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Elmo Hate

Elmo is confused. Dr. Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist known for his strong opinions on culture and responsibility, seems to have a grudge against him.

Elmo scratches his fuzzy red head. “Elmo just a little monster who loves everybody! Why Dr. Peterson so mad?”

Peterson adjusts his glasses and leans forward. “Listen, Elmo. You represent the infantilization of society. You’re a product of a culture that refuses to grow up. You’re all about feelings and giggles, but what about responsibility? What about order? You’re the manifestation of chaos, Elmo!”

Elmo blinks. “Elmo just wanted to share love and kindness.”

Peterson shakes his head. “It’s more than that, Elmo. You’re teaching kids that life is all sunshine and tickles. But life is suffering! Life is about standing up straight with your shoulders back!”

Elmo frowns. “But Mr. Peterson, Elmo teaches sharing and caring! That’s important too, right?”

Peterson sighs. “Sure, but there’s a balance. You can’t just giggle your way through the dominance hierarchy. At some point, you have to grow up, take responsibility, and clean your room.”

Elmo looks down, deep in thought. Then, his eyes light up. “Elmo gonna go clean his room right now!”

Peterson nods approvingly. “Good. That’s a start.”

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The Suck

Elmo sits in a dimly lit VFW hall, nursing a cheap beer, his red fur matted and faded from years of desert dust and regret. He looks into the camera with those big googly eyes, but there’s no childlike wonder left in them. Just exhaustion.

“Elmo thought he was doing the right thing,” he says, his voice a little rougher now. “Elmo left Sesame Street to fight for freedom, but all Elmo found was The Suck.”

He shakes his head. “The chaplain kept saying, ‘This is the fall of Babylon, boys. We are fulfilling prophecy!’ But Elmo didn’t know what that meant. Elmo didn’t read Revelation 18. Elmo was just a dumb jarhead with an M16, marching through the sands, sweating bullets—literally and figuratively.”

Elmo stares at his drink. “Elmo didn’t know about the Bush Family. Elmo didn’t know about the New World Order. Elmo thought we were stopping the bad guys. But now Elmo knows…” He looks up, voice lowering. “The bad guys were the ones giving us orders.”

A long pause.

“Elmo should have stayed on Sesame Street.”

He finishes his beer.

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Battle of Khe Sanh

Oscar sat in his trash can, the only home he had ever known, but his mind was far from Sesame Street. It was back in the jungles of Vietnam, back at Khe Sanh, where the air was thick with smoke and the cries of the wounded never stopped echoing in his head.

He had enlisted young, believing he was fighting for something bigger than himself. But what he saw in the war changed him. He had lost friends. He had lost parts of himself. And when he returned, Veterans Affairs had nothing left to give him but miracle drugs. They were called miracle drugs because it’s a miracle if you survive.

The nightmares never stopped. The ground in front of Hooper’s Store would turn into a battlefield at night. The garbage truck rumbling down Sesame Street sounded just like a helicopter, the rotor blades slicing through the air as they rushed a wounded soldier to safety—only some never made it.

Big Bird tried to cheer him up, but how could he explain war to someone so innocent? Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, even Elmo—they all meant well, but they could never understand. How could they?

So he stayed in his trash can. It was safer there. It kept the world out. The only problem was, it kept the war in.

One day, a new face appeared on Sesame Street. A young vet, barely in his thirties, fresh from another war, another place, another time. He recognized that haunted look in Oscar’s eyes.

“You served?” the man asked.

Oscar didn’t answer right away. He just grumbled, like he always did. But then, for the first time in years, he muttered, “Yeah.”

The man nodded. “I get it.”

And for the first time in a long time, Oscar didn’t feel so alone.