I was sitting by a big window in a coffee shop with a friend when a SUV with “US GOVERNMENT” license plates pulled swiftly into a driveway across the street.
My heart immediately started to race. What the hell was going on? Did we need to spring into action? Was a huge injustice about to be visited upon an unsuspecting person right before our eyes? Was I about to have to grapple unavoidably with the cruelty of the world?
Then I realized it was a sleek, angular Hyundai IONIQ. There’s just no way ICE would drive an electric vehicle. In fact, DHS almost certainly has a top-down mandate to drive only coal-burning trucks. Something that makes lots of noise and pollutes. We were safe.
The driver completed his U-turn.
What a perfectly stupid encapsulation of the present moment.