Surreal News Floats Through Summer Vacation Fog

I am at my desk--but I’m not. I have been away--but I have never left.

I have, as you may have guessed, just returned from vacation.

That vacant stare? It is not concentration. What it is, is a vacant stare.

That telephone I just answered? It wasn’t my phone ringing.

Still, I am trying to review the events of the past few weeks. But it is difficult to differentiate between reality and heat wave-induced ravings.

Thought is a dull thud.

Communication is a garbled whine.

Memory is a purple haze.

Was George W. Bush’s likeness added to the lineup of presidents on Mt. Rushmore? I’m sure I saw such a photo. I mean, I knew he was popular, but wow.

And was Sen. Lieberman really hanging out in front of a giant cow carved out of butter at the Iowa State Fair?

(You know, perhaps the time has come to add the summer gin and tonic to the list of things best avoided.)

If the Lieberman sighting is true, though, it is cause for concern.

For one thing, it is probably not a good idea to have a presidential primary system that places so much political power in the hands of people who carve giant cows out of butter.

For another, it is a fresh indication that Sen. Lieberman, despite our pleas that he come back to us--remember “Hot Tub Woman?”--is still suffering from a raging case of Potomac Fever.

But then again, maybe none of this happened.

When you take a break from the real world, the news tends to get jumbled, fuzzy, surreal:

Did major league baseball players, multimillionaires who can’t chew tobacco without drooling juice all over themselves, vote to go on strike?

Did 75,000 Elvis fans show up in Memphis to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s--some say death, I like to believe--disappearance?

Was there an economic summit, and was it in Waco?

Did a doctor in Boston really leave a patient on the operating table while he went to the bank to cash his paycheck?

And tell me this was just a bad-clam hallucination. We may soon have an airline called “Hooters’ Air?” (Talk about friendly skies.)

You know what:

Put the lime in the coconut and call me in the morning.

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Jim Shea is a columnist for the Hartford Courant, a Tribune company.