I...AM...SO...SCARED

I was forced to watch the Republican National Convention against my will... by a wild progressive Democrat. What follows is only a mild dramatization.

9:22 pm: I have returned home tonight after a long day's work hoping for an evening of peace and quiet; perhaps a few fingers of Pimm's and a volume of Byron's later works. Instead, upon entering the apartment I find Ilene foaming at the mouth, her body covered in warpaint. She is screaming at the television and scalping a papier-mâché effigy of John McCain with a butter knife. Am now worried that the Republican National Convention may be having a somewhat unhealthy effect on the mental well-being of my flatmate. At least now I know what she has been doing in her room with all those newspapers for the past five days.

9:28 pm: Rudy Guiliani is speaking on the television. Every time the audience cheers some bit of conservative boilerplate, Ilene snarls and sinks her fangs into the pasty-white head of the replica McCain. I have taken the precaution of sending my will to an attorney friend via text-message.

9:33 pm: I have begun preparing a simple dinner, being careful not to move too quickly or turn my back on my roommate for more than a few seconds. Palin is about to begin her speech. Ilene has now decapitated her McCain chew-toy and is now feasting on the innards, which appear to be made of strawberry jam and live earthworms.

9:42 pm: Palin has begun her speech. I had never heard her speak before now and, oh my sweet fucking lord, she has the most revolting voice of all time. It's like steel wool on a goddamn chalkboard. Or Fran Drescher forced to do double anal. I seriously am more distressed by Palin's vocal timbre than I am by the fact that Ilene has begun stalking me like a rabid bear.

9:57 pm: Have offered Ilene a bowl of the rice-a-roni I fixed for my meal. I'm terribly hungry, and there's not enough to share, but I'm hoping this peace offering will prevent Ilene from disemboweling me with her thumbs the next time Palin mentions McCain's war record. Perhaps later I can find some fragments of jam and earthworm on the floor where Ilene was shaking McCain's head in her jaws like a terrier dispatching a rat.

10:02 pm: I am nearing the end of my tether. Several times I have asked - nay, begged - Ilene to turn off the speech, but at each request Ilene has cackled demonically and spread her bony reptilian frill to frighten me away from the remote. As little as I think of this strategy, I must admit it's been very successful.

10:06 pm: Palin appears to be wrapping up right now. Christ, I hope so, because arterial blood is spurting from my eardrums every time she utters a vowel. On the plus side, I think Ilene believes I will soon be dead from blood loss and will then be able to feed on my corpse at her leisure.

10:10 pm: It is over, Allah and Santa Claus be praised. Unfortunately for me, the suffering has only begun. My roommate has removed her warpaint and is now wearing the protagonist's outfit from the 1975 exploitation classic Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. She has begun babbling incoherently and is sharpening her teeth with a woodworking file. I am calculating whether it would be best to sit perfectly still and hope she has satiated herself on earthworms and newsprint, or throw a copy of The National Review into the far corner of the apartment and then run like hell for my bedroom while she savages it.

11:03 pm: Made it to my bedroom, don't ask me how - I've already suppressed the memory. The door is locked, but it's pretty flimsy, and in her state Ilene would have no trouble knocking it off its hinges with a well-placed head-butt. I'm writing this fast because I don't know how much time I have left. It's almost entirely silent in the apartment right now, but the furtive, intermittent sound of cloth against hardwood and snakelike noises from without tells me Ilene is crawling towards my bedroom door, hissing. I am clutching my stuffed walrus, a pipe wrench, and my Bible. I have smeared the floor around me bed with a mixture of pine tar and broken glass. I cannot get out, but maybe, just maybe, this last line of defense will repel her. Good night and goodbye, everyone. Tell my sister she can have my car.

Oh, and vote for Obama.