Scenes From A Marriage Bunker

Yesterday, according to the Globe, Governor Mitthead once again "kept a low profile."

Let's call it what it is. He's in hiding. Hunkered down in his marriage bunker, the hastily retrofitted MEMA command and control center in Framingham. If this is not a Massachusetts Emergency that needs Managing, what is ? He's been poring over rogue marriage license applications. Plotting his next discriminatory salvo. Injunctions ! Against the clerks ! Because (cue the loathsome spokesperson)

The Governor cannot pick and choose what laws he enforces.

The stench of the 1913 law is overwhelming. A dead fish. An outlandishly over-ripe cheese. A corpse. The Governor has been squirting it with Febreze.

"Can't we keep this thing somewhere else ?"

"No, sir. No one else will have it."

"What about Finneran ? He's strong-arming his boys on the hill to cut its repeal amendment out of the budget bill. Can't he keep it for awhile ?"

"No, sir. Remember your deal ? He makes the repeal go away, you keep custody of the..the..thing. You know."

Mrs. Romney had put her foot down. "Get that unGodly thing out of my house !" He'd stashed it in the Land Rover for a few nights, but the windows had steamed with a greasy yellow miasma whose phosphorescence had prompted a visit from the Belmont neighborhood association.

"I must say, old chap," Arthur Fonebone-Betwixtbetween said, affably, "the Rover's looking a bit peckish."

The Governor's back hurt. He'd slept on a broken army-issue disaster cot. The damned thing had been off-gassing mercilessly all night. The press was nipping at his heels. He needed a haircut. His GI man had tripled the dose of his Little Purple Pill to no avail.

"We need some SUPPORT, here." he whined. "Can't we get that Phelps guy on board ? You know, that nice minister from Topeka ? Make sure you get out there today and issue some statements, something about how I don't have the luxury of picking and choosing what laws I enforce."

"Uh, sir," his spokesman muttered, looking up from his cellphone," we've just received word that there's a crowd of 10,000 people on the statehouse steps."

"Finally ! Decency triumphing at last, Eric ! Marriage is for manly men and womenly women ! I knew they'd come around ! "

"Uh, no sir. It IS a bunch of men and women, married couples, but it appears they're, um, asking to be arrested. Making a mass confession of some sort -- claiming they've all violated Section 34 of Chapter 272 of the General Laws -- they claim they've all committed the abominable and detestable crime against nature ."

"What the heck is that ?"

"Uh, sir..." He whispered in the Governor's ear. The gubernatorial cheeks turned scarlet.

"Omigod, people actually DO that ?"

"Well, sir, remember Bill and Monica ?"

"Well I'll be cornswoggled. So that's what they meant by blow job ! I always thought it was that, um, cigar thing. Say, is that cigar thing legal in Massachusetts ?"

The Governor brightened visibly. There was hope. There was always hope. "Put Tom Reilly on it. Or maybe Finneran can have his boys amend the anti-smoking law..."