Vignette with toothbrush

I forgot to pack my toothbrush, so I stop at a market in south central Oregon to buy one.

I prefer a firm toothbrush, but firm toothbrushes no longer exist, they've been outsourced to China or somewhere, and the market where I've stopped in south central Oregon offers only soft and medium toothbrushes.

I buy two medium toothbrushes, thinking two mediums will make a firm.

Then I get on the road north again. It's raining medium to firm toothbrushes on Interstate 5. Semi's outnumber automobiles 3 to 1, creating a series of miniature tsunami's that lead to Cottage Grove.

I stop at a small cafe in Cottage Grove and order the special: a Denver omelette with dental floss. The waiter, Josh, is ex-military and is adjusting to civilian life by being both super-efficient and desperately unhappy.

Betsy DeVos, US Secretary of Education with whom I've become obsessed, sits at the counter, drinking coffee and eating a cinnamon roll. I can't believe what I'm seeing! I've not only dreamed about Betsy DeVos, I've written about her.

Betsy DeVos is grading student papers like a teacher in a rural grade-school, sipping coffee from time to time like the regular person she is. I could reach right out and touch her, but I have too much respect for a person's inalienable right to privacy, not to mention the rights of plutocrats who pretend to be civil servants. Obsessed with Betsy DeVos as I am, I somehow resist the temptation to look over Betsy's shoulder to see if she's grading on the curve, or holding her minions to highest standards of the new language of bureaucracy--the ability to speak in cliches so redolent with incompetence that cliches sound almost original.

I don't look, I can't. It's time to move on and join the masses heading north to Portland where it's raining cats and dogs.