Harry Reid Unplugged

It was morning in America—and Harry Reid was already having a bad day. Below is a day in the mind of the Senate Majority Leader.

4:30am: Loud knocking on my door. Go away, Kool-Aid Man.

4:33am: Still knocking. Not a dream?

4:34am: “What?” I say, peering through the front door peep hole. Jim Manley, my Communications Director, is clenching his jaw.

“Did I do something to offend you? Did we have a fight?” he asks.

He can be a bit dramatic.

Jim continues. “No? Then please tell me how the hell you managed to insult the Supreme Court, Native Americans, and the State of Tennessee, all at once, while speaking to a group of kindergartners.”

4:55am: Jim keeps hurling words like “re-election” and “superbly racist” at me.

6:00am: Staffers are swarming around my house. One of them looks fat. Wait—she’s pregnant.

6:06am: Still though, on the fatter side of pregnant.

6:10am: The place looks like Hurricane Katrina swept through.

6:11am: Is it too soon to reference Hurricane Katrina?

6:12am: No, I remember some rapper did it.

6:30am: Missing morning yoga to issue an apology. Jim and his apologies. I could do without them.

6:33am: Called George Bush’s dog fat once. Never apologized. Never will.

6:40am: My hip flexors feel unnaturally stiff. Maybe between interviews I can do a Warrior Series?

6:45am: Put black lycra yoga pants in my briefcase. Here’s hoping.

7:00am: A text from Chris! “Tough break on SCNAT-Gate. Psyched for brownies!” Oh no. It’s my turn to bring snacks to the caucus. I completely forgot. Well, this is just perfect. Now I have to bring store-bought baked goods. I hate store-bought baked goods. They taste like plastic.

7:01am: I don’t trust plastic.

7:02am: I bet in China, everything’s plastic.

8:10am: Just reached the Hill. Time to take charge.

8:11am: “What are you doing?” Jim looks nervous. “Don’t worry about it,” I say, turning to the reporters. They’re buzzing around Hart like a bunch of flies.

8:12am: “Hey, reporters! I am not your dead animal carcass so please leave me alone!”

8:13am: Did Jim just whimper? Oh, no, he’s crying.

8:16am: The Hart security guard is whistling something familiar. I can’t place it. “Three’s Company?”

9:45am: The office is boring. Everyone’s freaking out about SCNAT. No one wants to just hang.

11:30am: Walking to Dodd’s office to play Wii.

11:31am: “HARRY!” That damn wobbly screech stops me mid stride.

11:32am: Nancy’s neck vein is twitching out of control. She’s got that crazy look in her crazy eyes again and she’s pointing to a Politico article.

11:33am: “You’ve done it this time.” She always talks to me like a child, even though we’re the same age. She’s just had her face upholstered. “Dead carcass?—are you even aware that you’re up for re-election?” I spot the outline of her old eyebrows. Yahtzee.

11:34am: She’s now whisper-yelling into my ear. “The only thing more utterly absurd than your carcass line is SCNAT-Gate. You just urinated on your campaign with that one. Tell me, how did you manage to insult three totally different groups simultaneously?”

I don’t have to answer to you, decrepit wench.

She just grabbed ahold of my man bits.

“I told them a story about Andrew Jackson!”

11:35am: The beast releases me from her lifeless, wrinkly tentacles. Sweet freedom. Her eyes fall to my briefcase. “Nice yoga pants.”

That’s it. “DANG IT NANCY! SCREW YOU TO HECK!”

12:45pm: To be fair, I wouldn’t have said that had I known four reporters were around the corner. On the bright side, our little tiff is fast making Supreme-Court-Native-American-Tennessee-Gate old news.

1:21pm: Was that guard whistling “Brown-Eyed Girl?”

2:00pm: Getting ready to go on national television to apologize to the single human being I hate most. I can practically hear Mitch McConnell giggling.

2:04pm: They put too much foundation on my face. Feels itchy.

2:07pm: Having an allergic reaction to the make-up. On in five.

2:30pm: The National Organization of Women just retracted their support for my re-election.

2:38pm: Jim wants me to take a candid picture with Landra in the feminine hygeine section of CVS to get back the female vote. Told him I’m spooked by tampons.

2:39pm: I’d pose in front of make-up counter, I guess. Nothing too queer, though. Neutrogena?

2:47pm: Jim has ordered me to stay in the office until the caucus. So that’s where I am.

2:48pm: Playing “Snood” on my computer.

2:49pm: Maybe it was “My Kind of Town.”

2:50pm: No, it wasn’t that.

2:54pm: Just found three musical edits of me cursing out Nancy on YouTube.

2:56pm: Just found one that splices me telling off Nancy with me telling off the reporters.

2:58pm: Just found the Charley video. That kid is adorable, there’s no two ways about it.

3:05pm: Stomach growling.

3:11pm: Can’t figure out how to look up restaurants that deliver on my BlackBerry.

3:12pm: Tapeing the track ball on my BlackBerry back into place.

3:13pm: I broke my BlackBerry.

3:17pm: Still hungry.

3:20pm: Maybe it was “Hungry Like Wolf?”

3:21pm: But why would anyone hum that?

3:22pm: It wasn’t that. Still hungry.

3:23pm: The brownies don’t look so bad.

3:25pm: “Harry, what the hell are you doing?”

3:26pm: Explaining to Jim that I was hungry. Which is why I was licking the plate of brownies.

9:15pm: Sleepy sleep sleep.

9:18pm: My eyes feel like silly putty.

9:24pm: Something’s beeping.

9:26pm: Where am I?

9:27pm: What?

9:28pm: Where’s my underwear?

9:29pm: Flowers… wristband… muted tones…

9:30pm: Hospital!

9:32pm: …Why am I in a hospital?!

9:39pm: Nurse said I got food poisoning from brownies. Missed the caucus. Have three texts from Chris. “Dude, where r u?,” “Brownies?” and “DUDE.”

9:44pm: This whole ordeal only confirms my suspicions that the brownies were made, at least partially, from plastic.

10:06pm: Another text from Chris: “Get well buddy. Mad Men later?”

10:09pm: That’s what the guard was singing! The theme song from Mad Men.

10:28pm: Warrior One pose. I can feel my hip joints opening up already.