By Mike Pound

Globe columnist

mpound@joplinglobe.com

I was sitting at my desk trying to stay awake when my phone rang.

“Hello,” I said.

“I object and I’m not going to sit down until someone pays for this phone call,” the voice on the other line yelled.

“Senator Bunning, nice to hear from you. How are you?” I said.

“Not so good,” the senator replied glumly.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Oh, you know. I had to give up that whole ‘I object’ thing and the liberal &^%$ won,” he said.

“Oh, you mean the Democrats.”

“What? Ha-ha. Mike, you crack me up. The Democrats couldn’t win a game of solitaire with Pelosi dealing the cards and Reid turning the cards over,” the senator said.

“Well, then what liberal &^%$ are you talking about?” I asked.

“The Republicans, of course,” he said.

“The Republicans are liberal?” I asked.

“Yep, tax-and-spend liberals is what they are,” the senator said.

“Wow, I didn’t know that. But Senator, as long as I have you on the phone, I want to talk a bit of baseball with you. I once read that you were a pretty mean pitcher. Is that true?” I asked.

“I once threw at my own kid during the father/son game,” he said.

“Oh, I get it. Hahaha. The famous Bob Uecker line from ‘Major League.’”

“I don’t know who that Uecker guy is, but I really threw at my kid. Hit him in the back. Sure, he was only 6 but he was crowding the plate. And besides, it’s not like I hit him in the head or anything,” he said.

“Wow. You were mean,” I said.

“Damn straight.”

“Senator, about the ‘I object’ thing. Some people are saying that by holding up that spending bill you needlessly put a bunch of people out of work and delayed hundreds of needed construction projects. What do you say to those people?” I asked.

“You’re welcome,” the senator said.

“But Senator, was it worth all the trouble you caused just to make a political point? After all, your own party ran up huge deficits for six straight years and you never said a word. Dick Cheney once even said that deficits didn’t matter,” I said.

“Well, first of all, Dick Cheney is crazy and everyone knows it,” the senator said.

“Really? You all knew he was crazy?” I asked.

“Sure. But we figured, ‘What the heck. He’s the vice president. How much harm can he do?’” he said.

“I guess my point is some people think you’re being sort of hypocritical throwing a fit over deficit spending now when you didn’t say anything for six years in a row,” I said

“Well, that’s just not true, Mike. I said a lot of things about deficit spending back then,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Well, one time I said, ‘Bad deficit spending. Bad.’ Another time I said, ‘All right, deficit spending. Don’t make me turn this budget around.’ And then I said, ‘I mean it. I will turn this budget around.’ But nobody listened to me,” he said.

“But why throw a fit now?” I asked.

“Because we all just agreed that we wouldn’t do anything else unless we could pay for it. And we can’t pay for the spending bill I was holding up,” he said.

“But Senator, you surely don’t expect members of Congress do to what they said they would do. I mean, come on,” I said.

“You’ve got a point, Mike, but I figured it was worth a try. It’s not like I have anything to lose,” he said.

“Oh, right. You’re not running for office again,” I said.

“Yep. I can do whatever the &%$# I want. Tomorrow I’m introducing a bill to make the Reuben the National Sandwich. Then I’m going to make major league baseball sell $1 hot dogs and $2 beers,” he said.

“You can do that?” I asked.

“Sure. People don’t know this, but senators can do anything they want as long as they don’t have to worry about getting re-elected. I think we should just be allowed to run for election one time. If we win, we have six years to do something and then that’s it. That way, we can tell all the people who gave us money to run for office to go to %$#@ and then we can do things that help the people in this country that matter and not the big corporations who bought our offices,” he said.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Senator, I agree with you,” I said.

“Thanks, Mike,” he said.

“Oh, Senator, one more thing. At that father/son game, what did you hit your son with?”

“A 95 mph fastball,” he said.

“Wow, you are mean,” I said.

“*&^% straight.”