Depending on how you view him, Sen. John McCain was either a maverick of the right who was willing to cross party lines to stand up for what he believed or he was the Arizona senator who voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday.
But no matter what you think of McCain, I think we can all agree that even in death, John McCain is petty as fuck.
On his deathbed, the man literally planned out his funeral and made a list of people who he didn’t want at his homegoing services. Not a guest list, but a list of people who couldn’t come. According to reports, McCain wanted to make sure that President Trump and former running mate Sarah Palin weren’t invited to his funeral.
“Invitations were not extended” to Palin or Trump, Carla Eudy, a fundraiser whose been friends with the McCain family for decades, told People.
Wait a minute, are invitations to a funeral a thing? Here’s how funerals invites work in the black community:
Me on my way into the liquor store when I see a dude I know from middle school.
Him: Man you know Teddy Ferguson died?!
Me: Get Out! Teddy Ferguson?! Was it the sugars or the gout?
Him: Nah man, that nigga got hit by a bus!
Me: Public or Private?
Him: The funeral?
Me: Nah nigga, the bus. Was it a metro bus or a Greyhound?
Him: Not sure. The funeral is Thursday. Stay up.
I’ve never received a funeral invitation in my life and I lived in Washington, D.C., during the drug wars of the ’80s. This feels like ordering “off-menu;” autoerotic asphyxiation; asserting your constitutional rights to a police officer or any one of the secret white things no one told me about. It feels like the time when I was 24 and I learned that, every morning, white people eat a chocolatey spread that like taste like dreams and still having money in your account after you’ve paid rent.
Yes, invitation-only funerals are exactly like Nutella.
Do you know how petty you have to be to be dying from cancer, to put together a list of people who better not be at your funeral? This is a level of petty most of us will never experience. I know that there is an actual list and hope that it is being archived for the Petty Hall of Fame next to the video of Aretha shading the fuck out of Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama’s side-eye and Pusha-T’s Drake diss. I bet McCain’s list was written with a fat crayon on that beige landscape mode paper with the dotted lines and titled: “People Who Can’t Come to My Funeral.”
And how do you keep someone out of a funeral? Is there a list at the door? Wristbands? A big nigga named Jamaal in sunglasses and a black suit? Is Obama in the VIP section? Can you bring a plus-one? Can Democrats get in free before 11?
Also how petty is it to invite the Vice President to your funeral but not the President? I will always be conflicted about McCain’s legacy but I have to admit that this level of posthumous petty has really moved him up a notch in my book. Sending a funeral invitation to the VP and not the president is like sending a wedding invitation to one spouse in a married couple. You know Trump and Pence are arguing about this in the Oval Office.
Trump: Bitch, you bettanot!
Pence: Yes, Grand Wizard.
I like this John McCain better than all the previous John McCains. My favorite John McCain is the thumbs-down-Obamacare-repeal John McCain just because of the sheer diva quality of it. If not for his bad arm, I am sure he would have cabbage-patched after he cast that deciding vote.
But this last move, this final fuck you to the worst administration to ever administrate is a close second. And, I’m here for it.
Rest in Paradise John McCain. When you reach the land of milk and Nutella, tell my nigga, Teddy Ferguson, I miss him so much I refuse to ride the bus.
Stay up.