind of hurt my feelings was the fact that Lewis claims that on the part of the police report asking whether the victim had been using drugs, the officer put “unknown” for me and “no” for him. Yeah, well, that’s just, like, his opinion, man.

What have I learned from this experience? Well actually, a lot. I’ve learned that one should never leave valuable stuff out in the open (duh), the police will always help you no matter how much you annoy them (duh), and I sometimes act like I’m on drugs.

So seriously, guys. If you see a dude with one foot, a Polk County High School golf bag with “D. Millard” embroidered on it, and a set of clubs that perfectly matches the specifications that should be on display at the Horry County Police Department, fight him. He’s a thief.