“Profoundly clueless?! She called my profoundly clueless! How dare she!”
The Kushneratops’ face cork-screwed into a cruel scowl as he and the Tyvankanatrix stared down at the footprints in the sand, the latest report from the Mediacircustops, the Jillfilipovic.
“Relax, dear. It’s just more fake news,” said Tyvanka.
“I wish it was. Except that … I resemble that remark.”
“No, not you, sweetheart. Perhaps she’s referring to father. She did say the next battle campaign could restore competence, stature and sanity to the Oval Dwelling.”
“Don’t patronize me. You know how I hate being patronized. Look, right here,” he said, pointing at a telling footprint. “… this under-qualified senior advisor. Hah! Name me one dino — just one — who hasn’t had a mediocre academic career, a massive condo cave failure and purchased a Mediacircustops footprints in the sand venture as a vanity project and watched it disappear in the quicksand.”
“Your logic is s-o-o-o very sound, dear. I love it when your little attitude voice speaks up. You don’t look like a little dino anymore.”
He gave her a hurt, wounded look.
“Oh, no. I’m sorry, dear. I called you little in back-to-back sentences, didn’t I? Fear not. You did marry a Tyrumposaurus and daddy likes you.”
“That’s what the Jillfilipovic said.”
“Oh.”
He gulped anew. She looked at him with genuine caring.
“Get it out, Kush-Kush. Get it all out.”
“She called me rich dolt! A rich dolt for crying out loud!”
“Try and remember what father said.”
“What you see and hear isn’t really happening?”
“No. Any publicity is good publicity. At least they’re talking about you.”
“Yes, but … she didn’t call you a rich dolt that’s profoundly clueless. I don’t know if I can take this.” He dabbed at his right eye. “I think … I think I’m going to cry.”
“Cheer up, sweetheart. Look, right here. She says you occupy one of the most powerful positions on earth.”
“Even though I’m ignorant, middling and amoral,” he finished reading the footprint and sniffed back tears.
The Tyvankanatrix frowned.
“Jared. Stop reading. Just stop. You can’t do this to yourself.”
“But I want to be like your father, to be able to lie at will, double down, and come up with an ingratiating nicknames like Nervous Nancy. Pure genius.”
“But that’s not who you are, my little Kush-Kush. I mean tall, skinny … I mean. Never mind. My father has no soul. And you’re not mean like him. It’s not in your nature. You’re an endangered species, dear.”
“You’re not helping matters.”
She smiled at him.
“I’m kidding. I love it when you flash your smug, sly, self-serving smile.”
“You do?”
“Sure, it tells everyone you know more than they do, even when you don’t.”
“You think so? You really do? Don’t lie to me like your dad now.”
“Of course.”
“You don’t know how convincingly fraudulent that makes me feel. I love you, Tyvanka.”
“I love you, Kush-Kush.”
“Even when the Jillfilipovic calls me a whole lot of nothing?”
“Of course. Because you’re a whole lot of … something.”
“Like?”
She struggled for words, her eyes falling, finally finding the footprints, frantically skimming them. “Here, it says good thing.”
He sighed and read the full footprint.
“She says I manage to spin my utter incompetence as a good thing.”
“Jared, I know we don’t do this very often, but let’s look at the facts. You protected my father when she called him racist.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“And you made a beautiful dodge when she pressured you on father’s whole campaign to say the Obamarus wasn’t born in the Milkanhoney Preservation.”
“And the dino abortion issue,” said Kushner, gaining confidence. “Don’t forget that. When they asked me if I supported dino abortion rights, I told them I’m here to enforce the T-Rump’s positions. His position is one that as a dino member in the Oval Dwelling we’ll work to push.”
“That was impressive. What does it even mean?”
“Precisely.”
They smiled and any other dino couple might have laughed. Not these two. They’d tried that once. Hers was a tittering lilt, his a nasal guffaw. When combined it grated nerves and threatened their social status. So, there was no laughter for them. Besides, laughter wasn’t part of the T-Rump credo. Only deriding sarcasm and verbal attacks. Laughter was for weak dinos, the second class, the caring, the vulnerable. Laughter was for losers.
Thankfully, those ‘losers’ do have a sense of humor because they aren’t profoundly clueless.
David Belisle 