Robert Frost no doubt meant it when he said, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He certainly would be horrified now at the border dispute taking place between Vermont and his beloved New Hampshire.
Hundreds of thousands of Vermont refugees recently flooded over the border into New Hampshire after the Noachian deluge. Initially N-Hampshahites were happy to extend their hospitality and open their homes to the displaced—“Poor things, losin’ everything in the flood”—but after several months, they lost their patience when they began to overhear Vermonters saying they intended to stay, that Vermont was no longer safe for them.
Around the state, in cafes and grocery stores you can hear N-Hampshahites grumbling, “Well, they will just have to buck up and return to their granola-eating, sandal-weahrin’ hippie state. We don’t need no Bernie Sandahs folk movin’ in heah, thinkin’ they can convert us.”
“Unlike them,” said Joshua, owner of ‘Aroma Joe’s’ in Manchester, “We don’t have state taxes, don’t have sales taxes or speed limits, don’t requirah no stinkin’ seatbelts, don’t mandate motorcycle helmets. We outlawed granola a long time ago. Fruit of the devil.”
“They ain’t our kind,” said Mary Burton, proprietor of ‘The Hidden Pig’ in Nashua, “Hell, they don’t even look like us with theyah hippie plaid flannel shirts and long stringy hairah. We speak, ‘Live Free or Die:’ Their motto is ‘Freedom and Unity.’ We don’t want none of their Socialist idears.”
When interviewed on Concord TV, Vermonters protested, “We can’t go back. Our state has been ruined. We have nowhere else to go.”
But N-Hampshahites were not having it and began forcing Vermonters out of hotels, hostels, family homes, and into the pahks. They did, however, provide each one with a sleeping bag.
Mr. Rob Benson, owner of the Concord pharmacy said, “Well, I’ll tell ya one thing, though, theyah keepin’ the pahk neat. They don’t littah and they recycle everythin’ and arh non-violent, at least so farh.”
The Concord city manager and city council began holding rallies in the town square where thousands gathered to cry, “Send them back, send them back!”
Governor Sununu vowed to build a wall around his state and send the bill to Vermont Governor Phil Scott.
“But how can we evict them,” says one of his staffers, “if we can’t tell them apaht from our own neighbahs?”
“Easy. We get them on theah glottal stops. We hire a bunch of linguists to fan out among them, show them one particularh word on a cahd, and ahsk them to pronounce it.”
“What’s the word?”
“‘Fundamental.’ They can’t say the word without a glottal stop: [fʌndəmɛʔəl].*
Those who fail the test will be herded into buses and sent back over the bordah. We’ll continue the busin’ until we arh cleansed of these intrudarhs.”
A New York Times reporter on the scene said to the Governor, “Why would you do this to your neighbors? Can’t you all just get along?”
“It’s tribahl, baby.Tribahl.They ain’t like us.”
{*The International Phonetic Alphabet depiction of a glottal stop is the symbol “ʔ”
Just listen to any Bernie Sanders speech.}
Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her column is satire and, like Fox “News,” cannot be believed as fact. You can contact Rosie at: RosieSorenson29@ yahoo.com
From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2023
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