I Pissed Off Senator Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)

I've posted this so often to political discussion groups, I just need to blog it.

This happened in 1996. I was goofing around grad school at Oklahoma State University. Homecoming was approaching, and I was in a club called, "Latin Dancing and Cultural Club," which decided to have an entry in the homecoming parade for the first time that year.

Our "entry" was a large pick-up truck with a large boombox on the tailgate playing merengue and salsa, and the club marching/dancing behind it. We won first place in the float competition (no, we didn't).

There were approximately 140 entries in the parade that year, and all the floats and groups were snaked in some sort of pattern in a residential neighborhood close to the beginning point of the parade. We were entry 98 so we had a while to wait. We chatted and danced some. I went over to the bike club ahead of us and rode one of their unicycles. And who did I see close to us? The Young Democrats. So since this was an election year (Clinton Vs. Dole), I went over and got myself a Clinton/Gore 96 sticker.

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe* rode by on a horse five minutes later.

I went up to the faculty advisor for our club who had a camera and told her my cunning plan. "I'm going to lure Inhofe away from his bodyguards (also on horses) into the middle of the street, distract him by asking for an autograph, and slap this Clinton/Gore sticker on him. You take a picture." She was all for it.

Alas! The cunning plan had a problem. An Inhofe campaign volunteer thought I was an actual Inhofe fan and stood next to the lady taking my photo, waiting to give me an Inhofe sticker. I couldn't do what I wanted without being spotted. So I got the picture (will upload later), the autograph (ditto), and the sticker. I shook his hand and quickly went around the other side of the horse and put the sticker on the saddle blanket.

My hope was that he would ride through at least part of the parade stumping for Clinton/Gore.

Alas and alack! That was not to be either, but... But! He rode around a lot, glad-handing different people and groups while on the horse. He was apparently talking to a bunch of campaign volunteers for a republican state senate candidate when they found it. I saw him riding back towards us with a pissed off look on his face - just as it was the club's turn to start moving out.

I hid. Not because I was afraid, but I wanted to watch his reactions.

I got on the other side of the truck and looked through the open windows at him. Inhofe was standing up in the saddle with that pissed of look on his face, scanning the club for me. I would have been easy to find as I was one of the few white guys in the club at the time.

I giggled. A lot. I had tried and failed in my orginal and secondary objectives, but it was still funny. I pissed the moron off.

I thought that would be the end of it. Oh, no.

Two to three years later, I had left grad school unfinished because I was tired of being poor and had secured myself a computer programming position. A friend of mine from work and I went out to a local swing club (swing had made a comeback) because they were having Salsa Night, where they were going to teach salsa and then have a live band play instead of the normal swing music. I joined in the lessons just to see how those instructors taught salsa.

Aside: Thanks to that night and one other, I have since learned that every Latin country (plus either or both the Puerto Rican community or the Cuban community in America) has invented Salsa. If you have a Cuban teacher, salsa came from Cuba. Colombian dude? Colombia invented it. Mexican guy? You guessed it.

Anyway, a woman in the group came up to me and said, "I remember seeing you someplace before. I'm horrible at names, but I never forget a face." Okay... Later on, she came up to me and asked, "Did you ever put a democratic sticker on a republican horse?"

I figured she had been at Oklahoma State and had been in one of the groups around us and maybe spotted me back in 1996.

"No," she said. "I just moved here from Florida a couple of weeks ago. Your photo was in my local paper."

*This "footnote" will eventually have some of the stupid things Inhofe has said or done to give you an idea on what a jackass he is.