AC Dickson: eBay Power Seller

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Politics: AC style
by acdickson

A lot of people wonder what the political inclination of dear old Mr. AC is. Well, I live in Portland, Oregon, dress from the thrift store and stress the global betterment of an eBay nation versus how much money I make. You guessed it; I'd be prone to most liberal senator in congress charges.

So, like most of you reading this, the last few weeks have been tough. But AC has a certain can-do on-to-the-next-thing attitude that serves him well — I have effectively shut down the part of my brain that monitors politics and world affairs. The New Yorker goes unread. I still read the editorial page in the morning, but it's slid from first section to third and I don't finish reading letters I disagree with. To further isolate myself, my fiancee and I have altered our vacation plans to not only avoid red states, but red towns, and even blue towns that voted against gay marriage. I am living in a blissful bubble.

But last night my bubble was penetrated. I was hanging at the Tube, the once most trendy now most post-punk spot in Portland with a few friends. I was facing the bar, watching a gaggle of older woman (older meaning mid 30's, at 31 I'm often the oldest looking person in there) prance and play. It was getting near closing time and these women had the unmistakable mark of the cougar. I made the error in judgment of letting my gaze linger too long as the merriest spun in her chair like an office cheerleader. I averted my eyes, concentrating on serious conversation with my friends Nate and Barney, but the damage was done. I had become her prey.

It took her a whole 15 seconds to come over and begin the not so subtle art of seduction. Sorry, lady, gots to look for the ring. But she was past the point of being that attentive to detail. Her particulars — from Phoenix, works for Key Bank, up in P-town for the very first time for the mid-week Christmas party (we agreed it was weird). When I started to make fun of the idea of having lawns much less golf courses in the desert, she argued that she was in fact from Ohio. Jokingly, I reminded her that was even worst — she lost us the election.

"I voted for Bush."

Whoa. Mindblower. As I eventually told her, I know 400 people in Portland and I can't think of one of them who voted for Bush. That's part of my bubble, remember, I don't hang with republicans. Suffice is to say, she became the lightening rod for everything I wanted to tell Bush voters. The best part is she was the exact type of person who would listen. She's not homophobic (she asserted after I implied she must be for voting for Bush), she's just voted for Bush because her "that's the way I was raised" and "how could you trust Kerry?"

I won't bore you with the blow by blow, but my comebacks were along the familiar lines of "yeah, I mean Kerry is a such a liar. We all know he only went to Vietnam so he could put it on his resume. It's much more honest to fess up to being a coke addict who got his Dad to pull CIA strings to get him out of harms way."

It felt good. I got a lot off my chest. She did everything she could to change the subject, buying us a round of Jagermeister shots being the most common refrain, but we kept bringing it back to politics. Her friends kept trying to get her back to the bar — both her prissy botox blonde co-banker and her "I'm with democracy coming together it's the lesser of two evils" I'm cool even though I work at a bank quasi-hipster friend. But Maura, ah yes, that was her name, Maura really wanted to make this right. She wanted to remember meeting three fetching Portland lads in a bar she was too old to be in who were nonetheless taken in by her fading beauty and country club charm.

Finally the cab arrived, she had to leave her friends insisted. But she needed closure that she could sleep on, she had to make it make it right. I would not comply. I brought out my ashamed to be American speech paraphrased from a WWII letter to the editor that I recently read. She was fucking stunned. She just looked at me like a deer in the headlights. I feel very confident that she either blacked out and won't remember last night or that our conversation will stay with her for years. Maybe she'll do a little more homework next election and consider voting independent of Daddy, maybe she'll just remember this as the night that she was once and for all middle-aged. Maybe she'll realize that there's more on the line that tax breaks for her and her friends. I don't know. But I got to her. And that feels better than a $6,000 pop off.

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