Subtitled: What is the answer to What kind of dish is revenge?

Some of you may remember being assigned the novel Tale of Two Cities when you were in high school, or maybe college? I was too, in the tenth grade. I recall reading the first chapter and then throwing it across the room. I hated it. There were just TOO MANY WORDS. My high school students would all be in 100% agreement on this; it is not an easy read. (Fortunately, the BBC has put out several very good versions of it on film, and there was also a classic film featuring Ronald Colman made in the 1940’s , I think.) Ok, so now…many years later it is, of course, one of my favorite books. I find myself to be so predictable…all of those long and tedious Victorian novels that I refused to read in high school have all turned into my favorites. Whatever!! I’m a kooky lady.

Back to Tale of Two Cities…it is a story (by Charles Dickens) of two countries during the French Revolution in the late 1700’s, when the tragically impoverished lower class citizens of France revolted against the ridiculously wealthy and entitled aristocracy of that country. “Aristo‘s” they were called. Marie Antoinette famously stated, when asked what will the people eat if they have no bread?? She replied, “Let them eat cake,” ever so compassionately. Furthermore, two of the most pronounced scenes in the book are 1) when an imbecilic “Aristo” runs over a little poor boy with his carriage and then throws a nickel on the ground to the parents as he flees off with his horse and driver. 2) And the second is a scene during which about four or five tasters must taste a plate of food destined for the mouth of an Aristo.

Now to the point: One of the peasant ladies in the revolutionary movement, Madame Defarge, spends her time and days knitting upon a particular quilt. She is never without it. We keep wondering, “What is with the damn quilt?” That is until we find out that on it, she has knitted the name of every single individual who has supported the aristocratic culture or government, and in turn has been a harm to the peasant lower class. In addition, those individuals’ names knitted onto this quilt will hitherto become The List. The names are IN the ORDER, much less, that they shall be executed upon the guillotine when the revolution is accomplished. Madame Guillotine, they called her, and the peasants in their bloodlust, wore replicas of that execution machine around their necks in enthusiastic anticipation.

It is a hard and not a very healthy thing for one to carry a revenge wish in one’s heart, but each day of the current “government substitute” renews my metaphorical quilt of names. Apparently, I am not alone. I have heard no less than 50 times only in the last month about the sycophants in the current administration who will be held culpable for being complicit in all the heinous infractions committed by this administration.

As the East Wing of the White House has now been demolished without any of the necessary discussions, approvals, or checks and balances that this country has firmly planted its roots into for 250 years, I think about the quilt. There are a lot of names that belong there. Let’s see….. there’s Monsieur Petit Mike Johnson, Madam Karolyn Liar Leavitt, Monsieur Alien-Man Steven Miller, Monsieur Monster Hagseth Himself, and we all know the many many more.

If Old Teflon Don somehow gets away with this or croaks before his comeuppance, there are lots of people left on the quilt. I can only hope there is at least one Democrat, or Independent, or Socialist, or Libertarian, or Zoroastrian who is a capable yarn crafter or needleworker keeping it all there, recorded onto a Quilt of Shame.