I was minding my own business today, tootling along being incredibly domestic, ironing some shirts that got so wrinkled in a neglected washload I'd shoved them into a plastic bag and stashed them in the freezer. (This is a highly recommended old-Southern-lady-ironing trick: put washed, damp linens or cottons in plastic bags and stash 'em in the freezer. They'll iron up beautifully whenever you finally get around to doing it.)

So I turned on the radio to keep me company while performing such a lonely and domestic chore, and there was Mitt Romney. Telling me that my husband and I are victims.

Moochers.

Losers.

Telling me that the several hundred thousand dollars we've put into Social Security by now — amounts we put in paycheck after paycheck, every paycheck, every year, all of our married lives, amounts which were matched by David's firm (which, incidentally, fired him after 40 years of service, a few months before he could legally retire, and then went out and hired a kid with no experience who'd work for a shitty salary) — did not count.

Yup. I'm serious. There was ole Mitt, on the radio, telling me that anyone who was asking the federal government for anything, even something they'd given to the federal government themselves in the first place, was some sort of creep. Weak. Grasping. Liable to vote for Obama.

i got sick to my stomach.

Still am, sort of, although it's hours later now.

Pablo Neruda, in one of his poems, says he's tired of being a man.

I can relate.

If that is all the Republicans have to offer, in a Presidential election, in the year 2012, I'm tired of being human.