“Hillary was going let 650 million refugees in,” sneers Orville, “and how many were going to get palmed off on Fargo? No more tho …”

“Whoa, Edmund Hillary is doing this?” wonders Stan. “I knew he wasn’t really dead. Ed sends me wonderful postcards. He’ll be surprised when he lays eyes on the Red River Valley, though. Everybody has scaled the valley. A Sherpa got confused by the lack of incline once. Tipped right over. Luckily, he had plenty of oxygen in his tank.”

“What?” spits Orville. “Not Edmund, you libkook! Hillary Clin…”

“It’s SIR Edmund to you, Orv. Maybe he’s putting them all in Wyoming. Does anyone live there, yet?”

“Hillary Hussein Clinton! You know who I’m talking about. Crooked Hillary, and she isn’t doing anything, now. Typical. A commie trying to change the subject because you can’t debate the merits.”

“What is it we’re debating on, Snoreville? Sherpa’s? They’re real. A little overdressed, maybe.”

“REFUGEE’S, youlib+@*#! Probably from Syria.”

“I don’t think there are 650 million Syrians anywhere, dude. Who else is on the list? Australians are pretty cool, except for the wankers.”

“These people refuse to assimilate,” screeches Orville, “so the big T is going to put an end…”

“Assimilate to what?”

“To our culture,” screams Orville. “Our culture, you dense socialist old bat.”

“Culture?” ponders Stan. “We have one of those? Maybe I forgot to assimilate when I younger. Either way, I have no interest in assimilating to your culture. Thanks anyway, if you were offering, or insisting, or having one of your fits, I’m fine.”

“Are you a dope, or something?”

“It’s been rumored.”

“Of course we have a culture; the American culture, and those people don’t want to assimilate.”

“They don’t, huh. Where’s the problem area? Do some of them refugees refuse to catch crocs with rancid chicken parts? Not those stupid rubber shoes; the reptilian critters. Gators, I think a dude could call them, without causing a big incident. Brighter people go into other lines of work, I think.”

“Catching crocodiles isn’t a part of our culture, you, you, you, Stan!”

“It is in Louisiana, you, you, you, Orville. They claim to be a state, and say gators are a part of their culture, and I have no reason to doubt their sincerity. You can argue about it with one of those leathery dudes if you want. I think they smoke Copperheads like cigars and drink their venom as an aperitif before a restful dinner in the creepy crawly swamp. The American culture is loosely structured, it seems.”

“That’s not what I mean, comrade Stanley. I’m talking about the average …”

“The War of 1812 was big deal to the gator people of Louisiana, I’ll tell you. If email had been a thing at the time, the whole ruckus of the Battle of New Orleans could have been avoided. But Andrew Jackson was a Twitter man. Damn near drove Madison nuts. He was tightly wrapped, as it was.”

“Knock it off, St …”

“1815, it was, and Jackson, and his crew, a collection of outdoor enthusiasts, ex-slaves, militia (well-regulated) fighters, Indigenous people and pirates (less regulated) took on the British. I don’t know if any of them were properly assimilated or groomed, but they were mean SOBs.”

“I don’t mean 1800s culture, you smart ass, Stan. They could at least learn our language.”

“How many refugee’s have you talked to, Orv?”

“Well, none, but that’s not the …”

“So, what do you care? And I think the learning is churning. How would you know, anyway?”

“Pop Corn” explains Orville. “He was was making a big fuss. All of his chins were taut with rage.”

“Pop? Who is that? Your Granddad? He must be 112. What’s his real first name? It better not be Caramel. Say, have you ever run across one of those folks from Bhutan? Less than 6 percent of their kids are overweight, you know. It could really help our average to get some these thin youngsters in the school system. Somebody important at the FBDKQ might think our kids are exercising, eating kale salads or running from gully cats to stay fit.”

“What are you going on about now, you loony liberal idiot? Corn is ticked because we don’t have any say about who moves to Fargo.”

“Did we ever? Bill Gates moved a giga-bunch of upscale khaki-wearing cyber-nerds to Fargo, and I didn’t hear anyone bitching, except a few programmers from Mumbai, like it’s our fault if someone freezes solid on the tarmac. Layers, we told them. And there are a ton more drug dealers and prostitutes living in North Dakota than before, too. Were they sent engraved invitations or extreme vetted? Nein.”

“That’s different,” objects Orv. “He’s talking about the …”

“About 20 yards from my back door, there’s an empty field, which is weird, because you can’t leave anything dirt related unattended around these parts, without somebody planting sugar beets on it ten minutes later.”

“Anyway,” shrieks Orv. “As long as you going off on …”

“Anyway what?”

“The empty field. The field, you demented old fool. For crissakes.”

“Oh, anyway, I had been watching various people collecting what I assumed were weeds, stuffing bags full of the stuff, and I’m pretty sure they were Bhutanese. Sometimes, old men would stroll along, and their garb is quite distinctive. So is mine, but bigger. They wear those Shriner hats … the old guys do, sometimes. So, one day, I walk out there and ask what’s going on. I should have thought of just asking weeks earlier. It would have been a big time saver. Sometimes, just wondering can be entertaining, though. You know what they were picking, Orv?”

“No Stanley, I don’t.” Sheesh”

“Mustard leaves, the younger woman told me. The older lady was pointing out the good ones, or steering the young people away from plants that would stop your heart instantly. That’s what surmised.”

“Good surmising, you brain-dead leftist.”

“Thanks, but the inquisition wasn’t over. I asked what their intentions were regarding the mustard, and it turns out that they had every intention, against my advise, to cook the leaves, and then eat them. I looked it up on the Google, and mustard greens have been on the menu in the Himalayas for 5,000 years. There are like a million recipes.”

“I wouldn’t eat mustard leaves,” sneered Orville. “Even if a scrap was hidden under my sirloin.”

“Neither would I, but what do I care? Nobody is making me. Sauerkraut and yams don’t make the cut, either. They figured out the lay of the land, just like people always have. What do you care?”

“I don’t care.”

“And there you have it” declares Stan. “And 650 million people weren’t coming over here. You could put lawn chairs on all of our aircraft carriers and it would still take a hundred years.”

Orv snorts, “So?”

“So, you’re a gullible paranoid idiot, Orv, and people will assimilate any way they want, just like I did, when I was born in the city of the Norsk Hostfest, hotdish, and polka and in the monochromatic land of the 15-minute sunburn and 5-minute hypothermia.” Stan extends the middle finger of his right hand. “Do you know what this means, Orvy?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Exactly. It means assimilate this, you shaved ape.”