Dear Mitt,
This member of the 47 percent had an MRI this morning — a detailed scan of my brain that could be a prelude to surgery — but I didn’t pay a dime for it.
My generous health insurance covered the whole thing. Does that make me a moocher? Does that make me a lover of Big Government and an Enemy of Freedom?
I had the scan done because I have this awful ailment called a Hemi-Facial Spasm. It means half my face twitches much of the time, giving me the look of a circus freak.
But no matter how goofy I look, Mitt, I’ll never look quite as ridiculous as you did in your infamous fundraising video.
I still can’t believe what you said: Nearly half the voters in the country — the ones who like Obama — don’t pay taxes but expect free food, housing and health care.
“My job is not to worry about those people,” you said. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
It was refreshing to hear you speak honestly — perhaps for the first time in the entire campaign — while shaking down your billionaire buddies in Boca.
I thought of you during my MRI, Mitt, and your words really cheered me up.
It’s hard to imagine that you haven’t sunk your campaign with this display of unvarnished contempt for ordinary Americans. And that makes me happy.
An MRI is a rare form of torture, Mitt. Dubya could have put them to good use at Abu Ghraib. But you really helped me through it.
If you haven’t had an MRI, you’ve surely seen one performed on TV.
First, you lay down on a table that bears an unfortunate resemblance to a gurney. Then the technician pushes a button and — presto! — you slide into high-tech tube that would give even the most laid-back government freeloader a bad case of claustrophobia.
Once you’re locked inside, the scanner makes a series of outrageous noises, most of which bear a striking resemblance to a jackhammer.
A jackhammer lodged inside your brain.
While the jackhammer provides its sadistic backbeat, a series of equally horrific sounds are laid over it. One riff sounds like a test from the Emergency Broadcasting System played at full volume. Another resembles an out-of-control car alarm. Yet another sounds like a mutant bumblebee buzzing inside your ear.
It’s like a bone-rattling symphony of techno music composed by Josef Mengele, the nazi Doctor of Death, on a very bad acid trip.
You must remain absolutely still throughout ordeal; the slightest movement will destroy the pictures.
This means, of course, that your entire body starts to itch as soon as the technician locks you in. I felt a particular need to scratch the right side of my nose and a small patch of my left armpit.
I got the MRI because I’m considering brain surgery for my facial spasm, which has been torturing me for years. The procedure has a 90-percent success rate.
On the downside, there’s a 10-percent chance I’ll lose hearing in one ear, and a much smaller chance that I’ll start leaking fluid from my brain.
Whenever I contemplate these grim possibilities, I think of your imploding campaign, Mitt, and my spirits are restored.
At one particularly grueling moment during the MRI, I thought about your microscopic tax bill.
From one freeloader to another, Mitt, my heartfelt thanks.