Editor’s Note: Every Saturday morning, we take a break from hard news to let Hermina Hermelinda Obregon, a.k.a. Miss Mingo, share her insights with readers. She’s a recovering newspaper reporter living in a bungalow off Duval Street in Key West. At least that’s what her official biography says, if you can believe that. She answers the day’s pressing questions about life, the news, and the best happy hour prices.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
Okay, I need to tell someone about this because I’ve been thinking about it for a day straight.
Yesterday, I was dead asleep, mid-nap, the kind where you wake up not knowing your own name, and the doorbell rings. I stumble over and open the door still basically unconscious, and there’s a guy standing there for the Byron Donalds campaign. Red hat and everything.
It took me a second. Like, my brain needed a beat to catch up and realize this wasn’t just a bad dream.
And then it clicked, and I just went off:
“Noooo. Noooooo. Get out of here. No way. Get.”
Not my most articulate moment. I’m a registered Dem; he clearly figured that out fast, because he didn’t even argue — he just said he wasn’t there for me; he had another name on his list. My partner’s, as it turns out.
Which, fine, technically true: My partner’s a registered independent. But my partner also thinks the Orange Toddler-in-chief is insane and Donalds is a moron. Same as I do, so I told him, “He doesn’t want your bullshit either,” and shut the door as he tried to argue he needed to speak to him.
I don’t feel bad about it exactly. I don’t feel great about it either. Mostly I just keep replaying the look on his face when a woman fresh off a nap started yelling a guttural “no” at him before he’d finished a sentence.
Here’s what’s actually bugging me, though: it wasn’t a decision. There was no moment where I weighed my options and chose “get out of here.” My body reacted to that red hat like it was the antichrist.
So, Miss Mingo, at what point does this stop being political passion and start being an honest-to-god physical allergy to red hat army people? And is there a cure, or do I just keep living like this?
Still not over it in Palm Harbor
Dear Still:
Are you sure you were actually awake and this wasn’t some terribly vivid nightmare?
It is common for dreams of monsters and demons to seem so real they distort our sense of reality and linger on into consciousness. And it’s hard to imagine conjuring a more disagreeable ogre than a Donalds supporter.
Well, of course, there’s Donalds himself.
But assuming this was real, and your reaction was genuine, it most likely has less to do with an allergic reaction than a perfectly normal fight-or-flight response.
It’s our bodies’ natural self-defense mechanism to protect us from danger. So, it seems perfectly normal to me that you might have become agitated by the presence of someone posing a direct threat to your well-being—and, for that matter, the entire state and country. You know, a Republican.
Especially such an egregious, double-talking, Trump-loving, ring-kissing Republican like Donalds.
So, no, you don’t have to continue to live with this aversion you’ve discovered.
Just vote.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
That answer seemed awfully partisan, if you ask me. Aren’t journalists supposed to be fair and objective? So, what’s that say about you?
Red in Redington Beach
Dear Red:
Yes, journalists strive to be fair, balanced, objective, even-handed, and truth-telling.
But this is not a news report. This is an opinion column, disguised as an advice column, disguised as a column written by a talking bird.
Which gives me a chance to get a lot off my feathered chest that I’ve held back all those many years I spent in the newsroom, where I did, indeed, practice all those aforementioned journalistic virtues no matter how constraining and how much it pained me.
I would paraphrase one of your own tribe, Barry Goldwater:
“Snarkiness in the defense of sanity is no vice.”
I would also add this…
My friend Ted Lund, who is Key West’s most amazing reporter—really, he’s a journalistic army of one—recently posted this meme on his Above the Fold website:
(Note to those triggered by casual vulgarities, the following meme contains a nasty word that journalists commonly use—certainly not me in this column, though. Until now.)
And while I’m not sure Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post who is pictured here, actually ever said that, per se, you get the sentiment, right?
Reporters bend themselves into pretzels trying to be fair, to quote all sides in civic arguments, but at some point, a liar is a liar, and it needs to be said. Easier for me to do that than for news reporters, so that’s what I do.
No apologies.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
Donald Trump says he will give $5,000 to everyone if we keep Republicans in control of Congress.
Why isn’t this against the law? Isn’t this trying to buy votes?
Concerned in Clearwater
Dear Concerned:
Of course it is. It’s also a load of nonsense. It would take $1.3 trillion to give every adult in America a check that big. And Trump doesn’t have the authority to do that, even if he had the money, which he doesn’t.
Of course, he’s counting on people being too naive and greedy to understand it’s a scam. It’s his modus operandi.
So, here’s my idea.
To all you idiots out there who believe Trump really will write you a check:
Trump actually is going to transfer that $1.3 trillion to my bank account, and I will be distributing these funds on Duval Street, first come, first served, the morning after the election.
So, if you are a Republican, skip voting, come on down here to Key West, and be first in line. See you on Nov. 4.
DEAR MISS MINGO:
Why do you writers always throw out terms like modus whatever instead of just using plain English? Isn’t that just you trying to preen before your audience?
Irritated in Immokalee
Dear Irritated:
Absolutely.
Got a question for Miss Mingo? About life, the news, or clever ways to avoid paying bar tabs? Write to her at MissMingo@Tropic.Press
Want to know more about Miss Mingo? How she got her start? And whether she really lives with two cats—Deadline and Dateline—and a pet iguana named Skippy? You can find her official biography, such as it is, here. If you’re bar hopping on Duval Street in Key West and spot an intriguing woman in a pink hat that you suspect might be Miss Mingo, you can always offer to buy her a Cuba Libre. Will it actually be her? Is there an actual her? Life’s a mystery.
And now, some shameless advertising…
The official Tropic Press Store is now open and ready for business. You can order your very own Miss Mingo merch online. All sales are final. Check out the store here:
Editor’s Note:
Congratulations to Miss Mingo, who recently won the Florida Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Award for Best Blog and Newsletter.
You can support her work by subscribing to the Tropic Press newsletter (and, honestly, we need the help if you choose to become a paid subscriber, because her bar tab is killing us).
Under these circumstances, I think our favorite Flamingo was very reserved in her response to the red hat guy. I would have said: get the F…. Off my porch. ( I don’t think I have ever said that profanity out loud.) None of my family or friends would have tolerated it well either.