The crowd turned their faces back toward him expectantly. He winked at Trillian, who raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes at him. She knew what he was about to say and thought him a terrible showoff.
"That is really amazing," he said. "That really is truly amazing. That is so amazingly amazing I think I'd like to steal it."
A marvelous presidential quote, absolutely true to form. The crowd laughed appreciatively, the newsmen gleefully punched buttons on their Sub-Etha News-Matics and the President grinned.
As he grinned his heart screamed unbearably and he fingered the small Paralyso-Matic bomb that nestled quietly in his pocket.
Finally he could bear it no more. He lifted his heads up to the sky, let out a wild whoop in major thirds, threw the bomb to the ground and ran forward through the sea of suddenly frozen beaming smiles.
And there you have it. Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government, surprises everyone gathered to see him give a speech and unveil the Heart of Gold. He throws a bomb and steals a starship.
Tonight, I am not going to throw a bomb or steal anything. Tonight, I am simply going to tell you the story of my day. I woke up at 4 a.m. to shovel out my car, my wife's car, and my daughter's car. Then I had to wait around for my plow guy to show up, because he had to dig himself out before he could dig me out. Yes, in the last 24 hours, my little part of the Upper Peninsula received about 22 inches of snow. With the overnight winds, I was wading through hip-deep drifts.
Eventually, my plow guy showed up, and, after a few minutes, I was able to drive to the medical office to work. About 15 minutes after I arrived, I got this text from one of my best friends: "Congratulations you won" followed by a link. Underneath the link address, my friend had typed "HOORAY!!"
When I opened the link, it displayed the word "Winner" followed by my name. And that was how I found out that I had been named the 2019/2020 Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.
The rest of the day is kind of a blur. Lots of texts. Lots of Facebook congratulations. Lots of friends. It was a wonderful antidote to my recent mood. I didn't have time to be depressed or mad or panicked. Nope. It was pretty much a day of happiness, and it continues this evening.
There is no snow falling. My daughter and her boyfriend are upstairs watching American Pie (not sure how I feel about that one), and my wife and son are on their usual Wednesday night date (playing a card game called Keyforge at a local gaming place--picture Stuart's comic book store in The Big Bang Theory). That leaves me at the kitchen table, typing up this little blog post on happiness.
I'm not going to analyze my feelings tonight. Not going to think about tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I'm just going to allow myself these few hours of joy before I go to bed.
Marty is a lucky, lucky saint.
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