I came home to find Buck in the living room. He was standing on his hind legs, his front hooves in the upper branches of the Christmas tree.
He might have been eating the gingerbread ornaments.
Or, knowing Buck, he might have been peeking up the angel's dress.
I threw my jacket on the couch, and sighed: "Lost your way, Rudolph? Make yourself at ho-ho-home."
Startled, Buck turned and froze, gave me that deer in the headlights look.
Guilty as sin. The angel dress. Deer are pigs.
"I didn't expect you back so early," he said.
Golden tinsel hung from his antlers.
"I didn't expect you at all," I said.
"I thought you were going out with Bullwinkle."
The light caught the tinsel as he solemnly shook his head. "I can't hang out with Bullwinkle no more."
"Why not?"
"He's a Mooslim."
"Pardon?"
"Donald says we never should have let him into the country. At the very least we should make him wear a special tag. He's probably a terrorist."
I paused: "You know moose are an indigenous species, right?"
Buck continued as though he hadn't heard. "I should probably shoot him, just to be on the safe side. Donald says so."
I paused again: "Donald shows signs of being riddled with syphilis."
Buck pointed an accusing hoof: "Donald said you would say that. It's because you're part of the lamestream media conspiracy to bury the truth."
Damn, how did he know? We meet at the pub every Thursday to co-ordinate the conspiracy, except Mansbridge always gets drunk and wants to arm wrestle Sophie Lui, and that weasel Conrad Black disappears whenever it's his turn to pay for the nachos.
"Fortunately," sniffed Buck, "the real news is online at misunderstoodhitler.org. It has quite the following."
I'm sure it does, and that's what's frightening. That is, Donald Trump is just another wealthy political crackpot, his tinfoil hat going nicely with the silver spoon in his mouth.
The scary part is that people are listening to him.
Did you hear the South Carolina crowd applaud when he announced his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.? (Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi had a nice reply on Twitter: "No one tell my mum and sister they have to cancel their Hawaii vacation.")
More to the point, did you see Trump's poll numbers spike last week?
Good lord, this is a guy who casually smears Mexicans and Muslims, mocks disabled people and - displaying all the techno-savvy of a man whose VCR still flashes 12:00 - thinks Bill Gates has the power to "close up that Internet in some way."
Before we Canadians get too smug about Americans' support for a well-heeled buffoon, we should remember our own track record.
Take Rob Ford. Please.
What's embarrassing isn't just that Ford made us a laughing stock on the world stage, but that Torontonians re-elected him.
He was forced to admit that he had lied to them about smoking crack with gangstas (which, call me old-fashioned, used to be seen as a bit of a black mark) and they voted him back on city council anyway.
Such is the power of a populist politician who tells people what they want to hear: that others - elites/Muslims/Mexicans/Jews/whites/whoever - are a threat to their security or are responsible for their lousy lot in life.
Fear-based, mean-spirited, divisive, dumbed-down rhetoric sells well, particularly when echoing around social media on sites where so much "fact" goes unverified and unchallenged.
Trump (not to mention ISIS) isn't the only one to have discovered this.
"It's like online commenters are running for president," Calgary's Nenshi told CBC News last week.
Yes, it is. Most sane people long ago abandoned online commentary to what was assumed to be a tiny minority of embittered, vicious, venom-spewing trolls. (After Canucks defenceman Dan Hamhuis was badly injured by a slapshot to the face this week, here's what was appended to the CBC.ca story: "Ha Ha, too funny. He deserved it" and "That's what he gets for coughing up the puck.")
Now imagine those people hijacking the political conversation in the most powerful country on Earth.
And imagine being a Mooslim in the crosshairs.
