17

 Seventeen. 

A friend and constant reader once asked me for advice on what a funny number would be. She's a painter and she was searching for a digit or two that would punch up her picture of an empty pink box that contained only crumbs of donuts. We came up with "Disappointment #17." It gave us a satisfactory chuckle then, and each memory of this work brings a smile to my face. 

Which is why she texted me a few nights ago. The Trump Corporation was found guilty of all counts related to a criminal tax fraud scheme. These included conspiracy, a scheme to defraud, and three counts of criminal tax fraud for his corporation and his payroll company. The combined total of those convictions? 

Seventeen. 

We smiled. The non-stick coating on the bloated sack of protoplasm is disintegrating. Appeals and machinations aside, this one comes as he was attempting to shake off the residue of his Dinner With Nazis. And the distance he was attempting to create between his calls for a do-over for the election he lost. “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” The Constitution of the United States, the one that he once swore to uphold and defend. He has discovered that you can take the Trump out of the Tower, but you can't get old social media rants off Al Gore's Internet. 

Then there was the Herschel Walker debacle. the orange bag's last best chance to come away with the tiniest of red ripples. Herschel, while being a very entertaining presence on the news cycle, was not able to defeat Raphael Warnock in their runoff election for the Senate in Georgia. Some suggested that Mister Walker was not prepared for a seat in the United States Senate. Of course, some suggested that a former game show host was not prepared to be "president" of the United States. 

Some were right. 

Way more than seventeen of them. And yet, the election in Georgia was far closer than most thinking individuals would have imagined. And, even though there were seventeen convictions relating to criminal tax fraud, the spray tan MAGAt in chief continues to make noises about running for "president" once again. Sometimes there's just not enough seventeen to raise a smile.