President Post Turtle

by Tom Shafer

February 11, 2018

So, I was sitting at the pub with a buddy recently, and he wondered whether I had heard any good jokes lately.  I had to admit that I hadn’t, but did throw out a couple of punchlines to old jokes that got us to chuckling.  Another friend and I have often reckoned that we’ll be bunkmates at a nursing home in our diaper years, and lacking the memory – and energy – will lie in our beds telling these old punchlines and giggling our heads off.

When I got home from the pub, I checked in with CNN to see what was going on in TrumpWorld™, and as I sat there, another joke popped into my head, one I have heard a number of times, usually associated with politicians.  I realized that this old yarn was the perfect way to explain Trump’s ascension to the presidency.  I’m sure you’ll agree with me . . .

An old rancher was talking local politics with a young man who had just moved from the city to this rural enclave.  In the discussion, the rancher mentioned that the mayor of the town was just an old “post turtle.”  Being unfamiliar with the term, the newcomer asked what a post turtle was.

“Well, sometimes when you are driving the backroads around here, you’ll come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top of it. That’s a post turtle.  You know he didn’t get up there by himself, you know he doesn’t belong there, and you wonder who put him there.  He doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, and you just want to help the poor dumb thing down.”

Enough said?

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