A Journey into the Halls

I wanted to see what it was like. I envisioned old men smoking cigars talking about how they were going to make it so that the tobacco farmers would be able to collect on their buy-out payments without actually getting the full amount they were originally slated to receive, or about how they could make it look as though they really tried to push through a state constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage while making jokes about how fat their third wives' asses had gotten before they divorced. I didn't really know what it would be like inside offices of the state legislature, but I didn't have a good preconceived notion. So to see if any of what I thought was true, I walked up the wide steps and through the big doors. I had taken everything out of my pockets before I got out of the car so that I wouldn't have to be delayed very long at the metal detectors, even my wallet and driver's license. I even took off my belt; because I knew at the airport sometimes my belt would set off the alarms, which made me have to keep tugging at the loops on both sides of my hips. It was evident that the security guard thought that it was a little suspicious that I didn't take any thing out of my pockets by the way he furrowed his brow when I walked through the opening wide enough to fit the fattest of the local politicians. I hadn't planned out my trip to the capital very well, so I had to wander around a bit to figure out where things were. Perhaps it was this wandering that proved to be my downfall, but I'll get to that in a bit. I eventually figured out where the main floor of the state senate lay, but there was no one in there. Figured, lazy bastards. Then I found where the state house met. No one was in there either. This solidified my thoughts that everything was done in little side deals between a few people, who were being pumped full of booze and money from groups who'd worked out a scheme to bilk my tax dollars into there own bank accounts. The more I wandered around, the madder I got, imaging where these people really were. I found a hallway that had four doors on either side. This had to be the so-called "back rooms" of the state legislature where all that corruption took place. After a little debate with myself, I decided that I was going to go into the last one on the right, because I thought that would be where the most egregious failures were occurring-the farthest from view. I knocked lightly, turned the knob slowly, and then I flung the door open. With all that anger that had built up in my head, as soon as I saw that dark suit, I pulled back and kicked him square in the nuts. I turned around and ran back down the hallway; it's just too bad that in my rambling I hadn't tried to remember how to get back out. Security found me before I could find an exit. You know, you'd think that being hit with that tazer would have been the most shocking thing to me, but it wasn't. It was the realization a few minutes later, as the congresswoman told the guard that it was me who had kicked her in the crotch, that I had it wrong the whole time.