If you did not have the time or emotional strength to make it through the Vice Presidential debate between Governor Mike Pence and Senator Tim Kaine you should feel confident that no one blames you. Also, don’t worry I watched it for you and I think I have crafted a literary experience that will take through similar emotions in a shorter amount of time.

Come with me on a quick journey through the awkward and at times confusing experience that was the Vice Presidential Debate. In order to illustrate this I have written a short story which both you and I are involved in.

The Setting

Imagine we are friends. We’re young, extremely attractive and dragged to a dinner party in a neighborhood far above my parents living wages but they said we had to go along. We arrive at a nice house but there are few other people our age there. Immediately when we enter the house there is an palpable strain, as if everyone knows something very tense that we do not, like something had happened before. This is where our story begins.

The Beginning

We enter the house with my parents. The owner of the house, Elaine, greets us cheerfully and takes our coats. Although she comes off very friendly and beautiful there is a nervous aura to her actions. We turn to each other with a look that says ‘shit is about to go down.’ We enter the kitchen on our path to the main party area but instead of following my parents we tell them we are going to check out the food situation and we will meet them out there. Here is where we find our spirit guide in this journey, my drunk aunt that tells it exactly like it is.

We were right, some shit had gone down. DJ Cool Dad (Tim Kaine) and Papa (Mike Pence) are about to go head to head. The tension is so high because only a week ago, DJ Cool Dad slept with Papa’s wife and he won’t stop smiling about it. He arrived at the party on his high horse, feeling confident because his link to this woman has given him more power than he could have imagined. Everyone is attempting to navigating around the inevitable explosions. As the guests gather in the living room we are not sure what is going to happen but we have a moderate feeling it could be interesting.

The Battle

You and I finally enter living room area and find a seat where we can get a good look at DJ Cool Dad and Papa, as they have now sat at the same table. Elaine is in between them, seemingly ready to get a civil conversation started. We know that Elaine has not been the subject of any of their sexual escapades… yet.

As the conversation gets started it seems rehearsed and polished, as if they knew the other was going to be there. However, as the answers get longer, the sassy retorts get less and less subtle. A couple jokes about Papa’s boss’s former job on a reality show, fun at first but we are both ready for someone to dig deeper. This is the only thing that is supposed to keep our attention at this party and we have yet to be impressed.

The enjoyable part about Papa is although he is supposed to be on the receiving end of this beating he stayed very calm, actually setting the stage for DJ Cool Dad to come off as annoying and over-zealous. Now we are feeling irritated by the whole thing. Nothing too juicy is really surfacing, we heard a lot of this from my aunt in the kitchen over and over because she is drunk. The reality of the snide remarks and the facial expressions keep us interested. DJ Cool Dad has impeccable side eye and Papa’s calm demeanor let’s him stay unfazed even though the history of his situation has left him digging out of a hole. Maybe he is drunk? Maybe he doesn’t know all the information about what is going on? Or maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t actually care?

As the argument gets heated and DJ Cool Dad gets more and more annoying we begin to get the feeling that although calm, Papa has been involved in some real questionable shit in his past. There are some very catty exchanges, they continually interrupt each other as they lay down the attacks on each other. It holds our attention because we are afraid of missing something epic but the meat of it all is stuff my drunk aunt has known for weeks. It’s getting annoying but there are a few moments where you, me and the other onlookers are like:

The Aftermath

To end the whole argument we finally get to hear what we think might be a pointed question to the two men involved. We are excited at the potential to hear how they feel about a topic sans references to outside influences. Elaine leans in and asks about their faith and what that means for the whole situation they are in. Cheating? Supporting war? Lying? No let’s get involved in the decisions that women should or should not be able to make. Then DJ Cool Dad comes in with a mic droppers and says “hey Papa, why don’t you trust women?” OOOOOOOOO. You and I back out like:

The Summary

Honestly, reading that story was way more fun than what actually happened. They talked a lot about the terrible things each of their running mates had done, very little about their backgrounds and what they might bring to the table and gave us an insight into whatever their annoying tendencies might be. Nobody really did anything. Tim Kaine proved capable and qualified enough to be a sidekick and Mike Pence proved to be supportive enough of Trump’s crazy all while bringing a very balancing temperament.

The most interesting and intense part was the faith based talk about abortions. Tim Kaine said the very quotable “why don’t you trust women” and Mike Pence actually made sense when he said “if you are going to be pro-life you have to be pro-adoption.” Other than that nothing new really happened but you could get a fair idea of what we are getting attitude-wise from each Vice Presidential candidate.

At the end of our story we sneak off with the bottle of champagne my aunt passed out next to and becomes best friends while hiding our slight buzz from my parents. The general tension of the party has already subsided and we forgot why we were interested in the first place.

Moral of the story is Tim Kaine seems like a dad who is doing too much and Mike Pence seems like he would make all children call him Papa.

Wanna see me high on stage watch this: