oh boy, that was hard to say.
Posted on 09/07/2004 3:04:29 PM PDT by bigeasy_70118
While sipping a Pimm's Cup with Teresa in the Deluxe Suite at the Atlanta Ritz Carlton, I had what some down south might call a 'hankering' for some barbecue. Teresa suggested that we send our house servant, Mrs. Landingham out for take out. See, we had brought Mrs. Landingham with us to reward her with a working vacation. She was originally to have her own room, but my daughter Vanessa decided to join us, so Teresa decided that Mrs. Landingham could sleep on the pull out couch in the den, rather than get her own room, that way, she would be available for any late night chores that Teresa would need assistance with it. (Note that assistance is a somewhat nuanced term when applied to Tersa as Mrs. Landingham would be performing the actual task, Teresa would be supervising and certainly correcting Mrs. Landingham's work.)
After awakening Mrs. Landingham and requesting that she retrieve a late night snack of barbecue, we had quite a dillemma. You see, niether Teresa, Vanessa, myself nor Mrs. Landingham have ever dined at a barbecue restuarant in Atlanta (quite frankly Vanessa, Teresa and myself have never dined in a barbecue restaurant regardless of locale) and had no idea where to obtain our treat.
Then a brillant idea occurred to Teresa. "Dahhhhhh-ling, why don't zoo call former President CLINT-on. He zeems to be a fan of trailer park fare." Neither I nor Teresa had Bill Clinton's phone number but I did have my Senate rolodex with me. After asking Mrs. Landingham to "be a dear and fetch it for me", we had her look up Hillary Clinton's phone number.
"John Kerry for Hillary Clinton", Mrs. Landingham announced into the phone. Hillary's houseboy in D.C. was pleased to tranfer my call to Hillary who I suppose was in a hot tub with Rosie O'Donnell. "Hillary, John Kerry here, I was wondering if you had your husband's cell phone number." She said she lost Bill's number in January of 2001 but still has James Carville's number who most certainly would have Bill's cell number. She requested that her houseboy look up Carville's number and call me back. Upon my wishing her the best, I thought I heard a female voice in the background comment "first time we''ll be voting republican." I assume Hillary and Rosie were discussing a congressional race.
Hillary's manservant quickly returned my call with James Carville's number. having Mrs. Landingham dialed the number rapidly and Carville answered the phone after a few rings. I explained our dillemma. Carville spoke rapidly, "You see here John, this is your problem as a candidate, you have made two phone calls, three e-mails, seven faxes and launched the space shuttle so you can order some barbecue. In Looosssssiana, when we want barbecue, we head down to the bayou, wrastle a gator and then smoke it's ass for 12 hours. John, if you want to win this election you need to start wrasslin' some gators."
I really didn't quite understand what Carville was getting at. Since Teresa emigrated from Africa and Louisiana is like Africa, I decided to have her speak to James. After hanging up the phone, Teresa explained to me that what James meant was instead of sending Mrs. Landingham out for barbecue, we should get it ourselves and call the media so the American people could see that we eat barbeuce just like them. A brillant idea! I did wonder about just sending Mrs. Landingham and still calling the media, so they could see Mrs. Landingham bringing us barbecue at 12:30 at night but Vanessa said that I had missed the point.
We had still not resolved where we would be dinning. Teresa never did get President Clinton's number from James Carville, so we had Mrs. Landingham call him back and she jotted Bill's number down on a Ritz Carlton note pad. Despite being exhausted, Mrs. Landingham pushed forward on our quest. "Hey there John," said Bill through the phone. "I just talked to Carville, he says you want to campaign like I did in 1992, and meet some real Americans at a barbecue restuarant. Well, I got just the place, it combines barbecue and pro wrestling ( I wondered if this is what Carville meant by wrestling gators.) It's right off I-275, it's called Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs and Chinese Food. Make sure you bring John and Elizabeth Edwards along, Lizzie'll like that chinese buffet they got there."
After ending the conversation with President Clinton, I called my campaign advance team (I did this myself as Mrs. Landingham is far too simple a woman to involver herself in politics.) and asked that they set up a campaign stop at Abdullah's in a half an hour so that Teresa, Vanessa and I could enjoy a late night snack and the American people would discover that we really are just like them.
My campaign aides told me this would be impossible. And that the best they could do would be to arrange a lunch tomorrow. There were two reasons for this. First, the media and the staff at Abdullah's were all asleep and if I wanted any positive coverage from this event, I would have to be cooperative and second, if Elizabeth Edwards found out that we had a campaign stop at a chinese buffet without her there would be hell to pay.
So we were on for a barbecue lunch, but all this talk of food had made Vanessa, Teresa and myself very hungry. Mrs. Landingham discovered that there was some brie, pate and water crackers in the mini bar. She quickly spread 18 crackers, nine with pate, nine with brie and brought them to Teresea, Vanessa and myself. Since we were staying at a hotel, Teresa gave Mrs. Landingham the morning off except for a few chores. One of which was brushing our maltese, Fifi, who would be making a public appearance with us at Abdullah's.
After our motorcade arrived at Abdullah's, John Edwards. met us in the parking lot. "Elizabeth's already in line for the buffet. Is John Heinz buying or should I bill it to a client?" That has been an inside joke for us throughout the campaign. You see, campaign finance laws prohibit me for using my wife's inherited wealth to pay for my Presidential run and John hasn't practiced law in years but overbilling for partner lunches was one of his favorite hobbies.
As Teresa, John, Vanessa and Fifi were about to enter Abdullah's a helpful young lad with the name 'Larry' embroidered on his apron told us that we could not bring our dog into the restuarant. "No, no, this is no ordinary mutt, I explained, this was a pure bred Maltese, who surely was welcome everywhere." The manager explained to us that it was a health code violation to bring an animal into the restuarant. Teresa was incensed and made an offhand comment about "Fifi being cleaner than 70 percent of zee white trash who eat at this f-cking dive". Nonetheless, we left Fifi on a leash outside with our secret service detail.
As Elizabeth Edwards piled a second helping of Moo Goo Gai Pan on her plate, I explained to the media, that George W. Bush was the candidate of corporate America and that I was the candidate of people who dined at barbeuce restaurants owned by former pro wrestlers. And that I was against being the candidate of special interests before I was for being the candidate of special interests or something like that. I am not really sure what my positions are sometimes and quite frankly it doesn't really seem to matter.... except to Chris Matthews.
With the exception of Elizabeth, we all picked at our food and I was really glad we hadn't sent Mrs. Landingham out at 12:30 am to bring us back this tripe when we probably would have just ate the pate and brie in the mini bar after all that trouble anyway. "Can you believe zee masses eat this sh-t?" inquired Teresa. After we left, John Edwards suggested we get some real food. Since we were headed to Miami after Atlanta, I had Mrs. Landingham call Thomas Keller's Per Se restaurant in New York City. She placed an order of chilled english pea soup, 3 Bellwhether farms spring lamb with Swiss chard and 4 Grilled Asparagus and feta cheese salads. They agreed to meet us in Miami and set up a picnic lunch for us in the sky club which we managed to have closed so we could eat our late lunch. When asked for the name on the credit card, Mrs. Landingham replied 'John Heinz'.
Sit down. Relax! Here's a good laugh for you!
That was very funny. Thx.
Mrs. Landingham has the toughest job in politics.
oh boy, that was hard to say.
barker mump
for a dyslexic
It's funny, but it's also nearly believable. Thanks for posting it.
bttt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.