We are in London. The flight was fine. The Stanstead shuttle was easy. The tube was efficient. Now, we are walking from our local tube station towards our hotel. We are staying in a little area called Shepherd’s Bush, a name about which I have been creating little jokes about. None of them, however, are either funny or succinct enough for out loud so I keep them to myself.

“What the hell do you keep giggling at?” Burke asks.

“Nothing.”

As we walk to our hotel, I keep my eyes peeled and my head on a swivel. I always like to locate certain things near my hotel: convenience stores, cafes, restaurants, home repair shop, post office, strip joints (to avoid), a place to get small bills. And pubs. Specifically, I am looking for a local pub.

There’s nothing that makes a person feel at home more than a good local pub. A pub is where you become accepted as a local. It’s where you see familiar faces. The waitresses not only learn your drink, but they anticipate you. Moreover, they don’t seem to actively despise you.

On the way to our hotel, there’s little by way of drinkery. Maybe one or two places. Had I been searching for a kebab joint, a place to buy burner phones, or American fast food I had the pick of the litter. When we get to the hotel, a phrenetic little man tells us that most of the pubs are the other direction. I breathe a sigh of relief and we march out in search of our local away from home.

The first place has many beers on tap. A glimpse at the menu tells a story about American bar food: wings, ribs, burgers, mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches. I am smitten, but a distant red flag gets chucked in the back of my brain by a little referee. I shake him away and go to the bar to order beers. The woman is kind and efficient. Her English is clear and understandable. We get sent to a different room as the tables in the barroom are reserved. The other room resembles an American diner. This is not a fluke; it is by design. I feel like I am sitting in an American diner in 1958. James Dean could walk in the door and ask if there was a mechanic.

Suddenly, I realize my initial hesitation. I am in London. I am not in Indianapolis. I don’t want a diner, I want a British pub. I don’t want burgers, I want fish and chips. Also, I’m not comfortable understanding all of what a British person is saying to me. Where’s the element of surprise born of gluttal stops and the absolute confusion brought on by British idioms? Not in this diner. We order enough American diner food to keep alive American stereotypes for a while. We drink four beers. I pay the tab and we leave.

During the next debate Biden vomits on the floor and poops in his pants. Hysteria and fear descend upon the scene and the democratic world in general. In the aftermath, a guy in a gray jumpsuit walks through the dangling streamers and the empty chairs up to the stage where he herds the goo into a bucket with his Kennywood and broom. In a hurry to get home to his mother’s famous microwave meatloaf, he leaves the bucket outside, where he forgets about it. Two days of rain ferments the concoction. As all life is but an accident, a lightning strike at midnight sparks a Cambrian Explosion within the bucket. The poop-vomit stirs, yawns, and feeds on other molecules in the bucket with it. In a few days, it grows into a sentient frog-faced creature. Capable at first of only smacking its wide lips and blinking at its surroundings, he sets his sights on food, trapping and engulfing flies, roaches, gnats, and mosquitoes. After a few days of caloric intake, he achieves monosyllabic croaking and burping and simple movement. Out of his amorphous form, he grows first one and then a second leg. A curious mouse falls into the bucket and the frog feeds heartily, growing arms and fingers as a result. In a week he’s able to crawl out of the bucket and move in all directions.

Frog starts doing pushups and squats, eats voraciously and eventually is able to manage polysyllabic communication. In two weeks, he’s able to recite the national anthem and order a burger at Dairy Queen. He can list the continents, Earth’s oceans, and the planets – though he’s a little foggy on Pluto’s deal. By September he can tie a Windsor knot. In October, he has become a fan of rugby and the Cincinnati Bengals. In November 2024, Joe Biden’s Cambrian Bucket Frog is on the presidential ballot. He needs a few telephone books to reach the microphone at the podium, but he does it.