Uncle Harry Backs Mike Huckabee

This morning, I was lamenting over whether or not to deep six the wilted poinsettia, or try to revive it with water mixed with granola. My house smelled of peat moss, as I was looking forward to attending the Philadelphia Flower Show and digging up my current stash, including the Amaryllis that didn't bloom because a mouse ate half the bulb for Thanksgiving dinner.

I looked out the kitchen window at my deceased clematis and sorry looking herb garden, while mentally planning spring planting season. Last fall, I went to the dock begging for fish heads from the Watermen to use for fertilizer. I had to bribe one of them with some hand sanitizer and several empty Wal-Mart bags. As a result of holding funeral services for sea bass and several small sand sharks, my Rosemary now stands out from the moldy sage like a giant Christmas green Japanese yew.

I was rudely interrupted from my strategy plan by Uncle Harry, who was still wearing flip-flops, making divots in my yard even though it was only 50 degrees outside. I mentally ripped the darn things with my garden sheers, as he hot-footed over to my house hoping for free food and coffee. I can't break him out of the flip-flop habit no matter how hard I try - not even with politics, about which he is unnervingly obsessed. My mind is never on politics - his, always. Sometimes, I'd like to pull an Elvis with a .22 caliber handgun on the TV when he watches Fox News. They say bullets from the .22 do more damage than others when they penetrate the human body, so just think what it could do to a TV?

"I already like Mike Huckabee's political strategy. He writes a book 'A Simple Government' and launches it by saying 'This is my entire platform.' Of course the 800-pound gorilla in the room is Obama's $1 billion political campaign budget; but, who would you rather have balancing our check book? While Obama goes out and kisses babies at $129.95 a pop, Mike does it on a book tour at 75% off," he blurted as he almost knocked me over at the back door.

"Not again, Harry." I interrupted. "If I have to listen to another one of your political rants this morning, I'll need a barf bag. By-the-way, oatmeal and farina are your only choices for breakfast. The local market only had pale blue eggs with fleurs- de-lis stampings on them that read 'Who Dat?' so I assumed they were either a year old already because the Saints won last year, or the rooster was questionable, so I didn't buy any."

"Lookey here," he said. "I downloaded a newspaper on my Kindle and it has an interview with Huckabee. This is what I'm sayin' the whole time. This guy knows how to budget."

"Look a little further," I said. "He's also against gay marriage and anything that ain't Baptist."

"So, what, did you jump the fence or something?" He responded sarcastically.

"No, it's just that a President needs to address ALL the citizens, not just half."

"You voting for Obama?" He was shocked.

"No, I'm voting for an objective candidate and haven't made up my mind yet. If Huckabee sees the light outside of Arkansas into a multi-cultural society of taxpayers, I might vote for him. Right now, I'm debating whether to impose capital punishment on my poinsettias, put my Rosemary on a diet, and/or separate my over-sexed gladiolus bulbs before the flower show."