Buffalo, NY—Enterprise-rent-a-car transport driver Kurt Kurchacha was trapped in a vehicle tuned into MAGA 930 WBEN this past Friday. Kurchacha, a retired dance instructor at Rosalita’s Salsa Studio, endured several hours of torture listening to WBEN morning host David Bellavia and estate-stealing afternoon host Tom Bauerle yuk it up about owning snowflake libs.
Kurchacha took the transport position, which involves moving fleet vehicles to branch locations, area collision shops, and dealerships to get out of the house a few days a week. He found that the low-stress position filled a missing social component of his life since he hung up his dancing shoes. “It’s good to get out of the house and interact with other people. It’s a lot of older guys, so there’s a good deal of conversation about hip replacements, diabetes, and gout. Lots of gout talk—never heard of so many people with gout.”
While talking politics is frowned upon when the guys are traveling together in a vehicle, Kurchacha knows where his coworkers stand from comments about the Indian counter person at Tim Horton’s to the lack of outrage at $6 eggs now that Trump is in office to the radio stations they tune into, which is typically chosen by the lead driver.
“It’s not like I have to listen to NPR, or 91.1 Jazz FM from Toronto,” Kurchacha said. “But celebrating feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood-chipper, which was the theme of Bellavia show, was a tough listen. The cruelty of some callers like Brenda from Cheektowaga was scary too— “What, poor African kids don’t have bootstraps to pull themselves up by?” Then, it was surreal to hear Tom—Governor Cuomo has people in adaptive camouflage gear surveilling me—Bauerle go off about the shortage of rock salt that is plaguing Western New York because that commie, liberal fascist, former State Senator, and now Congressman, Tim Kennedy pushed the Buy American Salt Act. Especially when lead driver, GPS Jimmy, nods along in agreement.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Kurchacha later got trapped in an electric Hyundai Kona on a forty-minute ride back from Springville with a coworker nicknamed John the Revelator. With the radio still tuned to 930, he bitched about the unreliability of electric cars. Then, in a low, droning voice, The Revelator, for the millionth time, recounted the story of his wife’s infidelity with a thick, strapping guy named Big Eddie. He went on and on about the lord helping him to forgive her and how his parents, who were in heaven, would be so proud of him for forgiving this transgression which occurred in 1986. It was funny that no matter how often he told the story, he never failed to mention that Big Eddie was a thick, strapping guy.
Enduring this special torture, Kurchacha wondered if he had racked up some bad karma and was being punished. First, he thought about Freida, the waitress at the Wayside, with whom he flirts and has impure thoughts, often prompting his hands to do unspeakable things to himself. Then he thought it might be all the dance students he strung along with false praise and expectations just to continue collecting tuition fees from them. But it was probably because he was a DEI hire.
Long ago, when he first secured his position at Rosalita’s, it had come down to him and a gentleman named Ramone. Ramone had this suave Ricky Ricardo thing going and was a great dancer, but somehow, Kurchacha had gotten the job. That was the problem, the Ricky Ricardo thing—Ramone was Cuban, and Kurchacha was white—the only white staff member who had ever worked at Roaslita’s.
On Monday, when he got stuck with The Revelator again, Kurchacha cut him off before he could tell the story of his wife’s infidelity with Big Eddie and instead told him how he had beat out Ramone for his job was a DEI hire. The Revelator was surprised at Kurchacha’s admission. He paused briefly, rubbed his chin, and asked if gout was a thing with dance instructors. Then, thoughtfully, he said gout wasn’t a thing in his wife’s infidelity with that thick, strapping guy, Big Eddie.
