Swamp Rabbit had passed out next to the frog pond and it took me a few minutes to wake him. “Stop celebrating, Election Day’s been over for two weeks.”

He stood up and looked at the denuded trees and the vast piles of leaves on the footpath that leads to his shack. “What month is this? Is Trump still kicked out of the White House, or was I dreaming? I need a drink.”

“That’s the last thing you need. Trump is supposed to move out in January but he hasn’t conceded. He’d like to overturn the results of the election. I hate to be a drag, but the country is still a mess.”

“I can handle it,” he said, raising his fists. “The bottom line is the orange hog monster lost.”

I told Swamp Rabbit not so fast, he must submit to a reality check, it would be hazardous to his health if he jumped back into the real world harboring a bunch of delusions.

“Just answer true or false,” I said. “The Republicans in Congress have acknowledged that Joe Biden won the election and they’re urging Trump to acknowledge it, too.”

“True,” he replied. “Biden got about five million more than Trump. Last time I looked he had the Electoral College vote, too. Facts are facts, right?”

I shook my head. “The answer is ‘false,’ rabbit. Republicans know Biden won but they’re still going along with Trump because they want to make the country think the election was rigged.”

“Damn,” he said. “I remember saying you were an idiot for thinking the Dems were gonna flip the Senate, but I didn’t figure them Republicans would pretend Trump won.”

I continued with the reality check. True or false on these statements: 1) Now that the election is over, Trump and his henchmen have stopped denying that masks and social distancing are effective tools against the spread of covid-19. 2) With only two months left in office, Trump has instructed senior government officials to help with the transfer of power to Biden’s team. 3) With so many people sick or out of work, Trump and McConnell’s gang are finally ready to agree to a reasonable stimulus package.

Swamp Rabbit answered “true” to each statement, and I told him he had flunked the reality check with a perfect zero. “You’re still drunk on the notion that electoral defeat will shame Trump and his party into doing the right thing,” I said. “I think they’d rather stage a slow-motion coup.”

He picked up a beer can and tried to drink from it, but it was empty. “So what’ll we do now? We were looking forward to a new era. We were gearing up for a smooth transition.”

“Come down off Cloud Nine,” I suggested. “Get reacquainted with reality. Sober up.”

“The hell with that,” he said. “I stashed an emergency jug of Wild Turkey in the crawl space under my shack. If what you just told me is reality, I’m gonna drink it and go back to sleep.”