never live with your dealer

by Marty Shambles

That's one thing I learned. Never live with a cocaine dealer, and if you must live with one, never discuss your favorite presidents. Cocaine invariably leads a conversation to presidents. I told David, my roommate/cocaine dealer, that my favorite president was the current one. This set him off. What? How can you say that? The last president was so much better. The penultimate prez made so many good things happen. I wasn't taking it lying down, even though I was snorting on his dime that night. The last president made everything worse! And he said, Well, he was too busy mopping up the mess made by the previous president. I said, The last president made it so that anyone who makes more money than you can whack you with a baseball bat with impunity. And he said, Well this president upgraded that law to make shooting anyone who has less money than you legal. I didn't know this. This was news to me. You mean our current president made it like the last president but worse? David said, Maybe that's what presidents are for. This thought churned the powder in my brain to an unpleasant paste that made everything reek of conspiracy. I watched david from the keyhole in my room. How did he know so much about presidents? Did he have special insights into their motivations? I hired a private detective to follow him everywhere. What he found was that David had hired a private detective to follow me. Which meant that David now knew that I hired a private detective too. We confronted each other in the apartment. We said the same things in unison, How could you-- you're such a-- I guess we're both guilty. We tried to hire private investigators to follow all the living presidents, but nobody would take the case.

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