Love Means Never Having to Recalibrate

I had just gotten back home from visiting my former grandfather, who is now my grandmother. My grand...um...person was recovering from a voluntary medical procedure, euphemistically referred to as a genital re-assignment.

At least I hope it was voluntary.

A keen follower of all things political, née Granddad had decided to proceed with this operation after carefully not reading the health care bill. Grandmandam wasn't entirely confident that government-managed health care would cover it, and s/he couldn't figure out how to become an illegal alien and get it for free, so the surgery was scheduled. A doctor was secured, a rhinoplastic neo-genderologist, who agreed to don his scrubs and wax ligative during one of the lulls in-between his current malpractice cases.

Understand: I fully support my ancestor or ancestress in this matter. It's a personal decision, or un-decision, and no recalibrations are necessary.

And my grandbeing is recuperating nicely, thank you, despite some understandable gaffes when selecting the appropriate public bathroom. I recalibrated profusely to the indisposed patrons, explaining that here was a seasoned citizen who, sexually speaking, had just gone free agent, and that a justifiable interval of readjustment was to be expected. I then maneuvered the aged relative back to the room, blew a kiss from a safe distance, left my gender-neutral gifts on the bed-side table, and drove home.

But at home I realized that, in my rush to check on my grandling, I had forgotten my house key. I was locked out of my own property, like Bernie Madoff, or hundreds of former Chrysler dealers.

I did have a spare key in a little lockbox, but of course I'd forgotten the combination. I tried everything: my birthday, my birthday backwards, Grandpa's bra size, even my Congressman's IQ, which I knew wouldn't work because the lock required more than 2 digits.

Just to be sure, I tested all the windows. Then, out of options, I broke down my own back door. Great. Another expense. Another visit by another government-mandated back door repairman.

While looking up the phone number for the Residential Door Jamb Czar, I checked my messages. There were two: one salesman trying to sell me Viagra by mail, and one trying to sell me a burial plot. Apparently, one of these guys knows something about me that I don't. I called the Viagra guy's number, recalibrated for missing his call, and left him the number of the burial plot guy.

Suddenly, an authoritative voice behind me yelled a command, a command I hadn't heard since a certain ill-fated college prank involving a Plymouth Duster, an anatomically-correct medical dummy, a rock quarry, and three confused future beauticians.

"Freeze!"

As a student of history with fairly good recall, I froze.

But I wasn't ready for this. There he stood, in my cluttered kitchen. The President of the United States.

What's this? I mean, I knew state budgets were tight: our Governor had emptied prisons and furloughed the police. But I didn't expect to get arrested by the President himself. I was ill-equipped to greet such a guest. I had no snacks, no canapés, no wads of non-sequential $100 bills, nothing.

"Mr. President?"

"Hello, stupid."

"Sir, allow me to recalibrate for not being able to offer you a soda or anything, but I..."

"Hello, stupid."

"Yeah, you just said that, sir."

His eyes darted about, confused, before the truth hit him: there was no teleprompter. He visibly crumpled.

"Can ... can I use your phone?"

"Certainly, sir!"

"I ne ... I need to call my mother."

I won't recalibrate. I love my family. I did the math, saw the opportunity, plucked the fruit.

"Your mother, sir? Is he seeing anyone?"