Taco Tuesday Will Now Be Every Day

 I think of Marty McFly, and the way he used to light up when somebody called him "chicken." Not the healthiest response from our boy Marty, but he was (according to the movie timeline) seventeen years old. Or forty-four. Or seventy-seven. It depends on the reality in which his DeLorean lands. The actor who portrayed Marty, Michael J Fox, is the same age as I am. I want to believe that he has learned through his experiences on the screen and in his real-life struggle with Parkinson's Disease how to cope face the world with a brave face regardless of the challenge. 

There might be some comfort in knowing that our current situation with Pennywise the President was brought about by someone mucking with the timeline. The former gameshow host seems like the kind of guy who would fall for a stainless steel lemon that could be modified into a time machine. It might explain how we got into the mess in which we currently exist. Only this time it was Biff Tannen who kept the Sports Almanac and made a bunch of deals that generated the warped space that we are navigating. 

One telling difference here: The Biff currently taking up space at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the one with the "chicken issue." In case you missed it, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist slumlord does not like being called "chicken." The phrase used first by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, "Trump Always Chickens Out" refers to the twice-impeached White House resident and his stop, step back, jump, turn, hop and skip away from threats he has made about tariffs. One hundred fifty percent to ninety to pause to fifty to only things we don't buy anyway. He calls it "negotiation." Those of us watching call it "chicken."

Of course it's not just Marty McFly who historically had trouble with this epithet. Once a very long time ago a young man named Jim Stark struggled with this epithet. In the movie, Jim avoids going over the cliff, but the James who played him wasn't so lucky. A tragedy to be sure, but at the time James Dean crashed his car he was not in charge of the United States economy. And the third biggest army in the world. And the nuclear codes. 

With those factors in mind, I guess we can only hope that TACO is an acronym that sticks.