Perhaps heeding the desperate pleas of millions of Americans who underestimated just how much they'd miss having a president capable of verbally communicating a coherent thought, President Obama put down the iPad and made his first public appearance since the end of his White House tenure on Monday, speaking at the University of Chicago on the subjects of fostering civic engagement and developing young leaders. Obama, whose tan visage and jovial, easygoing demeanor made us despairingly wonder if he even thinks anymore about all the good times we had together, was careful not to speak the name of his successor, but he did offer a sly verbal wink emblematic of the cheerful, everyday sense of humor that we took for granted for all those years, dammit.

From there, President Obama and his fellow panelists embarked on a wide-ranging discussion of profoundly important things, like moving past the political disagreements that impede our collective ability to address difficult policy questions, or tackling the seemingly-intractable problem, even in the fake news-laden, deep-inside-the-bubble era of media coverage, of finding a common set of facts from which the policymaking process can proceed. (Lest you think the event became boring, though, rest assured that Obama occasionally livened up the proceedings with an appropriately-timed wry interjection, poking fun at his age and joking about cat videos, just like he used to do with us, in happier times.)

Any attendees who hoped that President Obama would get up on stage and deliver a fiery invective condemning the Trump administration's various crimes against democracy probably left the event underwhelmed. Still, after nearly 100 days of watching President Trump respond to any question, no matter the subject, with a rambling screed that somehow links voter fraud to the failing New York Times, it was genuinely jarring to remember what it was like to see a president speak in complete sentences, interact normally with other humans, and demonstrate even a fleeting semblance of self-awareness.

(Please call us sometime, Mr. President.)

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Thanks, Obama (Seriously)