AND

I mentioned the West Gate Mall. This was a place, previous to my employment at the aforementioned Art and Drafting store, that Michael Gerkovich and I frequented. We did so because we believed the place to be haunted. It is a run down mall populated mostly by elderly people who amble from store to store, dragging dialysis machines and oxygen tanks in their stead. The West Gate Mall is a place where the dying flock. There must be something magical within the walls of that old shopping mall that holds those who should be dead just south of the line between where we are and the “somewhere” where people go hereafter.

Around Christmas time the West Gate Mall becomes especially lonely and eerie. They bring out Santa’s boozed up ghost and place him in the middle of a sorry “Christmas Time Village”. This place is a cheerless display of failed dreams and unutterable despair complete with violin playing bears whose sound has been turned off. What one hears instead of the recording of Christmas music on violin is the sad sound of the pretend bow rubbing up against the pretend strings, and the sound of the bear’s mechanical arthritis creaking and whining.

LET ME GET TO THE POINT OF THIS: Barack Obama has been touring the world. People have been saying, “The press is in loves with Obama with the biased giddiness of a teenage girl. They cover him more than they cover John Mccain. IT’S NOT FAIR!!! I’m John Mccain and I’ve approved this message.”

While Obama hobnobs with foreign dignitaries in Europe and the Middle East, flying over Iraq with General Petreas, WHERE IS JOHN MCCAIN?

I WISH I WERE LYING TO YOU:

“JOHN MCCAIN VISITS THE WEST GATE MALL IN BETHLEHEM”

Works Cited: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/elections/index.ssf/2008/07/john_mccain_makes_stop_at_west.html

Michael Gerkovich weighs in, saying, ” SO. OLD. SO. FALLING. APART. THE BEARS. THE VIOLINS. OH GOD.”