"Yo! Poor people! Can I talk to you for a moment?"
Ignoring the cars behind him, Throckmorton P. Gundersludge IV stopped his limo when he saw the two scummy vagrants walking down the street and, lowering his window, shouted across the street. It may have been the howling of the wind, which was whipping the snow into a frenzy, or their reluctance to get involved with a stranger, but the pair kept walking as if they hadn't heard him.
Gundersludge had the driver kill the engine and jumped out of the car. "Hey, listen, I -" he started to say, putting a hand on the shoulder of the shorter vagrant, whom he suspected was a woman, although he could not be certain. The woman turned on him and screamed, "What do you want? Leave me alone! I'll bite your kneecaps off, I will!"
"I just want to do you a favour," Gundersludge smiled. "Really."
The other person, probably once a man, looked at him with suspicion. "You don't want to use our bodies for medical experiments?" he menacingly asked, holding his bags in front of him like a shield.
With his silver hair and baby face, Gundersludge looked like an angel to Mr. and Mrs. Frump. "How would you like to get out of this cold?" he asked them, playfully. "And, have a nice meal? Wouldn't you like a free meal? No strings attached?"
Mr. Frump's eyes narrowed even more than usual, and his whites all but disappeared. "There's no such thing as a free meal," he muttered. "Somebody once said so. What do we have to do?"
"Join a club...?"
Introductions were exchanged in the limousine. By the time the three had arrived at the hotel, the hall was practically full, the speakers had started to babble on the stage and, most important for Mr. and Mrs. Frump, the food was on the table. Mrs. Frump had never been in such a large room; it was the size of a football field at least, with row upon row of octagonal tables. Mr. Frump was impressed by the large Canadian flag at the back of the stage, the one below the words "Welcome Progressive Conservative 500 Club." So, that was what the little blue buttons the stranger had insisted they wear meant!
Mrs. Buchanan sniffed. Turning to her husband, she remarked, "Alan, is it my imagination, or is somebody burning an old rubber boot?" Mr. Buchanan shushed her, but his wife could not deny the olfactory evidence.
"Give it some time, dear," Mrs. Frump, sitting next to her, said, not unkindly. "You get used to it."
Mrs. Buchanan, icing over, stared at the Frumps, who were busy stuffing poached salmon into their lined and sooty faces. "I'm sure you must be in the wrong place," she coldly told them.
Gundersludge grinned. "Mrs. Buchanan," he pleasantly said, "I'd like to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They've recently become lifetime members of the 500 Club."
"They're members?" Mrs. Buchanan gasped. "Alan told me that the Party was having trouble, but I never imagined..." the rest of her remark was drowned out by applause. Some of the people in the room, predominantly male, rose to their feet. Mr. and Mrs. Frump, ignoring all rules of etiquette, were hungrily slurping soup directly from the bowl, oblivious.
Mr. Frump started coughing, his face showing red beneath the grime. Gundersludge held out a glass of white wine to him, but he didn't seem able to grasp it. "He's going to die," Mrs. Buchanan stated, resigned. "You brought him to a meeting of the 500 Club so he could die, Throckmorton. I hope you are satisfied with yourself."
The applause died down. Mr. Frump managed to get a hold of the glass and gulp down enough to end his coughing. Screwing up his face, he commented, "What the hell is this? It tastes like piss!"
Gundersludge looked apologetic. "It's not very good," he agreed. "Still, if you don't like the wine, there's always water..."
"I thought this was water!" Mr. Frump loudly complained.
Mr. Buchanan turned towards them. "Would you please -" he started, abruptly stopping when he saw the Frumps, who were greedily ripping squabs apart. "Who let in these...poor people? Gundersludge, are you to blame for this outrage?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith paid a thousand dollars apiece for the privilege of joining us this evening," Gundersludge informed him, "and, I think you ought to show them some respect..."
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence.
By the time the Prime Minister and his entourage appeared before their table, Mr. and Mrs. Frump had eaten everything that hadn't moved, and were 10 minutes away from severe stomach upset. "Hello," the Prime Minister, confused, greeted them. "Who let you in?"
"Prime Minister Malarkey!" Mr. Frump, who was both awed and drunk out of his mind, shouted.
"Mulroney." Gundersludge quietly corrected him.
"I think you're doing a great job!" Mr. Frump grinned broadly. "Privatization! That's the way to go. Get the government off the backs of the people and all that!" Lowering his voice, Mr. Frump added: "I would have voted for you in the last election, you know, but I couldn't get enumerated because I don't have a permanent address. You've got some pull, don't you? Think you could -"
"Who are you talking to, dear?" Mrs. Frump asked.
"The Prime Minister," Mr. Frump, proud, responded.
"Is he here?" Mrs. Frump asked, embarrassed, quickly adjusting her clothing to no visible effect. "Why didn't you tell me? If I had known, I would have worn my pink dress..."
"Now, Missus, don't embarrass us..."
The Prime Minister looked accusingly at Gundersludge. "I sense your finely honed sense of humour at work here. Do you have an explanation?"
"Yes," Gundersludge calmly stated. "I wanted to remind everybody, and particularly you, Mister Prime Minister, that while you were all indulging in this obscene orgy of self-congratulation, there was still a lot of suffering going on in the country. Suffering that the Conservative Party has no real agenda to change."
The Prime Minister weighed a response, then turned and walked away.
"The Prime Minister didn't seem happy," Mr. Frump said.
"I think," Gundersludge replied, "that we have just overstayed our welcome..."
